War is Trump’s answer to the affordability crisis

Polygraph | Newsletter n°331 | 9 Jan 2026

IN THIS NEWSLETTER: Trump is using war to divert the public’s attention away from his inability to govern. Here are three reasons why.

*Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Rep. Chris Deluzio (D-PA) cited Polygraph in a recent letter to the Treasury Secretary on military contractor stock buybacks. You can help Polygraph appear in more footnotes by becoming a paid subscriber, like Dharna N. just did (thank you, Dharna!)

*Latest newsletter for VIPs: Trump’s war for oil has bipartisan backing: Last month’s bipartisan passage of the $901 billion military bill gave Trump tacit approval to attack Venezuela.

Situation

Last weekend, Trump bombed Venezuela, kidnapped its president, and threatened Cuba, Colombia, Greenland, Mexico, Venezuela (really the whole Western Hemisphere), and Iran with military force. This week, Trump said he’s going to propose a $1.5 trillion military budget next year, as Congress prepares spending bills that would give him $1 trillion this year.

The warning signs have always been there with Trump. We’re now seeing the beginning of what those signs were warning against. War is no longer just part of Trump’s political agenda; war is his political agenda. It’s a one-size-fits-all solution to all of Trump’s problems. Or so he hopes.

War is Trump’s answer to the affordability crisis

Foreign policy starts at home. For Trump, home is where his biggest political problem lies. The Epstein investigation looms large, but even that isn’t as massive a political liability as the affordability crisis, a major factor in his historically bad approval ratings. He’s desperate for a distraction.

I’m not about to argue that there’s one issue solely responsible for Trump going all-in on neoconservative aggression. There are many relevant factors, evidenced by Trump transparently fighting a war for oil companies in Venezuela, the performative aspect of his broader foreign policy, and the longstanding status of the United States as an imperial power. (I use “imperial” descriptively here, not pejoratively.¹) Rather, my argument is that wars abroad can distract from problems at home, that this function is Trump’s intent, and that it’s a key part of the administration’s strategy. We’re witnessing a violent, cynical act of political self-preservation.

Trump is using war to divert the public’s attention away from his inability to govern. Here are three reasons why.

1. Trump has failed to address voters’ top concern

Affordability — the trendy term for economic security, referring to one’s ability to reliably make ends meet — is deteriorating in the United States, and has been since roughly early 2022.² It’s been voters’ top concern for about as long. In July 2022, YouGov added “inflation/prices” as an option in its near-weekly survey on what issue Americans say is the most important. This analog for affordability immediately became the most popular selection. Analyzing the polling data, I reported last month that US voters had ranked affordability as their top concern for 41 months straight. It’s now been 42 consecutive months.³

If voters had no longer had a problem affording increasingly high costs, they wouldn’t still rank it as their top concern. But since they do, they do. The polling data’s message is that Trump has failed to fix the issue most responsible for his 2024 election victory, and one he campaigned heavily on. Pervasive insecurity at the human level — including economic insecurity and food insecurity, particularly among the working class — was once Joe Biden and Kamala Harris’s greatest political liability. Now Trump owns it.

2. Trump has no plan to fix the affordability crisis

Trump has no credible solution to the affordability crisis, a fact the administration tacitly admits from time to time. For example, the latest annual report on food insecurity from the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) was quietly released last week, covering 2024. (It was supposed to be published in October, but delayed due to the government shutdown and presumably the 18,000 layoffs at the USDA.) The study found that 48 million Americans live in food insecure households, or 14.4% of the population — a 32.1% increase over 2019. Food insecurity is the highest it’s been in over a decade.⁴

The Trump administration is so confident they’ll be able to fix the rising hunger problem that they not only canceled the next annual food security report, but every one thereafter, claiming that they (the reports) “do nothing more than fear monger.” Unless Congress intervenes, the USDA will not provide a study later this year revealing the effects of further fraying the social safety net during an affordability crisis. Convenient, considering the Big Beautiful Bill’s sizable social welfare cuts, particularly to SNAP (formerly, Food Stamps).

^Alt text for screen readers: Food insecurity has grown by nearly a third since 2019. Americans living in food insecure households, %: 2019, 10.9%; 2020, 11.8%; 2021, 10.4%; 2022, 13.5%; 2023, 14.3%; 2024, 14.4%. Data: United States Department of Agriculture, December 2025.

3. Trump is making the affordability crisis worse

On January 1, enhanced Affordable Care Act (ACA) Marketplace subsidies expired, thereby doubling monthly health insurance premiums for roughly 20 million people. Two days later, Trump launched his attack on Venezuela.

The type, timing, and sequence of these events so perfectly exemplify my argument (that Trump is using war to divert the public’s attention away from his inability to govern) that I feel like they almost undermine it. Last week’s lapse in welfare followed by a dramatic escalation in warfare is a parody-level illustration of my point. After all, I’m not implying direct causality, but in that particular case, the Trump administration seems to be.

However, that exaggeration is closer to the truth than naïvely arguing that the affordability crisis has no bearing whatsoever on Trump’s escalation in Venezuela and seemingly everywhere else. That would be like saying it’s purely a coincidence that the one pandemic-era policy Democrats managed to keep alive all this time (at least until a few days ago) — after promising to make many of them permanent — is the one that sends tens of billions of dollars each year to health insurance companies.⁵

The lapse of the ACA Marketplace subsidies marks the official end of the pandemic welfare state, illustrated below. Notice how relief policies overlap in 2021? Now look at 2021 in the food security graph above — welfare expansion in 2021 produced a record drop in hunger, despite the economic recession. The US also shrunk its military budget and ended a forever war in 2021.⁶

^Alt text for screen readers: The rise and fall of the U.S. pandemic welfare state. A sample of pandemic-era relief, 2020 to 2025. This range chart plots the start of pandemic relief policies in green and their end in gray. Foreclosure ban, March 1, 2020 to July 31, 2021; eviction ban, September 1, 2020 to August 26, 2021; additional unemployment coverage, March 27, 2020 to September 4, 2021; extended unemployment benefits, March 27, 2020 to September 4, 2021; child tax credit expansion, March 11, 2021 to December 31, 2021; earned income tax credit expansion, March 11, 2021 to December 31, 2021; universal free school meals, March 18, 2020 to June 30, 2022; extra SNAP benefits, March 18, 2020 to February 28, 2023; uninterrupted Medicaid coverage, March 18, 2020 to March 31, 2023; Women, Infants and Children Nutrition Program increase, June 1, 2021 to September 30, 2023; child care stabilization grants, April 15, 2021 to September 30, 2023; student loan pause, March 13, 2020 to September 30, 2023; emergency rental assistance, December 27, 2020 to September 30, 2025; Affordable Care Act Marketplace enhanced subsidies, March 11, 2021 to December 31, 2025. Source: Author analysis (Stephen Semler).

SPECIAL THANKS TO: Abe B., Alan F., Alissa Q., Amin, Andrew R., AT., B. Kelly, Bart B., BeepBoop, Ben, Ben C.,* Bill S., Bob N., Brett S., Byron D., Carol V., Chris, Chris G., Cole H., Coleman J., D. Kepler, Daniel M., Dave, David J., David S.,* David V.,* David M., Dharna N., Elizabeth R., Emily H.,* Errol S., Foundart, Francis M., Frank R., Fred R., Gary W., Gladwyn S., Graham P., Griffin R., Hunter S., IBL, Irene B., Isaac, Isaac L., Jacob, James G., James H., James N., Jamie LR., Jcowens, Jeff, Jennifer, Jennifer J., Jessica S., Jerry S., Joe R., John, John, John A., John K., John M., Jonathan S., Joseph B., Joshua R., Julia G., Julian L., Katrina H., Keith B., Kheng L., Lea S., Leah A., Leila CL., Lenore B., Linda B., Linda H., Lindsay, Lindsay S.,* Lora L., Mapraputa, Marie R., Mark L., Mark G., Marvin B., Mary Z., Marty, Matthew H.,* Megan., Melanie B., Michael S., Mitchell P., Nick B., Noah K., Norbert H., Omar A., Omar D.,* Peter M., Phil, Philip L., Ron C., Rosemary K., Sari G., Scarlet, Scott H., Silversurfer, Soh, Springseep, Stan C., TBE, Teddie G., Theresa A., Themadking, Tim C., Timbuk T., Tony L., Tony T., Tyler M., Victor S., Wayne H., William H.,* William P.

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-Stephen (Follow me on Instagram, Twitter, and Bluesky)

1. I also mean it pejoratively.

2. Longtime Polygraph readers know that I have refused to shut up about the economic and food security crises.

3. In the most recent poll (Jan 5), 26% ranked it as the most important issue, more than twice that of the second most popular selection, jobs and the economy, at 11%, followed by health care and immigration, both at 10%.

4. In 2014, still reeling from the Great Recession, 15.4% of Americans (48 million) lived in food insecure households. The pre-Great Recession average (2001–07) was 12.4%. USDA data in the December 2025 report only goes back to 2001.

5. The pandemic-era program that lasted the second-longest — emergency rental assistance — sent tens of billions of dollars to landlords (snark aside, here are two studies on the ERA and a fact sheet.) Regarding the ACA Marketplace subsidies, it would cost an estimated $35 billion annually on average to make them permanent ($391,054 million divided by 10 years.)

6. Coincidence?