You cannot let a generation be taught to distrust free markets, then scold them for struggling with prices. If conservatives want to beat socialism, they have to make their better ideas feel like a future worth choosing.
This article is a lightly-edited transcript of the “Here’s the Point” podcast by Ryan Helfenbein, executive director of the Standing for Freedom Center.
Controversy erupted this week on X, all starting with a post about the outrage of the high cost of the $20 burrito. Now before you question who is actually spending that much on a burrito, don’t miss the message or its impact on the imagination of millions of Americans.
Many believe and already know by experience that there is an affordability crisis: 1 in 4 Americans are completely defaulted on credit cards; the average age of the first-time home buyer is over the age of 40; and most 20- and 30-somethings cannot afford a starter home on a single income. The price of milk, eggs, and gas have stayed relatively high since Biden’s lockdown of the economy and has not lessened in the first year and half of Trump.
This is nothing new as it has become the normal burden of average everyday Americans who see it, experience it, and it has left them with a less than hopeful or optimistic view of their future.
During COVID, we furloughed millions of American workers, shut down supply lines, and printed trillions of dollars to keep the economy running. The S&P 500 quickly recovered, and shareholders saw immediate gains in market value because cash was cheap. But we didn’t grow the economy at all — only the money supply. There are too many dollars chasing too few goods, and income has not at all kept pace with this growth in inflation.
Add to that affordability crisis the influx of mass illegal immigration, something that was a design feature of the political left and a completely diabolical scheme to repopulate dying blue states with an influx of new population — turning Michigan, Minnesota, California and even parts of Texas and Florida into international communities of non-assimilating third-world invaders who need housing, schooling, food stamps, medical services, and a number of other public goods that have come at the expense of American sovereignty and the American tax-paying middle class.
The affordability gap is a direct result of left-wing policies, and yet the leftists who grew up in socialist public schools lack the fundamental education to make sense of it all. That too is a crisis, but it doesn’t get solved in a simple lesson about Keynesian economics, or a savings plan that gives up 30 years of soy lattes in order to afford a home. It doesn’t get solved by dunking on Zoomers as a performative virtue signal to “get off my lawn” Boomers.
A little-known lesson came from the fateful 2012 election where both Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan were supposed to be the Republican answer to “Hope and Change” Obama. Obama wanted to fundamentally transform America. He did with the TARP bailout, the passage of Obamacare, and the transformation of deep state institutions that began targeting “normie” Americans instead of the terrorists they were built to track down and eliminate.
Regardless, the Romney/Ryan ticket was supposed to be the promotion of low taxes, limited government, fiscal responsibility, American free enterprise, Tea Party grievances, and American exceptionalism.
And it failed miserably.
Romney stumping in pleated khakis and Oxford shirts bought at Costco didn’t sell the American middle class nor inspire voters to turn out to save America from Obama’s project to socialize the country. Romney was platitudinal and not practical. All theory with no living application for how anyone’s lives would suddenly improve.
If you think that playbook is dead, think again. It’s happening right now, even on social media. There are Republicans who want to play the role of professor and philosopher who will never win the hearts or the minds of the grievance class.
There are, however, the conservative thinkers who have absolutely learned the lesson of the Trump era and have adapted their message to resonate with a largely uneducated, unsophisticated, and unrefined populace. This is the new normal. People don’t make voting decisions based on thinking but feeling. Elections are moved based on raw emotion; people will vote based on their greatest need. If they can’t pay for gas, they will blame whoever is in office — even if they’re not the direct cause.
People will also vote for the politicians with the best message. That actually happened in 2024, and it will happen again in 2026. Messaging is what wins, and sadly it’s not always the truth. But there are those Republicans who believe that it is the perfect time and the perfect cycle to begin teaching and giving lectures on the cause of affordability that only lays greater blame on the people suffering the most, rather than directing their grievance to something constructive and an area for immediate action.
Romney literally lost the 2012 election after a leaked video from Mother Jones that went public, where Romney said that 47 percent will vote for Obama no matter what, saying this: “They’re dependent on the government. They believe they’re victims and the government has a responsibility to care for them, entitled to healthcare, food, housing, you name it… they pay no income tax… and so my job is not to worry about those people, I’ll never convince them they should take personal responsibility…”
Romney lost the election in a landslide.
There are conservative thinkers who believe the goal should be to dunk on an entire population of people who were educated to think likes socialists. They’ve never taken the time to reach them but think the election cycle is the best time to say, “Grow up. Take responsibility. Try harder. Move out of the basement. Maybe if you didn’t Door Dash, you could afford a home.”
This is not a strategy. This is recipe for another Romney-style defeat and a tsunami of socialist activism that will leave us without a country.
We have to take the grievance and gripe seriously, channel that energy towards something meaningful, and give people hope that better ideas will work.
Step 1 is the recognition that much of the affordability crisis can be attributed to Anthony Fauci’s direct lies and abuse of power and to Joe Biden and Kamala Harris’s insistence that our economy be shut down.
Step 2 is the recognition that there are millions of illegal immigrants who are bankrupting government and our country with programs they did not pay into them. Those two factors alone have a direct impact on affordability.
It is often said that facts don’t care about your feelings, but feelings do matter. And right now, feelings are fueling this election cycle. If you weren’t around to teach this generation of political illiterates about the market economy, what makes you think you can start teaching them now? That is not a cynical view of reality, but a practical one.
If conservatives have any chance of winning the public case on socialism, they had better clue in fast because time is not on our side.
Sometimes the smallest things reveal the biggest story. If this article helped you see what a $20 burrito can reveal about the pressures reshaping American life, help us keep shining a light on the ideas behind the headlines. Your gift equips the Standing for Freedom Center to bring biblical clarity, courage, and hope to the conversations shaping our culture. Consider making a gift here.
