As the midterm elections approach, many Americans remain fixated on “affordability,” despite President Donald Trump’s dismissal in a Dec. 9 speech of such concerns as a “hoax” concocted by Democrats.
This moment invites two broader questions: How thoroughly do economic issues dominate American political discourse? And how easily does that dominance distract from other urgent national problems?
Scholars of rhetoric have long argued that economics functions not merely as a set of policies or outcomes, but as a powerful persuasive appeal — one that directs public attention and legitimates political action. While economic well-being is undeniably important and deeply entangled with other social and political concerns, critics have warned against allowing economic logic to become the governing framework for public debate.
When every issue is reduced to economics alone, profits are easily prioritized over human needs, and ethical constraints on economic reasoning quietly erode. Economic well-being risks becoming an end in itself rather than a means to human flourishing. As the conservative economist Thomas Sowell observed in “Knowledge and Decisions,” economics is not “a value itself but merely a method of trading off one value against another.”
The rhetorical critic Kenneth Burke believed that the authority of economic rhetoric could — and must — be challenged through what he called redefinition. In political discourse, Burke argued, counter-rhetoric is necessary: rhetoric that shifts attention away from narrow, transactional understandings of economics and redefines it as subordinate to broader human values. Burke recognized that those who are economically secure often mistake their experience for a universal one and conclude, incorrectly, that no other social or political problems deserve sustained attention.
Philosopher Peter Singer makes a similar point in moral terms, arguing that affluent Americans have a strong obligation not merely to acknowledge but also to meaningfully assist people living in absolute poverty. Even Adam Smith, often invoked as a patron saint of market logic, warned that no society can rightly be called prosperous if it impoverishes its inhabitants.
This critique remains urgently relevant today. The economic growth of nations such as China and Russia — however their leaders choose to measure it — cannot justify the systematic violation of human rights. Economic performance alone is an insufficient moral defense.
The same logic applies at home. Americans should no more have allowed their personal economic comfort or discomfort to excuse President Joe Biden’s failed immigration policies or controversial student loan initiatives than they should now permit economic considerations to overshadow Trump’s increasingly troubling actions: violent immigration raids, the kidnapping of a foreign leader, and his threats to seize Greenland, to invoke the Insurrection Act, to “nationalize” elections and to prosecute political opponents. In each case, economic performance risks becoming a rhetorical shield — one that deflects scrutiny from actions that undermine democratic norms and constitutional principles.
For Democrats, this presents a central strategic challenge in the coming election cycle. Aside from Trump’s questionable claims about the effects of his tariffs and tax cuts, Republican rhetoric has increasingly emphasized security and crime. This may tempt Democrats to double down on affordability as their primary message.
That temptation should be resisted. While economic concerns matter deeply to voters, campaign rhetoric focused exclusively on affordability would be a mistake. Whatever the objectively measurable state of the U.S. economy in the months ahead, Democrats must ground their arguments in a compelling ethical framework — one that allows them to advocate for their economic proposals while also demonstrating how the opposing party’s broader agenda harms everyday Americans and, more fundamentally, threatens the United States as a free and democratic nation.
Without such a framework, Democrats risk treating economics as a value unto itself rather than what it should be: a tool for advancing human dignity, democratic life and the common good.
Kenneth Zagacki is a professor of communication at North Carolina State University. Richard Cherwitz is a professor emeritus in the Moody College of Communication at the University of Texas at Austin.
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