It seems like an understatement to call this the New Gilded Age. Perhaps we should instead call it the Obscenely Over-the-Top Gilded Age, considering that Tesla shareholders just approved a $1tn pay package for Elon Musk and the market value of chipmaker Nvidia has rocketed above $5tn.

Not only that, the 10 richest billionaires in the US saw their collective wealth soar by $698bn over the past year, while Google’s former CEO, Eric Schmidt, reportedly paid $110m for a 123-room mansion in Los Angeles to host events. And then there’s our billionaire president, who – when his family isn’t raking in tens of millions of dollars through crypto – is obsessed with building a $300m, gilded-to-the-hilt ballroom, funded by fellow billionaires.

While it no doubt feels like a golden age for Trump and the super-rich, it doesn’t feel that way for 42 million Americans who receive Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (Snap) food benefits. They just suffered through an alarming 10 days, with many saying they didn’t have enough money to feed their families because the Trump administration moved to halt Snap benefits for millions of Americans on 1 November.

Trump told them in essence: Sorry, we don’t have the money to pay those benefits right now. That claim seems far-fetched considering that it costs the government $8bn a month to provide Snap benefits, while Trump had no problem finding $1.5tn to pay for big tax cuts for America’s billionaires and millionaires in his One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which was beautiful for billionaires and millionaires, but not so much for everyone else.

That this is a fabulous time for the wealthy and not so fabulous for most other Americans helps explain why Trump and the Republicans took a shellacking in this month’s elections. For millions of voters, one of the biggest concerns was affordability, the struggle that many face paying for housing, groceries and childcare. The New York City mayor-elect, Zohran Mamdani, made that his number one campaign issue, and his charismatic campaign helped make it a national issue – an issue that worked against Republicans because they control the White House and Congress.

Voters also turned against Trump because he has failed to make good on one of his main campaign promises: to lower prices on day one. As president, Trump has hardly focused on reducing prices, while he’s focused largely on imposing tariffs on other countries – a move that’s raised prices for US consumers.

Unfortunately, billionaire Trump seems way out of touch with the struggles of average Americans. Not only has he boasted about his new marble-and-gold bathroom and his planned Louis XIV-like ballroom, but he held a lavish, times-are-great Great Gatsby-inspired party at Mar-a-Lago the day before his administration withheld Snap benefits for millions of Americans. If anyone needed a symbol of how out of touch Trump is, just look to the bikini-clad model dancing in a gigantic martini glass at the party’s entrance.

“Trump was one of those that I was all for,” a West Virginia resident upset about the Snap cutoff told the New York Times Daily podcast. “But now, I feel like he’s more about the money, and helping the rich, and not caring about the people that really do need help.”

That’s a big reason Mamdani won. Far more than most politicians, Democratic or Republican, he comes across as “caring about the people that really do need help.” In this age of increased income inequality and $1tn pay packages, Mamdani wants to find money to help those who need help by increasing taxes on New York City’s billionaires and millionaires, many of whom have more money than they know what to do with. Nonetheless, some billionaires seemed to freak out because Democratic socialist Mamdani was pushing an idea that American progressives and European social democrats have long pushed for: increasing taxes on the wealthy to help create a fairer society. Mamdani has called for a 2%-a-year tax increase on those earning over $1m a year to help make bus rides free and to make childcare universal and free (or at least far more affordable).

Describing his philosophy, Mamdani said: “When we talk about my politics, I call myself a Democratic socialist in many ways inspired by the words of Dr King from decades ago who said, ‘Call it democracy or call it democratic socialism. There has to be a better distribution of wealth for all of God’s children in this country.” Mamdani was referring to a 1961 speech by Martin Luther King Jr.

Many of God’s children are hurting, and Mamdani made clear he cares about them. In his victory speech, he talked of “those so often forgotten by the politics of our city”: Trinidadian line cooks, Yemeni bodega owners, Senegalese taxi drivers, and Uzbek nurses.

In last year’s campaign, Trump promised to battle for forgotten Americans, but he largely seems to have forgotten them. His One Big Beautiful Bill Act contained big cuts in Medicaid and Snap benefits – programs that millions of “forgotten Americans” rely on. Trump seemed to forget them once again during the government shutdown, when his administration said it couldn’t find money to finance Snap benefits even though the US Department of Agriculture had previously said the money was there.

Ever since the GOP got thumped on election day, Trump has focused more on affordability, mainly by lying about it (although he did get some pharmaceutical companies to reduce prices for weight-loss drugs). “We just lost an election, they said, based on affordability,” Trump said. “It’s a con job by the Democrats.”

Even though inflation has increased since Trump returned to office, he said: “We are the ones that have done great on affordability … Every price is down,” except beef. There, Trump was again untethered from the truth; in the 12 months before September 2025, coffee prices rose 18.9%, beef 14.7%, bananas 6.9% and sugar and sweets 6.7%.

Some other prices, including gas and eggs, have declined somewhat. But Trump also boasted that energy costs have fallen, even though electricity prices jumped 10.5% during his first eight months back in office. Americans shouldn’t forget Trump’s campaign promise: “Under my administration we will be slashing energy and electricity prices by half within 12 months, at a maximum 18 months.”

Once again showing how truth-challenged he is, Trump boasted that the price of Walmart’s Thanksgiving dinner has declined by 25% from last year. But he failed to mention that this year’s Walmart dinner excludes many important items from last year, among them sweet potatoes, pecan pie, and muffin mix.

No one should be fooled when Trump claims that prices are down and that he’s fighting hard for affordability. Nor should anyone be fooled when Trump says he’s fighting for forgotten Americans. (Trump seems to be fighting far harder for crypto billionaires.)

It’s Mamdani, not Trump, who’s fighting for forgotten Americans, fighting for those struggling to make ends meet. According to the Census Bureau, 40% of US adults say they have difficulty making ends meet each month. If Trump and the Republicans were truly fighting for forgotten Americans, they would have quickly found the $8bn to continue Snap benefits during the shutdown. If Trump and the GOP truly cared about struggling Americans, they would have quickly backed the Democrats’ demand to extend Obamacare subsidies to 22 million people and prevent their premiums from soaring. In that way, Trump and the GOP would have prevented the shutdown. And if Trump and Republicans truly cared about struggling Americans, they would join Mamdani in trying to make childcare affordable for every family.

If Democrats hope to win in 2026 and beyond, they should focus their message on two things: first, that they’re fighting day in and day out to make life more affordable for average Americans and that they’re eager to tax billionaires more to help make necessities like housing, healthcare and childcare more affordable. Second, that while they’re fighting for affordability, Trump is fighting for his tariffs, his gilded ballroom and sending troops into America’s cities – none of which does a thing to help the millions of Americans struggling to make ends meet.

• Steven Greenhouse is a journalist and author, focusing on labor and the workplace, as well as economic and legal issues