Democrats have won their biggest electoral victory in nearly four decades on a wave of voter anger over the cost of living, and they are about to learn how little power they have to fix it.
The party captured its largest House majority in almost 40 years and its strongest Senate edge since 2008, riding frustration over pricey gas, groceries, mortgages, and healthcare. Yet the same affordability crisis that delivered them to power could quickly become their undoing.
Their room to act is narrow. Gas prices hinge on reopening the Strait of Hormuz and ending the standoff with Iran, and Democrats lack the 60 Senate votes to cut off war funding past a filibuster. Trump's tariffs returned under a new statute after the Supreme Court struck down the first version, and his immigration crackdown is already fully funded.
Even the easier fixes cost dearly. Restoring Affordable Care Act subsidies or reversing cuts to Medicaid and food stamps runs straight into a federal deficit near 6 percent of GDP. Democrats can block new legislation but cannot override vetoes.
Nor will the economy bail them out. It rests on a frenzied artificial intelligence investment boom that has driven the tech-heavy Nasdaq down more than 10 percent in a month, with AI firms taking on nearly 500 billion dollars in debt this year. If that bubble bursts, the downturn could rival 2008, and a government carrying 40 trillion dollars in debt with interest rates near two-decade highs would have little room to respond.
Unemployment and inflation are not severe enough to justify the public's sour mood; the deeper problem is a collapse of confidence in economic leadership. A new Democratic Congress can blunt Trump's most damaging moves, but if the economy sours over the next two years, it is Democrats who will likely face the voters' anger.