Affordability, not culture wars

The GOP attacked Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan about his name and his faith, trying to tie him to terrorists – and he turned every attack around. — Getty Images via AFP

AFFORDABILITY. Affordability. Affordability.

It seems that every successful Democratic candidate in the recently concluded US midterm elections had one thing on their lips. 

Of course there were other words - like gas prices, the Iran war, healthcare – but all of them really were connected to and part of the same thing: the cost of living. 

Credit where its due, the politician that showed America just how to stay absolutely razor focused on one single important issue is likely New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani. 

Mamdani had mastered a concept in political strategy that was as simple as it was apparently difficult to execute: bringing every conversation back to one simple issue. 

US President Donald Trump has also historically been a master at this game. His weapon of choice was to demonising immigrants. 

Who can forget his accusation during the presidential debates: “They’re eating the cats, they’re eating the dogs.” 

The demonisation of immigrants has in many periods and countries been a highly effective lightning rod.

But not, it would seem, in 2026’s America. 

Trump was on the campaign trail, telling these age old stories of criminal immigrants and public school teachers suddenly changing the gender of students without the consent of their parents – a tale almost as outlandish as the dog and cat eating immigrants. 

Clearly, there was a time that such tactics were effective. 

But not in 2026, when Democrat politicians drew the straightest, clearest line imaginable between Trump’s Zionist war of choice against Iran, and skyrocketing prices at the gas station and grocery stores. 

Learning from Mamdani’s success, Democratic candidates across the United States honed in on this issue with bleeding edge precision. 

Affordability. Affordability. Affordability. 

They attacked Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan about his name and his faith, trying to tie him to terrorists – and he turned every attack around and asked why they weren’t talking about spending money on sending bombs overseas instead of on building better schools in Michigan. 

They made fun of James Talarico in Texas for being effeminate, and he just kept on talking about how Texans were struggling to pay for food and healthcare. 

The story repeats all across the country – in Senate, House, and Gubernatorial races. 

Seats that have been red for decades, some longer than living memory, were flipping blue. 

Gina Hinojosa, the newly elected governor of Texas spoke about how this was the end of the culture wars – calling them a distraction that the megarich elites used to keep Americans divided and fighting against each other over questions like transgender bathrooms, all while they exploited the working class and bled them dry. 

Elon Musk reportedly spent almost half a billion dollars trying to support Republicans in Texas, a state where a lot of his business is headquartered – only to have Democrats sweep the state. 

The Zionist lobby made similar investments, as they do in every US elections. 

Columnist Nesrine Malik noted on Twitter that: “In 2022, almost 70% of (AIPAC’s) funds went into races where it got the desired result. In 2024, it was 87%. In 2026, that figure is 34%.”

From 87% to 34%. After decades of undue influence, the tide is finally starting to turn against the Zionist lobby. 

This is one of the clearest and most encouraging signals from the US midterms – that the Israeli Zionist brand has become exceedingly toxic, and is a severe liability to US politicians seeking political office. 

The US midterms have brought a strong number of fresh, exciting, and diverse faces into the forefront of American politics. Hope is running high. 

The battle of course is only just beginning. It is folly to underestimate the deep institutional rot and corruption that runs through every street in Washington DC.

These new candidates will need every ounce of their courage and conviction in their principles to truly bring significant and lasting change - and to resist the corrupting gravitational pull of the fat cats and fat wallets that make up the Washington elite. 

Malaysians are not unfamiliar with such feelings of euphoria, having had a few moments of our own over the last few decades, where the nation felt awash with new hope.

Sadly, we are also not unfamiliar with that hope souring quickly into disappointment. 

Over the years, we have probably lost some of our best and  brightest to those same fat cats and fat wallets. 

But I daresay we have not lost them all. 

Malaysians who want to fight for real and lasting change right here in our homeland can take a lot of valuable lessons from what has just happened. 

The first obviously, is to learn to hone in on exactly the right issue; and then to build an inclusive, razor focused campaign on exactly that issue –refusing for one second to be distracted by culture wars or the confusing mire of political mud slinging. 

Be like Ohio’s new governor Amy Acton, who focused on the same issues of affordability and healthcare. 

Don’t be like her opponent, the unpopular billionaire Vivek Ramaswamy, who insisted (against the advice of his campaign) on running an ad featuring Acton’s mother denouncing her. It was later discovered that that mother had colluded with her boyfriend to abuse Acton as a child, and then fled justice by crossing state lines. 

Ohio voters reacted with disgust to this kind of mudracking politics, handing Ramaswamy and ignominious defeat. 

In Malaysia, we’re no stranger to character attacks, sex scandals and all that jazz. 

The party that can truly transcend such petty politicking, and introduce a crystal clear focus on issues that really resonate with Malaysian voters, are likely to be our nation’s next leaders. 

Nathaniel Tan is a strategic communications consultant. He tweets @NatAsasi and can be reached at [e-mail]. The views expressed here are solely the writer’s own.