President Donald Trump, a man whose love of gold frequently reaches religious heights, has received a stark warning that his gilded age is about to end.
Americans, who reported this weekend they survive by selling blood and hunting churches for toilet paper, will not be fooled by a White House website that declares they live in an, all caps, "GOLDEN AGE," MS NOW Paul Waldman wrote Sunday.
"There is one room in Washington where a 'golden age' exists," Waldman wrote. "The Oval Office, into which Trump has crammed gilded junk onto every wall and into every corner."
Trump's economic policy has begun to hit his voter base and they do not like what their lives have become, Waldman argued.
The latest Commerce Department GDP figures show grew just 1.5 percent the last quarter, wage growth is neck-and-neck with inflation and consumer confidence is approaching an all-time low.
"It’s not a recession," warned Waldman. "For now."
Waldman's warning comes as his administration cuts crucial social services.
"The Republicans’ Big Beautiful Bill is causing millions to lose health coverage and food assistance, while food banks struggle to meet demand," he wrote. "
"To top it off, his absurd war in Iran created a global energy crisis and sent gas prices spiraling upward."
When New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof recently spoke with red state Americans, he found out just what Trump cuts have meant in those states.
Oklahoman Trinity Goodman has less than $4 in her checking, sells her blood plasma twice weekly, and regularly struggles to find toilet paper because it's not covered by SNAP.
"Live in my shoes for one day," Goodman dared Trump. "You wouldn't be able to handle it."
Trump's voters, Waldman wrote, haven't forgotten the promise he made them.
"In the story he told, inflation would disappear (it hasn’t), tariffs would bring a manufacturing boom (they haven’t), and everyone would thank him for creating such boundless prosperity," Waldman wrote.
Instead they've been treated to an awful spectacle, argued Waldman, of a " real estate developer, TV personality and purveyor of small-time grifts" in the White House.
"Since people experience the economy in their own lives, the picture the White House paints has to have at least some relationship to reality," he wrote.
"If it doesn’t, Americans may decide that not only can’t they trust what the administration says, but that the president has no idea what he’s doing."