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There is no universe, in this one or any alternate timeline, where "let's lock up the economic data and build a shiny new ballroom" is a winning affordability message.

Yet here we are.

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You saw Donald Trump's 18th iteration of his affordability message yesterday, when he said of affordability, "It doesn't mean anything to anybody ... The word affordability is a con job by the Democrats."

The vibe is late Bourbon decadence and indifference, King Donald the Corpulent in his palace, while the peasantry starves. I'm going long on pitchforks and tumbrels.

At the precise moment when Americans are standing in the cereal aisle doing battlefield math over whether the kids get brand-name or generic Wheat-os, Donald J. Trump is obsessing over chandeliers, parquet floors, and the sightlines in his new, ever-expanding plan for a White House ballroom with the square footage of a large Costco.