The Price Tag Nation: Where Everything’s Cheap, Nothing’s Worth It, And It All Amounts To A Pile Of Garbage

What if Donald Trump’s tariffs are the intervention we didn’t know we needed?

From not including sales tax on price tags to turning a blind eye to the working conditions in Asian factories, we've trained a generation to be consumers—and little else. Not citizens. Not makers. Not stewards. Just consumers.

And as consumers, we have proven one thing with certainty: price is all that matters. All we care about is the number on the cash register screen. We don’t run the simplest math on value over time. We don’t ask if something can be repaired, reused, or made to last. We just take the cheapest, fastest, most frictionless option—and then, when it breaks, busts, or bores us, we throw it out and start again.

And what we’re buying is more often the dream rather than the product. When we shell out for the Side-by-side, the hot tub, and for sure the Peloton, we’re not buying the product at all. We’re trying to buy what we wish our lives actually were.

This is the landscape Donald Trump is stepping into, with his newly imagined creed: that Americans will now willingly accept higher prices for a greater, more noble purpose. National strength. Industrial rebirth. Patriotism.

It is an amazing and radical idea—not because it hasn’t been tried, but because it flies in the face of what we’ve become. If it works, let’s be honest, it will be the greatest thing that has happened to America this century.

But there’s a problem.

Somewhere between the flashing Walmart rollback signs and the “Buy Now” button that lives rent-free in our pockets, we lost the thread.

For at least a generation—maybe two—we’ve been trained, not taught, to see ourselves primarily as consumers. Not citizens. Not craftsmen. Not neighbours. Consumers. It’s the only job we’ve been consistently encouraged to perform. And by most available metrics—debt levels, landfill tonnage, broken supply chains—we’ve gotten very, very good at it.

We don’t ask much of the things we buy. Least of all: to last.

Durability, repairability, reusability—once the backbone of thrift, pride, and even patriotism—have been replaced by convenience, disposability, and the dopamine hit of clicking “confirm order.” You could argue we’ve grown addicted not to things themselves but to the moment of acquisition. Like lab rats pressing a lever for pellets, we choose price over principle, speed over substance, again and again.

We won’t even do the simplest math to calculate value over time. A toaster that lasts ten years for $60 is better than one that costs $20 and breaks in a year. But the $20 toaster wins every time. Because it’s there. Because it’s now. Because it feels cheaper, even when it’s not.

And when the $20 toaster fails, we shrug. Then drive to Walmart for another.

Now enter Donald Trump—waving not just flags but tariffs.

He’s betting that Americans, these expertly trained consumers, will gladly pay more at the cash register for some greater good: national security, domestic industry, sticking it to China. It's a sort of patriotic pitch, and a patriotic tax, a new framing of “Made in America” that wants to stir hearts while shaking wallets.

It’s a bold bet. Because despite all the political bluster, Americans haven’t yet shown a consistent appetite for this kind of economic nationalism in practice. They’ll chant “USA! USA!” at rallies, but when they see the $1.99 t-shirt has become $14.99, they mutter “WTF?” and check Amazon.

“I couldn’t care less if they raise prices, because people are going to start buying American-made cars,” Mr. Trump said on NBC’s Meet the Press show on Sunday in response to fears of foreign car prices spiking.

The notion that there is more to life than low-cost imports is an acknowledgment that tariffs could impose additional costs on Americans. It is also a pitch that the burden will be worth it. Mr. Trump’s ability to convince consumers that it is acceptable to pay more to support domestic manufacturing and adhere to his “America First” agenda could determine whether the president’s second term is a success or a calamity. - NYT

This is not necessarily because they’re selfish. It’s because people are exhausted, busy, broke, and—for the most part—unconvinced that paying more will truly lead to something better. The link between sacrifice and reward has been corroded, maybe even broken. No one believes that buying a $1,200 iPhone made in Ohio instead of Shenzhen is going to fix the Republic. Even if it might.

It’s going to be interesting to see how this plays out. Whether we’re witnessing a turning point in consumer consciousness—or just another rebrand of the same economic story, starring the same characters in slightly more expensive clothes.

We’ve all heard Oscar Wilde’s old line about the cynic: someone who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing. But the modern consumer might be something even stranger—someone who doesn’t even know the price of what they’re really paying.

Not in waste.
Not in exploitation.
Not in lost skills, local jobs, or community cohesion.
Not in meaning.

And that’s the thing: the real price is always hidden. It's buried in externalities—climate, culture, character.

We won’t fix this with hashtags or discounts.
We might fix it by remembering who we were before we were only consumers.

A people who made things. Fixed things. Shared things.
A people who knew value. Not just price.

Here's something you won’t hear often: Donald Trump is right. We have to get off that dope of junk-buying consumerism. But how?

I know I sure struggle. It astonishes me how many little odds and ends I carry home over the course of a year. My house is so cluttered... and my basement, where all this stuff goes to die... oh my goodness. In the 14 years I've lived at The Jubilee House I've had four yard sales and three full dumpster removals and still... it's not possible to move through a cellar full of half-remembered, half-used, half-broken things.

But what's wrong with me is wrong with everyone.

Can Donald Trump's strong-arm chaos break the spell in a way that finger-wagging, money-wasting guilt, a disapproving spouse, or even the quiet knowledge that this way of living is just plain wrong never could?

I guess we're gonna see.