The Democratic National Committee is rolling out hundreds of community events this weekend to convince working Americans that the party feels their pain on affordability — the same pain Democrats spent years dismissing, minimizing, and calling "transitory."

This matters because the same institution that fueled the inflation fire is now posing as the fire department. DNC Chair Ken Martin declared in a statement: "Everything costs too damn much under Donald Trump and the Republicans." Notice the framing — a party that controlled the White House and both chambers of Congress when inflation roared to four-decade highs wants you to forget who was at the wheel.

The weekend's events include school supply giveaways, food bank drives, and door-knocking campaigns in Arizona, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. In New Mexico, Gov. Michelle Luján Grisham will train 150 potential campaign staffers. In Nevada, canvassers will target rural and working-class neighborhoods. In Kenosha County, Wisconsin, the local party will collect and distribute school supplies to poor families.

Read Martin's own words carefully, though. The goal isn't charity — it's to "reach, engage, register, and mobilize voters who will make the difference in races up and down the ballot." That's not relief. That's a voter registration drive dressed up with backpacks.

Both the Associated Press and U.S. News & World Report, which ran the same AP wire, acknowledge that "two years ago, Democrats were the ones accused of being indifferent to Americans' anger about rising prices." That's a polite way of saying the party told struggling families their pain wasn't real. Biden's Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen famously called inflation "transitory." The administration pumped trillions into the economy while small businesses were locked down and told to survive on PPP loans they'd later struggle to forgive. Every American who watched a grocery bill double while being assured the experts had it under control remembers who was in charge.

Trump isn't blameless here. He described affordability concerns as a "hoax" and recently said "I love the inflation" — a line that deserves every bit of the blowback it gets. Both parties have a habit of dismissing what ordinary people experience at the checkout counter. But Trump didn't invent the money supply expansion or the lockdown regime that crushed Main Street while Amazon posted record profits.

Democratic strategist Brian Derrick told the AP that the weekend events help Democrats focus on Trump's "Achilles' heel," which he called "his lack of interest in addressing everyday costs for people." Fair critique of Trump. But the idea that Democrats — the party of record spending, record money creation, and record contempt for anyone who questioned the experts — are the credible messengers on affordability is a tough sell outside the Beltway.

The DNC isn't wrong that everything costs too damn much. They're just hoping nobody remembers who was running things when it got that way. Working Americans don't need a backpack from a party operative. They need an honest accounting of who broke what — and neither side is offering one.