Affordability?
They can’t make a winnable case on GOP House and Senate enablers are running the Golden Age of Grift? Or overseeing a badly mangled Middle East war. Administration gross incompetence and malfeasance on economics, migration, foreign policy with shonks, spivs and white Christian doughboys running the White House. et al
You don’t think that a gentle focus on “affordability” might normalise the bizarre cult of personality you have running the show?
All of these things would be good things. Unfortunately they amount to returning things to “normal”. That’s not something that will earn them extended credit. Putting things back to how they should be is rarely remembered or rewarded. With voters, in major elections, it’s always, “What have you done for me lately?”
And discontent with that “normal”, real or manufactured, was a lot of the attraction of voting for non-establishment candidates.
Persuading somebody “Vote for the old status quo you hated because it’s not quite as bad as the new grifting that you voted for but studiously can’t quite see.”
This is over-thinking it. If we’re going to limit ourselves to what the voters will remember and appreciate, then why bother doing anything? May as well give up on governing and push a narrative through social media to get people to vote on ‘feels’.
In any case, people know how far their paycheck is going and they will appreciate any improvement proportional to the size of the improvement. Restoring ACA would be a significant improvement to 24M people. Boosting wages will be noticed as well.
Other than the stock market and crypto, every fiscal improvement is a return to ‘normal’. Solve the housing crisis so 30 year olds can buy a townhouse – normal. Bring the price of gas down – normal. Get a real job straight out of college – normal. Things haven’t been normal for a long time.
A kid that graduated high-school during the financial crisis of 2008 is 36 now. What’s normal for them is completely different than what is normal for most of us Dopers.
Maybe the ACA subsidies can be restored by Dems. Very likely the gas prices will come down again because Trump isn’t threatening to destroy Iran.
But I am not optimistic that house prices will come down, or wages will rise to meet the current housing market. I’m not optimistic that eggs and meat will be much cheaper. I’m not optimistic that prices of goods in general will become cheaper because Dems are in the house. I would love to be proven wrong, but this is the new normal, I’m afraid.
Generally declining prices, except for volatile commodities is always a disaster to avoid.
The way to make housing or whatever “affordable” that’s now 20% higher than it was is to raise wages everywhere for everyone by 20% to match. Not to try to drive prices down.
Republicans successfully drove Joe Biden out of office by eliding the fact that inflation had improved quite a bit and was sitting just a point or two over target.
Maybe it’s enough for Democrats to have learned that “affordability” can be used simply to bludgeon the party in power and then ignored. This was 100% working for Republicans until Trump went tariff-crazy and started the dumbest war imaginable.
Unwinding tariffs ought to be an easy affordability win. As for the Iran war, though, honestly I’m not sure anybody in the US has the cards to get that resolved. It’s not easy to get a sweetheart deal that our OPEC allies will get on board with. And even that happens, Israel will be the spoiler, as they’re not going to let Iran keep developing nuclear & other military capabilities, and we can’t do much if anything to keep either of those countries in check.
So hopefully their plan doesn’t depend on ending the Iran war anytime soon, because that really doesn’t seem achievable.
Okay… but how realistic is that and is that what Democratic candidates are saying? Or are they just saying the word “affordability” without any specific plan of how to achieve that goal?
Here’s what the Progressive Dem Caucus is proposing:
Here’s the New Democratic Coalition is proposing:
There is one mention of raising minimum wage, without a scintilla of detail.
My point isn’t that Democrats aren’t willing to try or that they don’t mean well. They do. But even these policies are very measured and relatively lacking in ambition and detail of what can be done to get things back to “normal”. Whatever that is.
Which causes me to believe that where the economy is now (for the most part) is the new normal.
Making the whole campaign Running against someone is usually not a winner. Again, just like last elections “It’s the economy, stupid”.
I do not think wavering voters “hated” the Biden or Obama administration.
Yep, again- “It’s the economy, stupid”.
ACA= no problem.
Gas prices will come down, etc- , and thus inflation gets lower, thus prices get lower. Minimum wage will get higher.
No one can fix housing. There is just so much suitable land, water, etc. But a reduction in inflation will help, along with a few other fixes.
Not even close. The economy is cyclable , but tariffs, oil prices, and high medicals costs have made this year worse. All those can be fixed.
Corporations and business owner have had to absorb some of the overhead caused by tariffs. Even if tariffs are removed, the prices will stay where they are because they will want to claw back their costs over time. Then the prices will stay where they are because people will have gotten used to them. As long as inflation is under control, the prices of consumer goods will stabilize, but unlikely to go down.
Well yes, but:
Rather than summat like "Costs down, reconnect, restore?
Obviously, "It’s the affordability” is better for the public. But election after election has shown that “It’s the economy, stupid” hold forth.
The word “affordability” is not a great choice for a slogan.
But the media picked that word a couple of years ago talking about economics and inflation and wages and … and has been harping on it daily now for a couple years.
The public now knows it as a vocabulary word, but also as a close-to-home economic problem with significant political connection. Both parties will be hammering on this problem using that word.
Choosing a different word because it’s better in the dictionary or rhymes more nicely to make a slogan would be very stupid campaigning.