Why can't Biden get more traction from the economy?

Politics & Elections
319

I’d say it’s because a lot of people have no idea what ideas they’re supposed to be changing because they’re hung up on a mythical silver bullet solution instead of understanding the issue.

Luckily, based on the above info, Biden’s team seems to understand it better than many of the thread’s posters so I can be cautiously optimistic that they’re effective in getting that message out. (UN-fortunately, there really isn’t much Biden can do about food costs besides glare angrily at producers/stores)

320

Yep.

I tell ya, the more I read this thread, the more worried I am about Joe’s election chances. I hope he’s able to make this election a referendum on Trump. Because otherwise, he’s in trouble.

321

Let the pandering begin:

The real reason we can’t have nice things is that people have no idea how things like oil prices work, and expect the president to give them cheap gas.

323

From economic numbers that I’m aware of, the only negative one is credit card delinquency rates. The Fed rate influences borrowing rates and, for credit cards, the size of the penalty if you miss your payments. This has caused a higher rate of delinquencies and, presumably, a large amount of stress among everyone anxious about their credit card payments.

Ideally, legislation would be passed that allows the Fed to earmark particular loans for particular purposes, and thereby they could hold a variety of interest rates instead of only one, and target particular segments of the economy.

I’m doubtful that such a thing could happen in time to affect the election.

In the short run, you’ve basically got various forms of printing money, lobbying the Fed to lower rates, and dropping some tariffs.

324

Yeah, I feel that is why many of us Millennials have just given up on having a good life. I know I have. Things haven’t been good for my entire adult life at this point.

325

Well, that is part of the situation, as I’ve proven by showing links about Republican partisan surveying. I know you don’t like admitting that. But literally, we have almost 2/3 of the country doing well financially (by their own admission), but about half of those people are saying the broader economy sucks. I think part of that is the information universe they’re swimming in.

I agree part of it is people might be doing well, and still legitimately concerned about others, too. But I think the real answer is a combination of what you’re saying and what @Euphonious_Polemic is saying. They’re not mutually exclusive.

326

Man, if only someone had addressed that supposed discrepancy… multiple… times…

327

I know. Whatever we do, we can’t “wave charts” and talk about MAGA disinformation in any of this. SMH.

328

Yes, because then the Democrats were trying to defeat an incumbant Reagan. This time a Democrats are the incumbant party and are trying to win. If an incumbant wants to win he does so by convincing people that things got better under their watch. If you want to beat and incumbent you do so by convincing people things got worse under their watch. This is what the Republicans are doing and doing very well, such that even though by every metric things really do seem to be getting better for the majority of people, and actually feel that things have gotten better for themselves personally, they mistakenly think that the country overall is doing worse.

You seem to want Biden to do their dirty work for them and run on the message that despite all his efforts, the economy is in shambles. So while his policies have failed to improve things you have his sympathy. To which the voters will respond, thanks for the sympathy but I think I’ll go with Trump who might be able to fix this mess.

329

I sure hope Biden doesn’t act like the economy is in shambles. I think Biden had 3 things he has to do: (1) Remind people of the strong economic data that we have, i.e., run on his record. If he doesn’t, then he’ll come off as weak; (2) Talk about the items that are unfinished business around things like housing costs, healthcare costs, to show empathy; (3) Remind people all the bad things about Trump from the last time around and for what Team Trump has planned for the next go-round…

And #3 might be first in the pecking order honestlly.

331

In the end, I’m pretty confident it will be. Not every last voter, but for 95 out of 100 of us? Yes.

332

The point is, only you are resorting to ad hominems. I have only said that some people have been misled. You are saying that people who disagree with you are “self-deluded” and “foolish”.

Completely dodges the point. I was saying that people have been misled about “energy independence”. Rather than conceding that point, you want to talk about how gas prices are more important for most people. Maybe, but are you going to address the point first?

What on earth does this even mean? I am saying that 15 million more people having a job is a good thing, if that’s “waving at charts” then everything is; any fact anyone cites is a “chart” now.

And I’ll ask again: why is talking about jobs or salaries or medical coverage “waving at charts” but talking about inflation isn’t?

333

Am I going to go off on your tangent about oil production instead of talking about the economy? Nah, I’ll pass. If you want to talk about the economy like the thread says, we can do that. I’ve said lots on that topic here in the thread about the economy.

Because you literally have no other answer about WHY no one is impressed by the charts than to blame the Misinformation Goblins. The issue isn’t that you have data, it’s that people in the thread are paralyzed by the fact that everyone doesn’t react to the data as you expected/want and, rather than come up with any usable solution, comfort yourselves with some fantasy silver bullet that if you could stop Misinformation then everyone would be happy because heavens forbid anyone came up with their own reasons why they’re pessimistic about the economy. It’s infantilizing to the voters that it just HAS to be brainwashing. So, yes, you impotently wave at your charts because no one can think of anything better. You don’t use the data, you don’t have ideas, you just basically say "but… but… but… the charts :frowning: "

334

Oil production is part of the economy you know. And I have been trying to get you to respond on things like jobs, and salaries, and pensions, and medical coverage, and you don’t want to talk about those either.

That doesn’t make any sense as an answer to the question being put to you. Ludicrous.

And “misinformation goblins” have been pretty effective in the US recently, I’ve given numerous examples of misapprehensions that millions of americans have; on the economy, on crime rates, on climate change. So you can use whatever ridiculing term you like (and honestly, that’s the most entertaining thing about this thread at this point; the ever-escalating rhetoric of “misinformation goblins” and the “brainwashing cabal” because disinformation is apparently just so hard to imagine), but yeah, that’s largely it.

335

OK, I admit, that was waaay to snarky on my part. Mea culpa. :pensive:

Stepping back and summarizing what I and others have said in this thread, as I see it there three main sub topics that have evolved out of the OP.

  1. Is the economy under Biden actually good?
  2. Why do so many people think it isn’t (the actual question in the OP)
  3. What should Biden’s message be in light of 2.

For question one there is reasonable consensus, that the answer is yes. The objections is that it hasn’t been uniform for everyone, and there is still lots of inequality but this is pretty much always true. Even the best economy will have people who fall through the cracks, and as to whether inequality is increasing, decreasing or staying steady it seems to depend on what metric is used to measure it. Inequality has been increasing since the Reagan administration, so even keeping it steady is an accomplishment.

The economic performance is particularly strong given what has been going on around the world. The fact that we got through a multiple year shutdown, followed by war in Europe and the Middle East, and aren’t in a severe recession is a miracle.

There is less consensus on the second question with some people attributing primarily to those for whom the economy has failed. While this accounts for some of the people who say the economy is bad it can’t be the whole answer. There are always people for whom the economy isn’t working but the reviews of this economy is particularly bad, so it must be something that is different this time around.

As others have said a big part of it is the Republican noise machine and political bias, which basically locks in 40% of the public thinking the economy is doing poorly, and will be reversed in an instant if Trump comes back into office.

The other is that unlike previous economic troubles of the last decades inflation is the one we came out of under Biden was driven by inflation. When high unemployment gets fixed the unemployment rate goes back down, when the stock market recovers 401Ks return to high levels, but when inflation goes down prices still stay where they were. So fixing inflation is not obvious. Further, as I suggested earlier even though inflation is offset by wage increases, people don’t generally credit the president for their getting a raise, while they do for prices going up.

I think that these three reasons (some people not being helped, Republican partisanship and disinformation, unique aspects of inflation, explain the discrepancy.

The main area of disagreement seems to be in terms of how Biden should message his way out of this. The majority myself included support acknowledging the pain of those left behind but primarily focusing on convincing the public that the economy is actually in good shape.

Jopheil argues that this isn’t working, and isn’t going to work but admits that they, Jopheil, don’t have a solution. This may be accurate but is not particularly helpful. Even if their isn’t strategy fully succeeding in turning public opinion around it may still be the best strategy. It just may not be fully possible to overcome the locked in Republican down vote and the pernicious aspects of inflation.

SyncoSmalls has more concrete criticisms. Criticizing Biden for dismissing the plight of the left behind in interviews with journalists (but not so much in interviews with comedian journalists, or tweets or speeches). One might wonder what makes interviews different from other platforms. I think the difference is that in an interview context Biden is confronted directly with the misinformation. The interviewer starts out with a statement that the economy is not doing well and asks Biden to respond. At that point I think Biden has to be forthright in setting the record straight. Sure he should (and does) admit that the economy isn’t working for some people and talk about what he is going to do about it, but he also has to say that the interviewer is wrong when they say the economy is bad. If he just lets that go, then he is conceding the point that his administration has failed and the debate is lost.

336

Great post @Buck_Godot , I agree entirely

337

Yes, this is indeed a part (of course, not all)
And add to this the increase in the importance of various social media platforms to spread information quickly (and the concurrent decrease in importance of “typical” media). Which has led (IMO) to an increase in people being in isolated information bubbles where the only information they get is curated to agree and amplify their preconceived notions. Actual factual information simply cannot get in through the filters.

And I think this is most prevalent (not entirely, but MOST) in the right-leaning public.

338

The only thing I didn’t see in your post (very good post, btw) is that Biden needs to turn this as much as he can against Trump, reminding people about the mess he left to Biden and also drawing a distinction on what he would do in the future compared to Trump. Things like protecting the ACA or medicare drugs or government policies that encourage affordable housing, etc…vs Trump, which is “hey let’s deport immigrants and take away women’s reproductive rights”…

340

I did watch the interview. While my calling it misinformation might have been a bit strong, if you took what the interviewer said at face value, you would get the false impression that nothing is going right with the Biden economy, housing prices are soaring, consumer confidence is failing, GDP isn’t meeting expectations, wages aren’t keeping up with inflation. He has to correct that impression, otherwise he effectively agrees with the right wing talking point. He also has to show some sympathy for those who struggles, which he does. He admits that it is hard to find affordable housing and announces his plans to address that. He agrees that people are having problems with inflation, and they have a right to be concerned, and angry, but also points out that a lot of this is due to corporate greed which he hopes to address. I agree that it wasn’t his best interview, but more because he got tongue tied in a few places. As far as the message goes I thought the balance was pretty good.

341

I thought the only really bad moment in that interview was the “9% inflation” comment, which was absolutely not true. He shouldn’t have said that. But beyond that, he had a lot of good talking points, and I was glad to see him bring up his strong record in a few spots. It was a good mix of defending his record and empathy. He needs to not throw out nonsense, like “it was 9% inflation when I took office”…That can be corrected. But the rest of his tone was pretty good, I thought.