Why do republican candidates keep repeating this like it’s supposed to be some sort of game winner for them? I don’t speak for anyone else but myself but my answer would be “Yes!” Myself and my spouse both earn more than we ever have. Our debt is the lowest it has ever been. Our 401Ks and savings have never been higher. And we’ve sent our kid off to a nice public university this year to pursue the career path he likes.
Much, much better than where Trump left us off in 2020. Most Covid related but we feared the health of our families, losing our jobs from supply chain layoffs, remote learning challenges, repeal of Roe vs. Wade due to Trumps doing.
Sure, prices have crept up but that didn’t seem to stop the Minnesota State Fair from breaking attendance records where people stood in lines for over an hour to spend $12 on a donut. Lines at the Starbucks drive-thru look plenty long. Every kid in town carries a $800 iphone with an unlimited data plan. People hauling cartloads of unneeded crap out of Costco every weekend like its going out of business. But apparently eggs are more expensive and people are having a tough time affording them?
Not to say there isn’t poverty a plenty in the US but it sure seems from my point of view that the middle class has been thriving the last 4 years.
Because when Trump asks, “were you better off than four years ago?”, he (and his followers) are conveniently forgetting that, at this time in 2020, we were still deep in the throes of COVID, the economy was not in great shape, etc.
They are counting on voters thinking about what inflation and rising interest rates have been like the past two years when they pose that question, and “four years ago” is, of course, shorthand for “back when Trump was president.”
It sure worked for Reagan after the huge gas lines and ridiculous inflation of the late 70s.
I think this is it. It’s cargo-cult politics. Republicans know it worked for Reagan, so they assume it’ll work for all Republicans.
In part because it sows fear, uncertainty, and doubt (FUD) about the future, but also because unlike your personal,(presumably upper middle class) experience for a lot of people their economic security is not better than it was four years ago regardless of what “economic indicators” say, and things like the increasing cost of eggs or a constant threat of losing housing is a pervasive stressor. Of course, they probably aren’t better than they were eight years ago,either, because Trump did almost nothing in 2017-2021 that actually benefited struggling Americans in any way, and under his aegis set up a lot of things that have weakened both the democratic institutions and social safety net. But voters have pretty short memories.
Frankly nearly everything the GOP is pushing today is just cribbed off of Ronald Reagan’s 1980 presidential campaign including “Make America Great [Again]”. Which is not surprising because the foundations of the modern GOP come pretty much directly from the guidance of Lee Atwater (of “n*gg*r, n*gg*r, n*gg*r” infamy) and the “Southern Strategy” that Newt Gingrich has fine tuned into an on-demand fear-making machine, except with more obvious fascist overtones such as direct “othering” of marginalized groups, blatant lies about immigrants, claims that all political opponents are “the enemy within” and making barely veiled threats to persecute them, et cetera.
And just because the parallels are so stark, I’ll note that while the rise of the Nazi Party in late Weimar Germany is often attributed to the hyperinflation crises of the 1920s and the strictures of the Treaty of Versailles, by 1928-29 Germany had largely recovered and Germany received numerous concessions on their treaty obligations but a political culture of resentment and grievance buoyed the ascendence of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party even though it never achieved a clear majority and were strongly disliked by many who nonetheless aligned with or provided tacit support to the Nazis. Just as we are now seeing with prominent billionaire media owners refusing to permit newspapers such as The Washington Post and The Los Angeles Times to endorse a candidate for president in this election even though they have done so for decades previous.
Stranger
And for an even larger number of people, their own personal economic situation is better than it was four years ago, but they believe the propaganda that says that it isn’t.
That question is more of a self-selecting question than anything else, since people are more motivated by what’s negative than what’s positive. Just like people who leave 1-star angry reviews are generally much more passionate than those who leave satisfied 5-star happy reviews of a product.
Which they could understand with a mere Google search,
Eggs prices are high because a two-year-long bird flu battle has devastated flocks of egg-laying hens.
but one must remember these folks don’t believe in virus caused diseases.
It’s not just that they believe the propaganda (they do), but also that their personal economic situation is due entirely to their own hard work and was achieved despite the bumbling going on in the Oval Office (which makes them an even harder worker, to overcome such adversity).
You see journalists on TV asking voters if they are better off than 4 years ago all the time. If, after they complained about how ridiculous the high prices are, the journalists would ask them if they were getting paid more than they were 4 years ago, they still wouldn’t make the connection. Inflation is the sole responsibility of the President. The increase of their personal wages has nothing to do with the economy, it is only due to the superior performance they provide their employer.
For any of the middle class that have a 401, fuck no. Dow was around 30K. It’s now at 42K.
Yes, this is what I am seeing as well. If times are so tough, why do I have to wait in lines for everything?
One answer, to the thread title question, is that the Trump campaign has apparently decided this is no longer such a good question. Scroll down in my net link to the chart labeled “Trump Campaign TV Ad Spend Since September 19, 2024”
The Bulwark - Trump Goes All In on Anti-Trans
The chart shows the Trump campaign spending five or six times more on anti-trans ads than on economic messages of any kind.
My link has a paragraph supposedly explaining that the anti-trans messages are somehow linked to the less commonly presented economic message, but I am not sure I fully understand the logic:
I feel this is the key. By asking the question, Republicans are creating an issue.
A lot of potential Trump voters probably couldn’t really tell you if they’re better off, worse off, or about the same as they were four years ago. But they’ll sense that if Republicans are asking they must be scoring a point against the Democrats by doing so. So regardless of the reality, they’ll develop a feeling that they were better off four years ago.
I would actually suggest there’s an even more cynical aspect to the messaging strategy.
The Right (both the GOP in the US and lately the Tories in the UK) has a well-established political tactic for skewing the playing field, wherein they spend their time in power goosing superficial indicators with shallow short-term tricks (e.g. tax cuts), while fundamentally breaking things behind the scenes. Then when voters get tired of them and hand power to the opposition, they prime those negatives on the way out the door. The Dems and Labour come into office, and have to be the grownups, making the hard choices to right the ship and stabilize the system. Those hard choices are almost always painful (e.g. reversing the tax cuts or instituting new taxes), and the country feels like it’s suffering a hangover.
So when it comes time for the next election, the Right can ask this question, and the moron electorate can say, yeah, things kinda suck right now, they were great before weren’t they? And thus are the political arsonists returned to power.
What you described is the famous Two Santa Theory.
Obviously, yes, this is (as I said) well established. The point was to tie it back to the statement that is the subject of the thread and recognize that there is a unified strategy here.
Are your children taller than they were 4 years ago? No need to thank us, just be sure to vote.
It’s the basic belief of the President causing the entire economy. The voter does not seem to know there is a lag. So the one good Trump year was caused by Obama, if the president is such a big factor.
It’s not a ‘gotcha’ question. It’s a reasonable question a presidential challenger asks you the voter. A ‘gotcha’ question is a question you ask anyone that makes them look bad with any answer they can provide. Perhaps the classic “Have you stopped beating you wife?” is in this category but it tends to make the questioner look bad too. I first remember Sarah Palin using this term first, maybe after being asked “What do you read?” which stymies people who don’t.
Also, there HAS been a lot of inflation. Yes, the price of eggs overstates that. But inflation in both food and housing is real. Some people’s wages have gone up to compensate, but others haven’t been as fortunate. Change creates winners and losers.
It’s a naive to think that the president is solely responsible for the economy, but it’s incredibly rude and tone deaf to tell people that they are better off now, when they know they aren’t.
Right- it’s confusing the issues surrounding COVID and its aftermath with problems that they created and Biden’s solutions, which even if imperfect, were more than he attempted.
They’re trying to tar Biden with all the economic turmoil caused by the pandemic and the mitigation strategies, which is pretty rich, because they were the assholes who let the whole thing spin out of control in the first place.