Summary
President Joe Biden’s economic achievements—lowering inflation, reducing gas prices, creating jobs, and boosting manufacturing—are largely unrecognized by the public, despite his successes.
His tenure saw landmark legislation like the Inflation Reduction Act, CHIPS Act, and major infrastructure investments.
However, Biden’s approval ratings remain low, attributed to inflation backlash, weak communication, and a media landscape prone to misinformation.
Democrats face a “propaganda problem” rather than a policy failure, with many voters likely to credit incoming President Trump for Biden’s accomplishments due to partisan messaging and social media dynamics.
As you rightfully note the relationship between federal economic policy and economic outcomes is complex and it’s not easy to tease apart cause and effect. Having said that Democrats have through history presided over MUCH better economic outcomes than Republicans, and Biden is no exception. Yet, voters consistently believe that (generic) Republicans are better for the economy than generic Democrats.
Democrats are broadly better, but they’ve created a lot of the conditions that are killing the working class now. Bill Clinton was the one who passed NAFTA, which was the biggest blow to manufacturing jobs in American history. Obama had a similar trade deal, the TPP, which most likely would have been equally devastating had Trump not killed it (which probably had more to do with his obsession with tearing down the achievements of the first black President than helping workers, but I doubt that mattered to the TPP’s opponents).
Even when Democrats aren’t directly the result of harm, their solutions are no longer the grand, ambitious plans from their New Deal glory days. Take Obama’s promises to create a foreclosure prevention fund, which got whittled down to HAMP, a mostly impotent refinance scheme that seems to have been designed more for banks than borrowers (despite large Democratic majorities). I’m sure it was better than whatever the Republicans would have come up with, but I doubt that mattered to people who were two months behind on an underwater mortgage.
Biden and Harris started with a strong vision, but they couldn’t get it through Congress and instead pivoted to telling people that actually, they were doing great, and the economy was good again. That will always be a losing message with people who aren’t doing well. The Democrats need to double down on a progressive message that does not compromise, with bold plans like a $20 minimum wage indexed to inflation, Medicare for All, and UBI. If they keep tinkering around the margins and giving people statistics when they say they’re doing poorly financially they will never be relevant again.
I agree with you that the Biden/Harris approach to economics is dead. There are virtually no voters left in the middle, so shifting to the right doesn’t help the Democrats like it used to. I also think the policies you propose will help a significant share of voters.
The bigger issue is communication. If these policies aid a significant part of voters, how can we convince them of this in the face of the right wing propaganda machine? That battle is as important as the policy platform, and it’s a very tricky challenge to overcome.
Another worry I have is that the Trump government will be more evil and less like a shitshow than his previous stint. Unfortunately, I think many voters will get behind evil stuff like rounding up migrants if it’s done in an organised manner.
I think you’re right about Trump. I think he was a shit-show last time because he didn’t expect to (or, in my opinion, want to) win, and now he has an apparatus that is set up to enable him. I’m very afraid of what a competent fascist movement looks like.
Communication is certainly a problem for Democrats; Trump was able to talk for 3 hours on Rogan, while Harris went on Call Her Daddy for less than s full episode and told a well rehearsed anecdote I’d heard twice before. They’re too obsessed with legacy media and polish to sound authentic. But the platform has to come first. If they fix every problem with this campaign’s communication in 2028 but run another middle-class opportunity platform with Mark Cuban, they will lose.
I think a big part of this comes down to the messenger here. The Democrats need a charismatic individual who is credible to voters. Unfortunately, they’ve only got Bernie to fit the bill for someone who had half a chance at being electable, and the DNC did everything they could to sideline him whenever they had the chance. Instead, they trot out establishment, corporatist party members and policy wonks to get the messaging out, or do absolutely baffling stuff, like sending Ritchie Torres to campaign for them in Michigan. It’s bad enough to send out bland candidates who may have a less than stellar recording for really fighting for the working class and holding the line to get them what they need, but for a key swing state with a huge Muslim population that has signalled many times they may not vote for Harris because she hasn’t indicated any shift in her policy on Gaza, you send the most rabidly Zionist, anti-Palestinian Rep you could pull from the Democratic bench? That’s an absolute own goal. It’s like sending a rep named Che Castro that tweets constantly on ending the embargo on Cuba to stump for you in Miami, then wondering why Cuban voters went to the other guy.
Unfortunately, I think it will really take a while for the Democrats to dig themselves out of this hole and have someone with a record long enough for people to find them credible when they say they’re going to fight for the working class as the rule, rather than the pleasantly surprising exception.