President Joe Biden goes into next year’s election with a vexing challenge: Just as the U.S. economy is getting stronger, people are still feeling horrible about it.
Pollsters and economists say there has never been as wide a gap between the underlying health of the economy and public perception. The divergence could be a decisive factor in whether the Democrat secures a second term next year. Republicans are seizing on the dissatisfaction to skewer Biden, while the White House is finding less success as it tries to highlight economic progress.
“Things are getting better and people think things are going to get worse — and that’s the most dangerous piece of this," said Democratic pollster Celinda Lake, who has worked with Biden. Lake said voters no longer want to just see inflation rates fall — rather, they want an outright decline in prices, something that last happened on a large scale during the Great Depression.
“Honestly, I’m kind of mystified by it,” she said.
Not going to disagree, however, do you think adding 7 trillion dollars to the economy, avoiding any climate change action or corporate price gouging has had any effect on workers frustrations? It takes time to resolve these problems. We have been digging this hole ever since Reagan. Do we want to elect the alternative to dig faster?
If the message was “things are slowly getting better, but there’s a ways to go, and we’ll keep pushing if you elect us” it would be one thing.
But when the message is “What’s wrong with you ungrateful plebs?!” it tends to piss people off.