Opinion | Voters punished Biden for problems he didn’t cause and effectively addressed
Opinion | Voters punished Biden for problems he didn’t cause and effectively addressed
The fight against rising prices has essentially been won. But few in the electorate seem aware.
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.
I am so God damn sick of reading articles from pundits who think they can just numbers-and-statistics away people's financial experience. Listen to this shit:
America has recovered more quickly and more completely than almost any comparable country. As The Economist put it, “The American economy has left other rich countries in the dust.” Real wages have risen fastest for those at the bottom of the income scale. Today, inflation is at 2.4%, compared with the 9.1% peak in June 2022. The fight against rising prices has essentially been won.
But few in the electorate seem aware...
Wow, the electorate sounds like a bunch of dipshits. But just for the hell of it, let's check their source for the wages of the bottom income scale. According to the Economic Policy Institute, real wages grew 13.2% between 2019 and 2023. Now, inflation was 19.2% during that period, but "real wage," means, "wage adjusted for inflation," so I guess the author is right. The lowest income earners got a raise during the Biden years. Guess the poor are a bunch of dipshits.
But which of Biden's policies led to these increases in wages? Well, the Economic Policy Institute says:
Between 2019 and 2023, state-level minimum wage increases along with a tight labor market have translated into faster real wage growth for low-wage workers, particularly faster growth in states (and D.C.) that increased their minimum wage during this period.
So, it sounds like the wages went up because of a competitive labor market (which the Fed intentionally killed to combat inflation) and minimum wage increases at the state level, and that states that increased their minimum wages saw more of that growth than others. So, you could make an argument that Biden deserves little credit for this increase, but let's not even worry about that. Let's see look at the minimum wage by state.
The EPI has a handy Minimum Wage Tracker that color-codes states by their state minimum wage against the federal minimum wage. A quick glance shows you the states with the highest minimum wage are mostly states that went to Harris. But what's really interesting is that, of the 7 key battleground states that Harris lost, 4 of them (Georgia, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin) have the same minimum wage as the federal minimum of $7.25, a starvation wage that hasn't been raised since 2009. So it's not unreasonable to assume that in more than half the key states Harris needed win saw the smallest share of that 13.2%, but did see prices increase by 19.2%.
Now, I'm not an economist, and I don't have hours to research this shit, so it's entirely possible that I'm missing a lot of nuance regarding cost of living and non-minimum wage increases in these states. But that's not the point. The point is that I've already spent more time and energy examining why people might not feel good about the economy than the sneering chud that wrote this article. And I'll end this tirade with one last quote from the EPI report he cited:
Wage rates remain insufficient for individuals and families working to make ends meet. Nowhere can a worker at the 10th percentile of the wage distribution earn enough to meet a basic family budget.
Honestly Democrat are absolutely horrible at talking to people.
I'll be the first to admit, Biden did actually do a lot for workers but just like the leader of the painters union said, y'all fucking suck at telling people that.
I mean look at the rail workers strike, Biden stopped the rail workers strike and didn't address one of the biggest things they were looking for, just to be treated like humans and have sick leave.
There was lots of talk about "doing this for the best of the nation", which okay I could get behind, sure they got a wage increase but I did as shit could understand why rank and file would feel betrayed when they were asking additional to be treated as humans that get sick.
What I didn't hear him or anyone say to them directly, that he was still going to work with the unions afterwards to get sick leave in. Why would you not say that at the same time as you announce your blocking the strike? Cost you nothing to say you have their back.
So then months later, with Biden administration support finally got the workers PTO but no one really knew about it because the moment was gone and honestly union leadership also did a shit job of getting that word out too.
It's not the only thing but it certainly is a big factor in things.
Voters are pretty stupid. Seriously, the misinformation and willful ignorance on display is breathtaking.
…no.
The DNC brain trust thought they could get away with ignoring an absolutely fucking HUGE part of their base. And they were fucking WRECKED for it.
Trump got just about the same number of votes as he did in the last election. Harris got 11M less votes than Biden got. ELEVEN. MILLION. PEOPLE. STAYED THE FUCK HOME. BECAUSE THEY SAW THE ESTABLISHMENT CIRCLEJERK. AND HARRIS FUCKING LEANED INTO IT. AND IGNORED THE VERY FUCKING REAL LIVED EXPERIENCE OF THE MIDDLE CLASS GETTING HOLLOWED OUT, AND THE LOWER CLASS CONTINUING TO GET CRUSHED TO DEATH.
And now we get to listen to pundits and DNC leadership and Biden admin people and Harris campaign people circlejerk themselves about how it wasn’t their fault, it was those goddamn progressives and the stupid Arab Americans who cared about Gaza too much.
Genuinely: fuck all the way off with that narrative. the Democratic Party snatched this defeat from the jaws of victory. There was a path to victory. They simply didn’t fucking take it.
Americans are misinformed because the media has been destroyed by financial incentives and the capital class.
Let voters get what they deserve.
Republican voters are the biggest simps for big business that I’ve ever seen. It’s like if slaves in America cheered on the confederacy during the Civil War.
Consider this.
A few weeks before the election Donald Trump and Elon Musk had a little circle jerk podcast interview with each other. They spent time talking about how anti-union they are and how much they hate worker’s rights. Then working class Americans went out in droves and voted for those two rich assholes who openly talked about wishing workers had less rights.
We made a guy who was the first president in U.S. history to stand on a picket line with striking workers step down because he was old. Then we hired another equally old rich guy who openly talks about wishing workers had less rights.
Americans. Are. Stupid.
Our situation isn’t going to get better any time soon. For those of us who aren't boomers, we're basically locked into a lifetime of economic hardship.
Yeah, because Americans are dumb and willfully ignorant.
We need more political literacy in this country.
It's not even a propaganda problem, per se, because most people aren't obsessively following the news and economic reports.
It's how they feel about money.
That was the biggest single issue.
People looked at grocery store prices and said, this is nuts, I was paying half this just four years ago.
It doesn't matter to them that global inflation skyrocketed along with inflation in the US, or that we're doing better than the rest of the world right now. They want to see prices go down, even though that would be deflation, which is incredibly bad for an economy.
This is not a messaging problem it's a measurement problem. The metrics we use to gauge economic progress and/or health are not effective indicators of anyone's experience but the wealthy. When Dems tell me wages have gone up so income inequality is getting better what they mean is that new jobs are on average offering slightly higher pay to new hires.
They don't say that slightly higher pay is 5 cents an hour which is practically useless. They don't acknowledge that this tiny wage increase is dwarfed by the impacts of inflation over the last 4 years. Worst of all, they don't say that because this wage increase only applies to new hires, anyone working the same job for more than a couple of years hasn't seen a wage increase at all, but that price gouging has definitely impacted them. That last one is important because it applies to a huge chunk of people.
This is just the way it works out with wages but basically everything these pundits are saying is great under Biden could be described the same way. They're talking about averages which when applied to 330 million people produce numbers that sound significant, but when you look at almost any individual it doesn't make a practical difference in their lives. Sure, you may have slowed the rate at which things are getting worse, but are you honestly surprised at this reaction? You're telling people you solved their problems and they're responding "no, you absolutely did not and fuck you for saying that"
Opinion: Authors that proclaim voters "need to be more educated" should maybe be forced to buy a book on how politics work... have always worked, since the beginning of time.
Then: as they quite clearly don't know how to use a book properly they should shove that book as far up their asses as it can go.
The only way forward for the people of America is to leave both corrupted corporate parties behind.
Marginally addressed. Like I get it. He's better than Trump, but so is 50% of the average person I see outside. There is no effectively addressed, when we know the tested, studied, and actually implemented solutions.
For example: The ACA. Yes an improvement from what came before but a quarter baked bandaid on the bullet wound of a health care system. We know universal health care system is the answer. It's a fact. The Democratic party never once made that a core part of their platform. Even if you know you won't get everything when working in a democracy you still have to argue from a far left position so when you compromise it's a stronger shift. The middle ground between universal health care coverage and 100% free market is the public option. Where Americans can decide between government coverage or private. But the ACA essentially forced everyone above the poverty line into private insurance held up by government subsidies.
Another example: instead of being 100% anti genicide the Democrat leadership landed on reducing the sizes of bombs given to Isreal?! What's the middle ground between the 100% pro genicide party and the 75% genicide party? Ya ones better but if we land on a compromise of 87% genicide, did we really achieve anything?
Income inequality: Republicans 100% pro oligarchy Democratic party leadership is 75% pro oligarchy. The party of facts and science knows our economy with collapse every 20 to 30 years to keep the jinga Tower from crumbling to the foundation so what do they do? Bail out the companies that destroyed the economy in the first place and reset the lopsided tower. If we bail out a company why shouldn't it also be nationalized?!
I can keep going on. Every issue the Democratic party's solutions are little more than the queen saying, "let them eat cake."
I live in a solid blue state and surround myself with far left people because we've realized, expecting the federal government to improve your life is a fools errand. We're building our own bubble of compassion, science, and facts. Yes we vote blue but know the only change we can truly make starts by getting involved in our community and surrounding ourselves with those that will fight from a strong position and not a already right leaning position. If we're going to die it'll be with a Molotov cocktails in one hand and surround by those that actually care about each other. Opposed to at the feet of the oligarchy begging for crumbs.
Opinion: I Lost Because I Didn't Do Anything Wrong and Have no Lessons to Learn
No, voters punished Biden for his inability to effectively communicate what he’s done to help them. This has been a consistent problem with the democrats, and with corporate media. Democrats need better spokespeople and better messaging.
They also need to stop catering to the ultra rich and moderate republicans because that shit turns off the base faster than crap messaging. There is no “liz cheney, nikki hayley” constituency as we saw last Tuesday.
Yes and no. I agree they solved the problems, but there was no fixing high prices even if inflation rate was brought down.
It's like when Kamala was asked "was there anything you'd do differently?" The problem was she actually answered the question. The administration made the right choices, so there was little different she would have done. She should have done the politician thing and answered adjacently how she's going to solve high prices.
Biden (and the rest of us) is being punished for the mistake of not making prosecuting trump and overturning his last 4 years the #1 priority.
biden getting flak over inflation is fucking hilarious.
The fed is literally irrelevant to the president, the president does not control inflation. Sure maybe his spending increased inflation. But the entire global economy was at a practical stand still. If you think getting a seized ICE working again is hard, try it with a global economy.
You can bitch all you want about inflation, but at the end of the day, nobody really knows what the right solution here was. We could've gone through another great depression event if not for global stimulus. And a few years of bad inflation and high costs will beat literally starving.
His adminstration may have not created them. But the neoliberal Democrats that he represents did going all the way back to Clinton.
He also only deployed half measures or dragged his feet all the way until the last minute.
Historically, presidents take credit and the blame for things they didn't do. Economic policy is one example. They actual economic changes take time to really be felt on main street. Very often those changes occur just before they take office or after they leave.
And despite presidential elections being the SB and WS all tied into one competition, the real path to controlling the government is through the house and senate. But THOSE elections aren't as cool.
Americans are gonna swing back and forth between the major parties until elections eventually stop happening. Mark my words.
Democracy fails when most people, rather than being informed are stuck in their social network bubble ruts. Democracy fails when nothing is done to fight disinformation in social networks. Democracy fails when the most popular social networks can be bought up by the richest man to be used for electoral interference without any repercussions. Democracy fails when it elects convicted felons. The US is too far gone, and is too powerful and influential for any peaceful transition from those countries that didn't want to be enshittified.
Biden and Co talked down to the working class like Obama did black men and kept insisting we are not financially struggling. We are doing well and there's no reason to be concerned. He lied, we saw through the lie and his party lost
Opinion: nobody cares wall street made more profits. Democrats are lying when they play their economy card. Real people lost purchasing power.
Lowering inflation doesn't lower prices, and prices are what voters actually care about.
Prices won't be going down under Trump either, though, so I'm not sure how much credit Trump will get.
How can Democrats improve their communication strategies to counter misinformation? Edited by slope game 1 day ago
Well given that nobody is entitled to our votes I’m not sure if it makes sense to refer to withholding votes as a punishment.
Opinion: discarded.
As is historically the case in this country
The article doesn't mention any issues related to policy, which made a lot of people not vote for the democrats.
What he did do was miniscule. The only good thing that I can think of is some of the student loan forgiveness.
Did Biden take on the illegal price gouging that Walmart and Target participated in during Covid? The thing that is directly causing Americans so much financial stress?
No it did not.
This is just another lie from the DNC blue dog propaganda machine trying to blame anything but itself for the loss.
https://docs.house.gov/meetings/JU/JU05/20220119/114345/HHRG-117-JU05-Wstate-NeedlerM-20220119.pdf
To be fair, Trump is a complete disaster, but to claim that Biden did a decent job is a compete fabrication.
because trump and putin ran a very loud and constant disinformation campaign aimed at the rural/retired/inflation weary people that were the most vulnerable to it
Biden wasn’t running
Yep, exactly this. People kept acting like this was the worst economy ever, and, seriously....wtaf.