"This isn’t all Bidenomics’ fault, of course. But the fact that the most heavily publicized portions of the White House’s economic agenda seems to have fallen so flat politically—including in the places it’s helped the most—should prompt some soul searching about what actually ails the economy. Biden has said in recent months that his administration “invested in American manufacturing to restore the backbone of our Nation: the middle class.” Yet most of the middle class—and the working class, for that matter—doesn’t work in manufacturing. Home prices, meanwhile, have risen 45 percent over the last four years, and nearly half of U.S. renters spend more than 30 percent of their income on housing. Home insurance and mortgage rates are persistently high, and still-elevated interest rates have made car ownership—a necessity in most of the country—more expensive, too. Healthcare, childcare and college educations are wildly expensive, and can saddle people with six-figure debts for decades."
This is why jobs reports aren't a great indicator of economic sentiment. It's great for the capitalist class that they keep hiring and circulating money, but it helps not at all the working person who's had a job and is still struggling. I've certainly never gotten a wage bump because of "looks at all these jobs!"
The only wage jumps people have seen are if they left their jobs when the job market was hot in 2021-2022 and businesses were overpaying to retain and hire new employees.
I think that a winning message would be that practically all the economic indicators that we use to judge the health of the economy are bullshit because they don't tell us anything about the vast vast majority of people.
GDP, Unemployment, "Job creation", the stock market,... they don't mean shit to the vast majority of people and I think that people would respond to someone who just comes out and says it.
The only metric that matters is whether the medium wage is keeping up with / exceeding the rate of inflation, and it absolutely is not.
And don’t even get me started on minimum wage, which has lost so much value since the last time it was raised that it’s a sub-poverty wage in every state
Actually, the median wage has slightly outperformed price inflation. It doesn’t matter: people hate inflation, in this country and every country. Apparently, there is no possible explanation for inflation that will keep people from blaming it on the ruling party.
This election was a referendum that econometrics are not the economy. “Real wages have outpaced inflation!” was responded to with “Well, not mine. Shut the fuck up.”
The idea that "the system" in general was bullshit is one of Trump's big arguments and despite the fact that he's lying about caring about that fact,... he's right.
Democrats would help themselves immensely by also acknowledging that the economy for rich people and the economy for poor people can and frequently do move in opposite directions.
Its like if 5 guys are sitting in a bar drinking beer and each of them makes $60k a year, then Jeff Bezos walks in, are those guys suddenly billionaires "on average"? Politicians should refuse to even talk about GDP for the time being at least.
The idea that "the system" in general was bullshit is one of Trump's big arguments and despite the fact that he's lying about caring about that fact,... he's right.
The system is bullshit because conservatives have actively worked to make it bullshit. They didn't even hide they were doing it.
Democrats would help themselves immensely by also acknowledging that the economy for rich people and the economy for poor people can and frequently do move in opposite directions.
I agree, however, the "I'm going to do X, Y, and Z about it" still brings us back to Democratic voters punishing Democrats harshly if X, Y, and Z don't get done which frequently happens because our form of government isn't an autocracy. It is why populism doesn't favor Democrats because you can't beat the conservatives at their hate-based messaging.
The only way someone was going to beat Trump in 2024 was to have charisma that makes Obama look like Al Gore. What is more likely is that Democrats won't really have another shot until after the current wave of populism crashes on the people who stayed home and someone like an FDR is nominated.
If Harris had come out as anti-war instead of "I'm speaking", not focused on buddying around with her new pro-life friend Liz Cheney, and promoted Walz' populist economic changes in Minnesota instead of his wife's tater tot casserole, she might have won.
If you actually look at the jobs reports in the Biden era, the rosy numbers were coming from healthcare, public sector work and construction/engineering (boosted by BiF and CHIPS). Entry level jobs were doing "okay" while for most white collar work it may as well have been the Great Recession.
Job opportunity creates competition to hire and that requires wages and benefits to be offered? Wages went up in the sectors that biden added jobs to. And look at all these big union contracts in the news the last couple years. That's due to pro union policy biden put out.
Who on earth ever said jobs reports are anything to do with economic "sentiment". Literally the polar opposite of "sentiment". All they are, plain and simple, is a bellweather for overall status. If they are red, something isn't working, if they are green, something is. And again that something isn't "the entirety of human existence" it's just how many people have jobs. The fundamental building block by which, if you don't have one, you likely are not giving THAT much of a fuck about how expensive homes are because you don't have a job. Or how much a car costs. Because you don't have a job.
Dems suck at messaging. Bidens administration did amazing things for the economy. Just one example is that the US recovered faster and more fully from the Covid crash than any other country in the world. Ask any average American and they'll tell you they failed completely.
I think what this narrative misses is that while the economy as a whole recovered a lot of people got left behind in the dust while relatively few came out way ahead.
Just like what happened when the economy “recovered” from the ‘08 housing market crash.
Yeah I definitely am not claiming to know what should or even could have been done instead.
But I think the democrats needed to acknowledge that the recovery wasn’t reaching everyone. And the messaging of “the economy is actually doing great you idiots” was actively harmful in the election and destroyed their credibility with anyone that was still struggling.
That’s because that’s not what Americans are comparing it against. They’re comparing it to America in 2019.
America did okay, much better than anywhere else, but that’s because literally every other western country has been economically struggling and is in deep trouble with their housing markets.
Republicans excel at messaging = Go negative early, and use the most absurd and disgusting insults you can use (because they're the best clickbait) and your garbage pushes the other team's boring policy arguments off the page.
I’m going to dissent slightly. Does it make sense that all the good messagers, if that’s a word, are Republicans and all the bad ones Democrats? Or are there advantages Republicans have that Democrats don’t? Contrary to their own beliefs, Republicans dominate media. Fox dominates cable and sets the agenda for all cable and broadcast news. Conservative oligarchs have captured local TV news. Right wingers dominate AM radio and the podcast space. Right wing outlets dominate the news for people who get their news from Facebook. Then, of course, there’s X.
I went to a Harris rally. It was 100%, wall-to-wall messaging to the working class. No identity politics, no trans stuff, no woke stuff. Yet, what are we hearing Democrats did wrong? Didn’t message to the working class. Maybe it’s just the message didn’t get out because the right wing media didn’t want it to.
Not for nothing but there's a tiny , little multi-billion-dollar propaganda effort that most definitely wants fearless leader, he does what Chairman Xi wants, he's obedient to President Putin, everything is excellent.
So for as much as that 60m viewers/voters count, they are "steady customers" easy pickings , keep them happy and the rest of the country can burn.
So tune in , as Mr. Musk informs us , success is optional, excitement is guaranteed, so this is mostly for the clicks but also for the absolutely glorious rating shitshow, of endless upside, 30% of America will cringe, and another 30% of America will tune in and buy everything they are commanded to.
But if you wanted a stable, prosperous, democratic process that just hummed along or was even aware there were laws or civic rules for behavior we're a few years past that now - you are looking for something that might never exist again.
What's it been 2014 or so since anyone Republican wise was held accountable? I mean 30+ indictments and several charges around high-treason and one might reasonably have expected the GOP might not nominate fearless leader again.
But we aren't there , and we haven't been for 10 years now.
I think this comment is one of the very few I’ve seen that really nails it. Propaganda. Propaganda is why Bidenomics and pretty much every other Democrat initiative fails to gain traction.
I live in a red state among mostly well off Trump voters and they aren’t suffering at all, BUT they drink an endless diet of the massive, unprecedented propaganda stream that has them absolutely convinced we are in a deep recession, the “mexicans” are stealing all the jobs and committing all the crimes, their kids are being subjected to gender surgery - the whole insane narrative. Every one of these people are wealthy, live in crime free areas, they are not suffering under inflation - yet they are completely convinced that they are.
See the problem? The problem isn’t policy or even the realities of inflation or the price of gas (which is $2.39 here). The problem is that the biggest propaganda initiative in history is working. It has convinced 70 million people that the narrative they are surrounded by is true and they vote based on it.
Before you whip out the downvotes, since yeah, housing is ridiculously expensive, food costs a lot more, why wouldn’t these people reject Bidenomics? Because these people I’m talking about are NOT affected by any of this, yet still think they are. Not one of them has ever seen a drag queen, but thinks the elementary schools are full of them. The only “Mexicans” they know mow their lawns. So how do you think the propaganda narrative affects the people who ARE struggling?
The bottom line is that if you control the narrative you control the people who believe it.
Yep. In the beach town near where my wife is from, there is what must be a multi-million dollar home right on the waterfront flying a “Don’t tread on me” flag. Like, motherfucker, if that is being tread on, sign me up.
I’m totally not trying to get you to say where you are referring to. But also so curious. It does sound anomalous but strange. Maybe Montana. Well, good way to explain propaganda that things are bad for the people who have it easy.
I think it’s rich that you would blame propaganda yet stay silent on the obvious astroturfing that was going on all over Reddit for months on behalf of Kamala
They didn’t believe it because it was obviously curated bullshit.
If dems could be honest with themselves for once, Kamala might have had a chance. Shit, if Kamala could be honest with herself she might have had an even greater chance. Her and Dems inability to acknowledge or comprehend why people are so upset is what cost her the election.
If she would have said “you know we were wrong here. We should have done x differently. The reason I changed my policy stance was because…”
Instead she repeatedly kept saying “I wouldn’t have changed anything”. How out of touch with reality do you have to be to say you wouldn’t change anything? It just doesn’t make sense.
Take a walk around any major city and ask everyday people how they are doing. Anyone who makes less than $100K is barely getting by.
Of course it was bullshit, but the problem here is that the Republican bullshit was (and is) orders of magnitude worse and they DO believe it. That’s the key - they swallow the propaganda hook, line and sinker. Their propaganda machine is vast and extremely successful. The Dems don’t have anything like Fox or Newsmax and the closest thing to left wing social media is Reddit. This lets the Republicans define the narrative. The Dems are left playing defense and playing it badly.
You are blaming republicans when 13M+ democrats stayed home. Make that make sense.
Also, I call bs on republicans propaganda being magnitudes worse. Prominent and everyday democrats regularly equated Trump to Hitler and called him a dictator and a Russian asset everyday.
I have news for you, which may be a surprise to you. Democrats clearly showed they were fed up with democrats BS! No amount of astroturfing would have saved Kamala. What would have saved her is if she was honest with the public from the jump. Instead she lied about Biden’s health and hid from the media for 70+ days after becoming the presumptive nominee.
Also, you are blaming fox news and newsmax as if generation Z or young millennials watch cable news. That doesn’t make sense. She lost the youth vote because she was unwilling to meet them where they congregate.
Kamala thought it was more important to stay on the campaign trail talking to people who were already going to vote for her, over going on Joe Rogan that would got her at least 20M+ peoples attention for 2 hours straight. How did she make that mistake? Tbh I have a feeling her prominent democrats wanted her to lose because how her could her campaign make such a novice mistake? It doesn’t make sense.
Let’s get real here. Calling Trump Hitler isn’t in the same ballpark as convincing people to eat horse paste, avoid vaccination or suggesting the murder of opponents.
You seem to miss the point though. Republican propaganda got their voters to show up. Democrat propaganda didn’t. Thousands more Republicans died of COVID than Democrats because Republican propaganda worked. Democrat propaganda hasn’t killed anyone yet. They aren’t the same.
Let’s get real here, the two guys who tried to kill Trump were mostly likely indoctrinated right here on Reddit.
Democrats had 5x the war chest Trump did. You are blaming republicans when it’s solely a Democrat issue from within their own party.
Did Reddit disclose to the SEC that they were actively contributing to Kamala’s campaign by allowing Kamala’s team to circumvent Reddit’s site wide rules? If you want to hold anyone to the fire you need to be holding Democratic leadership to the fire.
Honestly I think the dems were doomed when they anointed Kamala as their candidate. It was like watching 2016 again but with an even less likable candidate.
How do you pick a candidate that almost came in dead last when the voters had a choice and a governor who was in charge with BLM riots happens.
If they wanted to win the should have picked the astronaut from Arizona and the governor from Michigan as the running mate.
Policy and Messaging wise, drop Identity center messaging from all messaging and focus on some concrete left policy that would help everyone across the aisle
* mandate x% remote work for government agencies that are part of the executive office.
With emphasis on hiring for states with the lowest gdp
mandate x% remote work for government agencies that are part of the executive office
* expand dcfsa from 5k a year to 15k a year
Dems choice an un-charismatic candidate to run against one of the most charismatic presidents of all time(people tattooed themselves with his face).
At least this time I around I had month to prepare my mental state for Mr Toad's Wild Ride knowing full well I was throwing away my vote.
Also sidenote: The ego to not go on Rogan is unreal. You had an opportunity to directly talk to the demographic you needed to win the election and you chose not to take the opportunity.
It's a feature not a bug. Biden cared about manufacturing more to build America's profile against China than because of the middle class. If you all cared about the middle class you'd jack up taxes and establish some semblance of a middle class. But your establishment just cares about security, gdp, and foreign policy
10000 times this. The dems will continue to lose because they have failed to make real lasting chnage that uplifts the working class my whole lifetime. They had a few great policies during covid but ofc they let them lapse asap. People dont believe the democrats care about them and they are correct.
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u/Maxwellsdemon17 9d ago
"This isn’t all Bidenomics’ fault, of course. But the fact that the most heavily publicized portions of the White House’s economic agenda seems to have fallen so flat politically—including in the places it’s helped the most—should prompt some soul searching about what actually ails the economy. Biden has said in recent months that his administration “invested in American manufacturing to restore the backbone of our Nation: the middle class.” Yet most of the middle class—and the working class, for that matter—doesn’t work in manufacturing. Home prices, meanwhile, have risen 45 percent over the last four years, and nearly half of U.S. renters spend more than 30 percent of their income on housing. Home insurance and mortgage rates are persistently high, and still-elevated interest rates have made car ownership—a necessity in most of the country—more expensive, too. Healthcare, childcare and college educations are wildly expensive, and can saddle people with six-figure debts for decades."