How Can This Country Possibly Be Electing Trump Again?

[u/ben_watson_jr]

https://newrepublic.com/article/181287/can-america-possibly-elect-trump-again

[u/Hyro0o0]

I can answer in a single sentence, based on observing my coworkers talking about it.

"Everything is more expensive since Biden became President."

That's it. That's why everyone's gonna fuck this up.

[u/AllUltima → u/[deleted]]

Not only that, the US is doing pretty well, considering. Take this BBC article, for example. "Could the US economy be doing too well?" This is mostly the kind of messaging that the democrats need, yet don't have. Hardly anyone is really pushing this kind of message stateside, but the opposition message is sure getting pushed. It's time to stop completely losing the messaging battle.

[u/protendious → u/AllUltima]

The problem is there’s no way to make the argument that simply without coming off tone deaf, because things are more expensive.

It’s hard to explain in a 200 character tweet that inflation was because of post pandemic pent up demand coming up against supply chain issues, combined with a war involving a major oil producer with a major grain exporter. And that inflation has dropped significantly, and is better than any other developing country, and is slower than wage growth now. And that there’s nothing Trump can do to bring prices back to what they were (no matter what he says) and that he also contributed with equal (necessary) COVID spending and (poorly targeted) tax cuts. That’s too much for one tweet.

People mostly vote on vibes. And the vibe is, stuff costs more now than it used to, in a noticeable way. 

[u/protendious → u/[deleted]]

Not sure what you’re talking about in October, the fed has only raised (or kept the same) interest rates for the couple years. Not sure what this course reversal you’re talking about is.

Also, not sure who the “they” that’s “printing money” is. If anything the fed is using quant tightening now to contract the money supply, the exact opposite. 

[u/Melody-Prisca → u/protendious]

This is also the nefarious part of things like the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act having the cuts for the little guy go away in 2025. I guarantee if Biden gets elected, they won't renew them. Though if Trump gets elected, watch all the Republicans vote to renew them, maybe even cut them more (which will just make inflation worse in the long run). It's a horribly corrupt system. They've seemed to realized a lot of their policies take years to reach full effect, and they can blame the next guy on them.

[u/socaljoe42 → u/protendious]

It IS hard to explain these things in a 200-character tweet… which is why the Biden administration should have been using TV to broadcast such messaging, video to keep it in circulation, and 30-50 character tweets to drive people to it. Biden talking to the camera about how “Yes, it’s harder than we’re used to right now,” and “we can get through it TOGETHER,” and “this is what we’re doing and can expect.”

Some of that, and a some better attention to the immigration/border crisis… and they would not be in this situation.

[u/protendious → u/socaljoe42]

-Puts together bill for border, main republican point of alleged interest

-Republicans tank it, Biden still gets blamed 

[u/nockeenockee → u/protendious]

And people are too stupid to do five minutes of analysis to understand how inflation works and how the US is handling it vs the world.

[u/ikatono → u/AllUltima]

Telling people that their financial hardship is all in their head is absolutely not an effective message.

[u/socaljoe42 → u/AllUltima]

It’s WAY past time to even catch up on the messaging battle, let alone stop losing it… early voting starts in 3 months in some places. If Trump wins, it won’t be because of voters, it’ll be because of poor messaging and communication choices by Biden and his advisors over the entire term… they should know better.