6 ms·

> You can't have everyone in your party saying "the economy is good, it's growing better than ever, look at all the jobs, etc." while literally no average perso

by jghn 2y ago

> You can't have everyone in your party saying "the economy is good, it's growing better than ever, look at all the jobs, etc." while literally no average person is seeing that. Isn't that literally what happened in his first term? Remember "I built the greatest economy the world has ever seen"? These claims were backed fully and completely by the stock market and not the rank & file. And this is the same situation we find ourselves in now. All these years later we're still in a situation where "the economy" is going gangbusters, but the average person feels left out.

astine 2y ago
Yes, that's true, but the problem is that these past four years have been bad for everybody, so they remember the Trump years as being better than they actually were.
- jghn 2y ago
  > these past four years have been bad for everybody They've been pretty good for some people.
  - enraged_camel 2y ago
    Yeah, if you're a high earner living the urban/suburban life you've probably done really well. The problem is that rural turnout was off the charts last night, which what handed Trump the popular vote - something that has not happened with a Republican candidate since 2004.
    - jghn 2y ago
      I agree. But GP said that everybody was feeling pain. That's not true.
    - nsxwolf 2y ago
      Absolutely not. Inflation hit us very hard and we had to make real lifestyle changes to get back in the black.
      - endemic 2y ago
        I'd love to know the details.
        bcrosby95 2y ago
        We got hit too. We adjusted mostly in our eating habits. Moved to zero eating out, more bulk buying, cheaper foods, etc. We're also much more discriminating on what activities we do for the kids. I'm not gonna go all "woe is me" since we're doing fine, but as someone with a family of 5 the discretionary income basically went to zero the last 4 years.
        nsxwolf 2y ago
        Yes, I was going to come back to say basically all of this. We noticed that not only were we no longer saving money, but we weren't even living paycheck to paycheck and had to make all these sorts of changes and cuts to get off a very bad trajectory.
- purple_ferret 2y ago
  They've been great for US Stock holders, which basically comprises most of the Upper and Upper Middle Class. In fact, so good, people think anything buy 10-20% yearly gains on assets is bad
- throw_that_away 2y ago
  I lost my job a few months back, and I feel like the messaging from Harris/Biden was everything's great! Keep doing whatever is happening. Voted for who spoke to me. Every company I join literally has an arm in Mexico, India, Pakistan, Colombia or Ukraine - and it always started feeling like at any minute those people would have my job. And they do. I want an administration that makes it so that those people don't have my job. And yes, I have always been willing to work for a lot less, but all the other Americans want more and more and more, so that it's expected for a programmer in the US to make 200k, so these companies decide to hire someone in Colombia for 80k. I'll take 100 and work a lot closer than that person in Colombia. But no companies here will listen to that. And I'll do it as someone with 20 years of experience. But the only thing people on the left care about, as usual, are issues that actually don't matter. Yes I get it you want Gay rights and you want Abortion rights, but the reality is those things are not going away in the states you're already in. But on the other side, American people are being pushed into a terrible economic state. Go ahead and not listen, HN doesn't. It's WAAAY to left.
  - anthonypasq 2y ago
    unemployment was at historic lows, you just got unlucky. idk what to tell you man
    - throw_that_away 2y ago
      Exactly what Harris was saying, hence the direction of my vote! Also, 50 job apps and no call backs, this is the WORST economy ever. In 2018, I would submit 3 and get 3 offers at the end of it.
      - anthonypasq 2y ago
        [flagged]
        islanderfun 2y ago
        I think the issue is that when people are desperate (lost job, can't pay for needs, etc) critical thinking can be limited to just short term survival mode. Even if it doesn't make sense big picture wise. Democratic party needs to listen and at the very least fluff up a response that people in this situation feel heard. Even if there nothing they can really do. It's all about appeasing emotions.
class3shock 2y ago
I would say absolutely yes, which is ironic to say the least. I think the fact that he didn't follow through on his promises got lost in the crazyness of the pandemic times but do remember, he did not get re-elected. Also americans don't really think that far back when it comes to presidential elections, they tend to be here and now things.
dcuthbertson 2y ago
> All these years later we're still in a situation where "the economy" is going gangbusters, but the average person feels left out. It doesn't matter. Trump claimed he'd build the greatest economy again. He didn't provide any details on what he plans to do that will actually improve people's lives. He just let people jump to their own happy conclusions.
- phkahler 2y ago
  >> He didn't provide any details on what he plans to do that will actually improve people's lives. He did provide high level detail. He said he'd use tariffs to exclude foreign made stuff, which will necessitate "made in America" and bring manufacturing back. He said he'd balance the budget, which (theoretically) has long-term effects. He said he'd deport illegals, which should reduce demand for housing and hence prices. You can disagree with any of those things, but I don't think it's right to say he didn't offer anything specific.
  - w0m 2y ago
    > I don't think it's right to say he didn't offer anything specific I mean; he offered 'specifics' - they simply didn't make any sense on cursory examination. How to fight inflation? Tariffs! How to make already expensive goods cheaper? Tarriffs! Hell, re: deporting illegals, he didn't even bother to do that his first term, Obama did it at a dramatically higher rate. It's all a "I'll fix everything by doing nothing" smokescreen.
    - stormfather 2y ago
      You're being disingenuous. The closest Republican talking point to reducing inflation was increasing energy production. That is a legitimately deflationary policy. What I think most people don't understand on the left is how far their credibility has fallen with the common person, and is because of attitudes like this. If you actually want to understand this election at all, you have to understand that people on the right feel constantly lied to by institutions and media figures, and disingenuous rebuttals like this don't help, they hurt.
notahacker 2y ago
I think the bigger problem isn't that the Dems didn't try to take credit for growth, but that they didn't point out that actually things weren't that rosy in 2020 and basically conceded the entirely false argument that Trump's term made the economy better and Biden's made it worse. Sure, Trump didn't cause the pandemic, but neither did Biden and the inflation isn't unrelated to Trump's fiscal policy being looser than it needed to be even before the pandemic either, as well as being fundamentally the Fed's job to solve[2]. It's difficult[1] for an incumbent to win by attacking the track record of the last government especially when much of it was factors outside their control, but not impossible, especially since Trump has presented wavering voters with plenty of other reasons not to vote for him. Trump is living proof that excuses work... [1]Not impossible though: an unpopular British government won a majority in 2014 by constantly blaming slow post recession growth on the other party's borrowing five years earlier [2]You can absolutely guarantee that if Trump was in power the US would have experienced at least as much inflation, and he'd have wasted no time in blaming the Fed
- jghn 2y ago
  > I think the bigger problem isn't that the Dems didn't try to take credit for growth, but that they didn't point out that actually things weren't that rosy in 2020 and basically conceded the entirely false argument that Trump's term made the economy better and Biden's made it worse. This is more or less the direction I was heading w/ my post. I don't think it's a messaging issue per se. Rather it's control of the messaging. The economy in general has been on a steady path for a while, despite ups & downs: it's trending towards a bimodal distribution where certain parties are doing quite well and others are doing less well. But what I've seen the last several election cycles is the indicators that dominate what I see on TV, read online, etc swap depending on who is in power. So my expectation is that literally nothing will change yet we'll be hearing about how awesome the economy is for everyone in several months.
- xnx 2y ago
  I agree, but also think the number of voters that have the attention to be influenced by such a nuanced argument is vanishingly small.
8note 2y ago
My prediction is that the next four years won't see any improvement either, and the republicans will similarly be voted out again next election. If "the economy" is going to be fixed, first Congress and the senate will actually have to start passing bills again, but that's probably not happening for another decade
- ttyprintk 2y ago
  The economy is about to become the only 2020-era talking point left. The only Congressional action will be a national abortion ban, which is simply and anticlimactically saying that abortions will be moved to Canada. And the popular vote in this election proves no widespread Democratic party vote tampering. So there will be a day, sometime in 2025, when a critical mass of Trump supporters need to ask, "Who is this Elon Musk guy who I didn't vote for?"

by jghn 2y ago

astine 2y ago

Yes, that's true, but the problem is that these past four years have been bad for everybody, so they remember the Trump years as being better than they actually were.

jghn 2y ago
> these past four years have been bad for everybody They've been pretty good for some people.
- enraged_camel 2y ago
  Yeah, if you're a high earner living the urban/suburban life you've probably done really well. The problem is that rural turnout was off the charts last night, which what handed Trump the popular vote - something that has not happened with a Republican candidate since 2004.
  - jghn 2y ago
    I agree. But GP said that everybody was feeling pain. That's not true.
  - nsxwolf 2y ago
    Absolutely not. Inflation hit us very hard and we had to make real lifestyle changes to get back in the black.
    - endemic 2y ago
      I'd love to know the details.
      - bcrosby95 2y ago
        We got hit too. We adjusted mostly in our eating habits. Moved to zero eating out, more bulk buying, cheaper foods, etc. We're also much more discriminating on what activities we do for the kids. I'm not gonna go all "woe is me" since we're doing fine, but as someone with a family of 5 the discretionary income basically went to zero the last 4 years.
        nsxwolf 2y ago
        Yes, I was going to come back to say basically all of this. We noticed that not only were we no longer saving money, but we weren't even living paycheck to paycheck and had to make all these sorts of changes and cuts to get off a very bad trajectory.
purple_ferret 2y ago
They've been great for US Stock holders, which basically comprises most of the Upper and Upper Middle Class. In fact, so good, people think anything buy 10-20% yearly gains on assets is bad
throw_that_away 2y ago
I lost my job a few months back, and I feel like the messaging from Harris/Biden was everything's great! Keep doing whatever is happening. Voted for who spoke to me. Every company I join literally has an arm in Mexico, India, Pakistan, Colombia or Ukraine - and it always started feeling like at any minute those people would have my job. And they do. I want an administration that makes it so that those people don't have my job. And yes, I have always been willing to work for a lot less, but all the other Americans want more and more and more, so that it's expected for a programmer in the US to make 200k, so these companies decide to hire someone in Colombia for 80k. I'll take 100 and work a lot closer than that person in Colombia. But no companies here will listen to that. And I'll do it as someone with 20 years of experience. But the only thing people on the left care about, as usual, are issues that actually don't matter. Yes I get it you want Gay rights and you want Abortion rights, but the reality is those things are not going away in the states you're already in. But on the other side, American people are being pushed into a terrible economic state. Go ahead and not listen, HN doesn't. It's WAAAY to left.
- anthonypasq 2y ago
  unemployment was at historic lows, you just got unlucky. idk what to tell you man
  - throw_that_away 2y ago
    Exactly what Harris was saying, hence the direction of my vote! Also, 50 job apps and no call backs, this is the WORST economy ever. In 2018, I would submit 3 and get 3 offers at the end of it.
    - anthonypasq 2y ago
      [flagged]
      - islanderfun 2y ago
        I think the issue is that when people are desperate (lost job, can't pay for needs, etc) critical thinking can be limited to just short term survival mode. Even if it doesn't make sense big picture wise. Democratic party needs to listen and at the very least fluff up a response that people in this situation feel heard. Even if there nothing they can really do. It's all about appeasing emotions.

class3shock 2y ago

I would say absolutely yes, which is ironic to say the least. I think the fact that he didn't follow through on his promises got lost in the crazyness of the pandemic times but do remember, he did not get re-elected. Also americans don't really think that far back when it comes to presidential elections, they tend to be here and now things.

dcuthbertson 2y ago

> All these years later we're still in a situation where "the economy" is going gangbusters, but the average person feels left out. It doesn't matter. Trump claimed he'd build the greatest economy again. He didn't provide any details on what he plans to do that will actually improve people's lives. He just let people jump to their own happy conclusions.

phkahler 2y ago
>> He didn't provide any details on what he plans to do that will actually improve people's lives. He did provide high level detail. He said he'd use tariffs to exclude foreign made stuff, which will necessitate "made in America" and bring manufacturing back. He said he'd balance the budget, which (theoretically) has long-term effects. He said he'd deport illegals, which should reduce demand for housing and hence prices. You can disagree with any of those things, but I don't think it's right to say he didn't offer anything specific.
- w0m 2y ago
  > I don't think it's right to say he didn't offer anything specific I mean; he offered 'specifics' - they simply didn't make any sense on cursory examination. How to fight inflation? Tariffs! How to make already expensive goods cheaper? Tarriffs! Hell, re: deporting illegals, he didn't even bother to do that his first term, Obama did it at a dramatically higher rate. It's all a "I'll fix everything by doing nothing" smokescreen.
  - stormfather 2y ago
    You're being disingenuous. The closest Republican talking point to reducing inflation was increasing energy production. That is a legitimately deflationary policy. What I think most people don't understand on the left is how far their credibility has fallen with the common person, and is because of attitudes like this. If you actually want to understand this election at all, you have to understand that people on the right feel constantly lied to by institutions and media figures, and disingenuous rebuttals like this don't help, they hurt.

notahacker 2y ago

I think the bigger problem isn't that the Dems didn't try to take credit for growth, but that they didn't point out that actually things weren't that rosy in 2020 and basically conceded the entirely false argument that Trump's term made the economy better and Biden's made it worse. Sure, Trump didn't cause the pandemic, but neither did Biden and the inflation isn't unrelated to Trump's fiscal policy being looser than it needed to be even before the pandemic either, as well as being fundamentally the Fed's job to solve[2]. It's difficult[1] for an incumbent to win by attacking the track record of the last government especially when much of it was factors outside their control, but not impossible, especially since Trump has presented wavering voters with plenty of other reasons not to vote for him. Trump is living proof that excuses work... [1]Not impossible though: an unpopular British government won a majority in 2014 by constantly blaming slow post recession growth on the other party's borrowing five years earlier [2]You can absolutely guarantee that if Trump was in power the US would have experienced at least as much inflation, and he'd have wasted no time in blaming the Fed

jghn 2y ago
> I think the bigger problem isn't that the Dems didn't try to take credit for growth, but that they didn't point out that actually things weren't that rosy in 2020 and basically conceded the entirely false argument that Trump's term made the economy better and Biden's made it worse. This is more or less the direction I was heading w/ my post. I don't think it's a messaging issue per se. Rather it's control of the messaging. The economy in general has been on a steady path for a while, despite ups & downs: it's trending towards a bimodal distribution where certain parties are doing quite well and others are doing less well. But what I've seen the last several election cycles is the indicators that dominate what I see on TV, read online, etc swap depending on who is in power. So my expectation is that literally nothing will change yet we'll be hearing about how awesome the economy is for everyone in several months.
xnx 2y ago
I agree, but also think the number of voters that have the attention to be influenced by such a nuanced argument is vanishingly small.

8note 2y ago

My prediction is that the next four years won't see any improvement either, and the republicans will similarly be voted out again next election. If "the economy" is going to be fixed, first Congress and the senate will actually have to start passing bills again, but that's probably not happening for another decade

ttyprintk 2y ago
The economy is about to become the only 2020-era talking point left. The only Congressional action will be a national abortion ban, which is simply and anticlimactically saying that abortions will be moved to Canada. And the popular vote in this election proves no widespread Democratic party vote tampering. So there will be a day, sometime in 2025, when a critical mass of Trump supporters need to ask, "Who is this Elon Musk guy who I didn't vote for?"