4 ms·

> The election was fully determined by inflation. Biden made a reasonable (though incorrect) bet that full employment was more important than price stability.

• tptacek 1y ago
  Right, so, I'm not making a normative claim about the right about of immigration. I don't know if I'd go so far as to call myself an "open borders" person, but I'm very pro-immigration. Pro-immigration in the sense of believing we benefit from the mix of new Americans we get over our southern border, not in the weird doublespeak sense of appreciating skilled immigration from Europe. But from 2021-2023, we experienced a destabilizing sudden amount of immigration. We'd had immigrant-friendly policy during Obama, but I don't recall many dozens of Venezuelan refugees on the doorstep of our Village Hall. Obviously, that happened in large part because southern governors bussed people (often without their informed consent) to northern states. But so what? All that says is that we were experiencing something the southern states had been experiencing all along. My big point here is just: it's not enough to say how strongly you feel about immigration in 2021-2024. Enough people hated it that it motivated a materially important bloc of voters. I disagree with those voters. But I also disagree with people upset about inflation, and I feel like we generally understand that those of us on my side of the employment/inflation question were just, you know, wrong. In an electoral sense.
  • keeda 1y ago
    That makes sense, and I agree with your assessments about the voting population's priorities. But maybe the inflation / immigration aspects were much more intertwined than we realized. Maybe (being very generous to him) Biden didn't do a tradeoff between inflation vs employment... maybe the gamble was that increased immigration would boost the economy enough that citizens were not as bothered by the immigrants. In other words, the very valid "its' the economy stupid" theory would imply that if people can comfortable provide for themselves and their families, they'd be less bothered by what they saw as competition for jobs. Unfortunately time was not on their side, and inflation did not drop fast enough. But there might be another angle. An interesting aspect of the economic sentiment and inflation hysteria preceding the election was that data showed that the majority of Americans thought they themselves were doing well, but other Americans were suffering. So the statistical reality was much better than the statistical perception. This is one reason that led to the term "vibecession" -- data belied the sentiments: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vibecession https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vibecession Many have credibly attributed this phenomenon to all the algorithm-driven ragebait content on social media, and certain news media channels (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vibecession#Media_influence_and_psychological_explanations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vibecession#Media_influence_an...) But maybe we still underestimate the size of that effect: it exploited a critical flaw in an otherwise successful economic strategy -- its reliance on "the outsiders." During the time things were improving but still painful, the perception of these outsiders could be exploited to distract from the improvements happening and foment a backlash. Note it could very well have just happened by accident, but if not... that shows the power of mass perception. The events happening with media platforms leading up to the election may have been (and still are) much more consequential than we realize.
    • _zagj 1y ago
      > Maybe (being very generous to him) Biden didn't do a tradeoff between inflation vs employment... maybe the gamble was that increased immigration would boost the economy enough that citizens were not as bothered by the immigrants. > In other words, the very valid "its' the economy stupid" theory would imply that if people can comfortable provide for themselves and their families, they'd be less bothered by what they saw as competition for jobs. Have you not looked at Canada recently? They've done exactly what you're suggesting, and the result is a country that is now completely unaffordable for Canadians, with the median home price now over $800k. Is that the kind of future you want for Americans?