No. of Recommendations: 4
<<albaby quoting Chait: "People prefer to believe their wage gains are a credit to their own skill and that inflation is the government’s fault."
This--although I would substitute "income" for "wage gains." That is, I'd say that the income growth need not come literally from an increase in wages. It can be investment income, lotto winnings, or (what may have mattered to many voters this time, whether they know it or not) "helicopter money" in the form of short-term COVID relief checks and tax credits. Voters (and humans generally) will attribute pretty much anything and everything good to their own character and ingenuity (google: "fundamental attribution error").
Although the precise timing of the comparison in voters' minds is probably not "are you better off than you were four years ago" or (my preferred time span) "one year ago", it is the case that (my preferred statistic) RDPI, which is real (i.e., inflation-adjusted) disposable (i.e., after-tax) personal income per capita spiked early in 2021, then plummeted, and has only slowly recovered.
This chart speaks volumes:
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/A229RX0#0I agree that the Biden administration's effort to "explain" to voters that they're actually doing fine was politically dumb, even if not inaccurate.
Do voters "hate" inflation, per se? I would say not, so long as the money keeps flowing in to them to more than make up for the price rises. But that's a moot point regarding to this election, because it didn't.
Add in the short time period that Harris had to let (enough) voters get comfortable with her, and the fact that she's a brown-skinned female, and I think you've got most of the story.
The story clearly is NOT Trump's popularity. He's not popular, not even among many Trump voters. And it's not about his "policies," such as they may be. Most voters (and even most Trump voters) favor abortion rights and the ACA. And if they're upset about inflation, then deporting millions of low-wage immigrants, who keep labor costs on food and basic services low, and imposing across-the-board tariffs are exactly the wrong remedies. The bond market is already telling us this.
Heck, my family and I will do just fine financially under such a regime. But that's precisely the point. Most of the everyday voters who cast a ballot for a better life under Trump will suffer real pain, as Elon telegraphed. Will it be "short-term" pain, as he predicts? Perhaps--assuming voters throw out the Trumpys in two or four years and elect some actual Democrats (like Joe Biden), as opposed to neoliberal ones (like too many other ones).
