Bidenomics Is a Political Bust for Biden

On the perils of running a feel-good tour of America when the country is down in the dumps.

To hear President Biden tell it, everything is going great. G.D.P. is up, the deficit is down. Semiconductors are being made in the U.S.A. again. Bridges and tunnels and roads are being fixed. There’s even, unlikely as it sounds, a manufacturing boom. During an appearance on Wednesday in Pueblo, Colorado, Biden touted all he’s done for that corner of southeastern Colorado. The event was held at a wind-turbine factory, where eight hundred and fifty new jobs had been created courtesy of his signature Inflation Reduction Act. Funding from his beloved infrastructure bill had brought in a new water pipeline to serve fifty thousand people and affordable high-speed Internet for local Native American communities. In theory, this was an official Presidential appearance; in practice, it had the feel of a campaign rally as Biden mocked Republicans for voting against all these good works—and then claiming credit for them anyway. Lauren Boebert, the district’s far-right representative, he said, is “one of the leaders of this extreme maga movement,” who called the Inflation Reduction Act a “massive failure.” “You all know you’re part of a massive failure?” he asked sarcastically, to laughs and cheers.

The speech was the latest in Biden’s nationwide “Bidenomics” tour. Since June, in dozens of appearances, he has trotted out variations on the celebratory message that his Administration has, against the odds, managed to revive the economy after the disruptions of the pandemic. “Bidenomics” banners festoon his appearances—they were hung on stage at the Colorado factory—and the slogan appears on the White House’s Web site when Biden’s speeches are live-streamed. “Folks, things are changing,” Biden proclaimed in Colorado. He concluded his pep talk with a vow: “We’re moving, folks. We are moving, and no one’s going to stop us.”

But there’s a problem. Bidenomics, at least as a political slogan, is a bust. The concept grew out of a classic Washington lament: We’ve done so much—if only the voters knew about it, surely we’d get credit. The experiment, however, has not worked.

The full article can be read at The New Yorker.

Democrats Don’t Have to Settle for Battling to a Draw

With stakes so high, challenging our Democratic establishment ‘extremists’ and cultural elites is a start.

The election results surprised many pundits and Republicans, but not those who were following the surveys conducted by Democracy Corps and the articles I wrote for the Prospect. They showed the Democrats with a small lead in the generic House vote in September. That slipped to a tie and 2-point deficit with October’s likely voters. With 107 million votes counted, Democrats are losing the House by a 3-point margin. The surveys showed the potential for African Americans, Hispanics, and Asians to disappoint those looking for an engaged base.

The very low turnout of African Americans and Hispanics was not surprising and likely cost us a greater Senate majority (one that might have been willing to get rid of the filibuster) and House control.

Many were relieved that Democrats defied history. I was angry.

We are at a moment where Democrats have a policy offer that makes lives appreciably better. Republicans just decry inflation and Democrats. They plant powerful cultural bombs that leave Democrats badly damaged on crime, the border, and love of country.

I was angry because in this campaign the White House was just cheerleading over a “strong economy,” and some leaders gave this message: Re-elect us because we accomplished so much. Instead, they could have shown sympathy on income and the cost of living, pushed back against corporate power, neutralized the crime issue, and grown their numbers.

Over 70 percent of eligible voters do not have a four-year degree, my measure of working-class. And in this midterm election, they were 61 percent of the voters. Over 80 percent of the Black and Hispanic voters were working-class, though that is usually closer to 70 percent in our campaign surveys.

And those voters were mad as hell about the economy. Two-thirds rated it “negatively” in my survey for Democracy Corps and PSG Consulting with 2,000 pre-election and Election Day voters. Two-thirds of voters said the country was on the wrong track. They were also mad as hell about the billions in campaign spending that corrupted politics. They are conscious that the biggest corporations, high-tech companies, and billionaires use their money and lobbyists to rig the game against working people.

They are mad as hell because they really haven’t seen a pay raise in two decades, which is even more true for African Americans and Hispanics. Their frustration was heightened by two decades of spiking growth in incomes and wealth for the top 1 percent and spiking spending on political campaigns.

The economy was the top issue for voters in 2016, 2018, 2020, and 2022, of course. This year, maddening inflation stole away any marginal gain in wages. Everywhere in the world, working people are on a desperate edge, and the top issue is the cost of living and what governments are doing to help them.

And in this election, it was the top issue by far for the Democrats’ diverse working-class base of African Americans, Hispanics, millennials, and unmarried women.

Do you think they heard anything from the national Democrats that would have stirred them to get out to vote?

The full article can be read at The American Prospect.

How Democrats Mishandled Crime

The most effective issue for Republicans in this midterm is a result of Democratic elites failing to understand what their diverse base of working-class voters wants.

Democratic candidates faced a barrage of ads on crime starting in September and early October, a barrage aided by Fox News dramatically increasing its crime reporting.

And it worked. It stalled and reversed the momentum Democrats had gained with the Supreme Court decision on abortion, the January 6th hearings, the Justice Department search of Mar-a-Lago, and Democrats passing the Inflation Reduction Act.

The 2022 midterms will be remembered as a toxic campaign, but an effective one in labeling Democrats as “pro-crime.” When voters in our survey were asked what they feared the most if Democrats win full control of the government, 56 percent rushed to choose “crime and homelessness out of control in cities and police coming under attack,” followed by 43 percent who chose “the southern border being open to immigrants.” Those two outpointed voters’ worries about Congress banning abortion nationally and women losing “equal rights.”

While Democrats were still competitive in the congressional ballot throughout the fall, they trailed Republicans by 13 points on which party would do better on crime. A quarter of Democrats in October said Republicans would do a better job. That included a quarter of Blacks and a stunning half of Hispanics and Asian Americans.

So, I was asked repeatedly by colleagues and campaigning Democrats, “What should we be saying on crime and when I’m attacked for ‘defunding the police’?” To be honest, Democrats were in such terrible shape on crime at this late point, I said, speak as little as possible or mumble. Nothing they’ve said up until now was reassuring and helpful.

Obviously, they should respond if attacked, demonstrating respect for the police and rejecting defunding. But they should move as quickly as possible to change the subject, preferably to the cost of living, where Democrats have a real policy offer and pose a real electoral choice.

But Democrats cannot change the subject for long.

The full article can be read at The American Prospect.

The Crises That Overturned Our Politics

Democrats embracing the battle is the first step to voters trusting Democrats to lead the nation.

The United States has been hit by four simultaneous global crises that have totally upended our politics, energy policies, and strategic worldview.

Democratic and Republican leaders here have barely accommodated their politics to these changes, but they will not be amused long by the chaos in the United Kingdom. It is very much part of the destructive waves hitting both our shores.

The first crisis was the spike in prices from the disrupted supply chains when countries came out of the pandemic. Second, an energy crisis produced by the war in Ukraine suddenly reduced Russian oil and natural gas supplied to the West. That spiked global oil and natural gas prices. In each country, this has produced spikes in utility bills, electricity, natural gas, home heating, air-conditioning, transport, food, and more.

The third crisis was the climate crisis—the unrelenting extreme weather that started with the out-of-control fires in forest areas in Europe and California. Heat waves and droughts raged across Europe, the United Kingdom, and the Horn of Africa, which faced the worst drought in 70 years. Guatemala and Honduras saw heavy rains and flooding. In China, 360 million people witnessed 104-degree heat, and the Yangtze River Basin experienced the worst drought on record. And Hurricane Ian devastated parts of Florida. Those are just a sampling of the damage of the past few years.

Lest you think those are just the observations and experience of climate scientists and liberal Democrats, consider this result in a survey we just completed in the United States last month for the Climate Policy and Strategy Project with 2,000 respondents. We asked them to choose whether “the climate crisis” or “the energy crisis” represents “the more fundamental problem.” In April and now, more people said the climate crisis. That got my attention.

The full article can be read at The American Prospect.

A Memo to Democrats

We will win this election if we convince voters we care about their economic well-being.

The four of us have been around politics a long time. We have been a part of some of the Democratic Party’s biggest victories; we have seen some big losses. In the 2022 election, things are as close as we have ever seen them. But we are right on the edge of overcoming historical trends and other factors weighing us down, and winning a decisive victory.

What we have to do, though, is end on a strong economic argument. Democrats need to understand that we have a winning message on the economy and inflation. But rising costs will beat us if we avoid the issue.

Don’t get us wrong: we are all firmly convinced of the power and central importance of abortion. The Dobbs decision changed the trajectory of this election, and it is the most powerful issue we have in turning out Democratic base voters. No Democratic candidate should stop talking about abortion. But going down the stretch, we need to make sure our closing message also talks about the cost of living, inflation and the economy.

Even before the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act and the CHIPS and Science Act, when Joe Biden’s approval ratings were still in the 30s, what was striking in the focus groups we were watching was that people were not blaming Biden for inflation. They certainly wanted him to do something about rising prices and to be in touch with their lives, but their primary ire was directed at big corporations that have moved jobs overseas and created supply chain issues; and at the near-monopoly power these wealthy corporations have over prices, allowing them to price-gouge consumers.

The full article can be read at The American Prospect.