Is the GOP’s case against Joe Biden collapsing?
Republicans were counting on a bad economy and high inflation as the centerpiece of their case against the president’s re-election. It’s looking like those factors are improving, as 2024 approaches.
Joe Biden Is Smiling
Republicans, it was clear, had a strategy for opposing President Biden’s re-election- namely, claiming that America was going to, you know what, in a handbasket.
The idea was to blame the president for rising crime, continuing inflation, and a possible recession, and claim that all of those things were better under Donald Trump.
But now, according to a new report, that strategy is looking less viable, since all of those numbers are improving of late.
According to Axios, the GOP strategy is crashing into reality.
“Republicans are hammering ‘Joe Biden’s America’ as a land of rising violent crime, surging immigration and out of control inflation, but there’s just one problem: the numbers are starting to move in the opposite direction,” the report said.
Homicides are down in major cities, as noted by Axios, while violent crime overall has declined. Meanwhile, while Republicans have pushed multiple resolutions to impeach Biden over his handling of the border, border crossings have been dropping.
Also, inflation has been dropping, and the overall economic picture has been mostly positive, with the Biden campaign using the term “Bidenomics” to tout his record.
Of course, voters’ perceptions are going to be more important than the actual reality of the numbers, and they could change again between now and when it’s time to vote in 2024. Also, it’s likely that the GOP will continue to make arguments about crime, inflation, and the border, and how Biden has bungled them. For instance, even if there’s a massive drop in homicides, there will still be some, and Republicans can still point at particularly horrific crimes and say that Democrats are responsible.
All of these things, however, were part of the GOP strategy in the 2022 midterms, at a time when most of those metrics were worse than they are today. And Republicans underperformed in those races, failing to recapture the Senate and only attaining a small House majority.
In the meantime, the GOP has continued to pursue other attacks on Biden having nothing to do with the economy, immigration, crime or inflation. These have included Biden’s age, as well as a constellation of issues involving his son Hunter.
Speaking of perceptions of the economy, Annie Lowrey wrote for The Atlantic over the weekend about “why a good economy feels so bad.”
“Roughly half the country thinks we’re in a recession or about to be in one. Consumer confidence is down, as is investor sentiment. Inflation is weighing on American families,” Lowrey writes. “But I’m here to tell you that this is the best economy ever. Really. This year’s economy has now outpaced that of 1999, the previous best on record. It is growing more equitably than it has in years. American families are more financially secure and wealthier than they ever have been. Things are going great, I swear.”
She pointed at the lowest unemployment rate in 60 years, a rare drop in wage inequality, and families lifted out of poverty.
“Bigger paychecks are helping middle-class families buy houses and build wealth. The homeownership rate was increasing faster than it ever had, until interest rates spiked a year ago; families in the lower half of the income distribution are more likely to own their homes now than at any point since the real-estate bubble burst in 2006. Most Millennials own property; the generation is starting to catch up with Gen Xers and Boomers in terms of net worth and household formation,” she wrote.
“The economy has also delivered extraordinary gains for Black Americans. The jobless rate for Black workers is near a historic low, and the gap between the unemployment rate for white workers and Black workers is the smallest it has ever been. Black workers’ earnings are increasing rapidly too.”
Expertise and Experience
Stephen Silver is a Senior Editor for 19FortyFive. He is an award-winning journalist, essayist and film critic, who is also a contributor to the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Broad Street Review and Splice Today. The co-founder of the Philadelphia Film Critics Circle, Stephen lives in suburban Philadelphia with his wife and two sons. Follow him on Twitter at @StephenSilver.
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