The results are in. Americans hate “Bidenomics.” Why wouldn’t they? With the combination of egregiously high federal spending levels, out-of-control high inflation (being driven by the aforementioned high spending levels) serving as a massive hidden tax on average Americans, and concomitant high interest rates to combat said high inflation, what’s to love for the average American?
Whereas everyone remembers “Reaganomics,” the combination of low tax rates and little government regulation over the economy, and its proud association with the high productivity and success of the 1980s, most people today associate the current turgid economic situation in America with Joe Biden’s presidency. Everyone knows this.
Yet the Democrats insist on campaigning on the purported strength of Bidenomics in the 2024 presidential election, in which Joe Biden himself is the likely Democratic Party nominee.
Most election observers understand that, given the highly polarized nature of the American electorate, the next presidential election will be decided by a relatively small group of voters in some key swing states. Many swing state voters favor the economy.
Swing States Prefer Trump
When the economy is believed to be going badly, voters—notably in swing states—kick the person in the White House out of office. If it’s going well, they’ll usually keep them in office.
Regardless of what reality President Biden may yearn to create for himself heading into 2024, most Americans do not believe his economic policies have succeeded. In fact, a recent poll indicates that, if the election were held today, Biden would lose by as much as 15 points to the likely Republican Party presidential nominee, Donald J. Trump!
This, even as Trump battles an astonishing 91 indictments for his alleged roles in trying to unduly influence the outcome of the 2020 presidential election or for having mishandled classified documents.
Trump himself is deeply unpopular, just as President Biden is. Yet, Trump is not still the president, and therefore these key swing state voters are more lenient toward the forty-fifth president than they are toward the current, forty-sixth president.
It defies any semblance of strategic logic for the Democrats to be trying to force the purported success of Bidenomics down the throats of voters who clearly don’t see Bidenomics as anything other than a failure.
We are rapidly reaching the point of no return for the Democrats to try to shift attention away from or change the narrative about Bidenomics in the eyes of the voters.
What they should be focusing on is the culture war aspect that the Republicans have been so keen to become involved with. That will help to sway at least some of these fence-sitting swing state voters for the Democrats.
But that carries a huge risk.
The voters care more about their pocketbooks (at least they have historically). Biden and the Democrats should be very worried about the prospect of pushing Bidenomics as a success when it clearly isn’t. It’s giving their great rival, Trump, much success with a key constituency that the Democrats need to possibly win in 2024.
Biden Should’ve Never Been President
The strategic calculus (or lack thereof) of the Biden Campaign in the 2024 race shows how unprepared for the presidency they truly are. Biden has failed to bring economic prosperity or to cool down tensions at home.
Meanwhile, it has been Biden’s policies, not those of the much-maligned Trump, that have precipitated the collapse of world peace.
Americans can see things as they are. And because of that, they are more inclined to restore Trump to the White House than they are to reelect the purportedly stable Biden.
A 19FortyFive Senior Editor and an energy analyst at the The-Pipeline, Brandon J. Weichert is a former Congressional staffer and geopolitical analyst who is a contributor at The Washington Times, as well as at the Asia Times. He is the author of Winning Space: How America Remains a Superpower (Republic Book Publishers), Biohacked: China’s Race to Control Life (Encounter Books), and The Shadow War: Iran’s Quest for Supremacy (July 23). Weichert occasionally serves as a Subject Matter Expert for various organizations, including the Department of Defense. He can be followed via Twitter @WeTheBrandon.
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