Thoughts on How to Talk About the Biden Economy

Empathy vs Progress is a false choice

Democrats are in a state of high anxiety over the election. Everyone handles anxiety differently. Some people go for a walk, some meditate, while others eat or drink their feelings. Professional Democrats — those working in Congress and on campaigns — tend to call reporters to unburden themselves. The frequency of such calls has increased since the New York Times/Siena poll found Biden trailing in five of the six key battleground states.

This resulted in a wholly unhelpful but accurate story in the Wall Street Journal over the weekend. According to reporters Catherine Lucey and Ken Thomas:

President Biden is facing calls from anxious Democrats to express more empathy over inflation and prices, as voters continue to reject the president’s positive rhetoric on the economy.

Voter pessimism on the economy and Biden’s handling of it appear increasingly locked in just over five months from Election Day, with surveys showing many voters holding a rosier view of the prepandemic economy under former President Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee. Democratic worries are mounting as the summer vacation season kicks off, and Biden is gearing up for two foreign trips in June—with less of his time devoted to domestic issues.

The story was followed by a multiple-day series of Twitter fights and Substack posts debating how President Biden should talk about the economy. A legitimate conversation about how to talk about the most complicated economy in memory metastasized into something particularly dumb and self-defeating. Many of those arguing that Biden is getting the economic message wrong mischaracterize what he and his campaign say about the economy. Those criticizing the critics describe the critique inaccurately – claiming that expressing more empathy equated to waving a flag of surrender..

While the whole conversation makes me want to bang my head against a wall and/or get into several Twitter fights, I will instead try to offer a constructive (although potentially less cathartic) response to the latest edition of the “Democratic Circular Firing Squad.”

Ultimately, I think we are massively overcomplicating the simple and not listening enough to the voters who will decide the election.

How People Really Feel About the Economy

This is the most complicated economy in recent memory. Unemployment is at a historic low, and the stock market is at an all-time high. The economy is growing, and inflation is coming down faster in the United States than almost anywhere else.

Yet, prices remain inflated, particularly on gas and groceries. Higher interest rates make buying a home, a car, and paying off one’s credit cards much more expensive.

Politicians excel at talking about this economy now because they’ve never had to talk about an economy like this one. It's been decades since the U.S. dealt with inflation, and we’ve spent much of the last 15 years in an era of historically low interest rates.

We are in uncharted waters; and unsurprisingly, politicians are wrestling with how to communicate about the economy.

With all of that said, polls show people are very unhappy about the economy, and it’s not hard to see why.

In the New York Times/Siena poll, three-quarters of voters rate the economy as ‘fair’ or ‘poor.’ Negative perceptions are particularly strong among the parts of the Biden coalition threatening to defect this fall. Nearly 90% of voters under 30 and 81% of Hispanic voters say the economy is ‘fair’ or ‘poor.’