Theory on economic polling

[Obama24]

I think it's way more simple than that.

Our economy has on the whole been weak since 2008.

Obama did his best despite an oppositional Congress and we began seeing a true recovery around 2014/2015.

This unfortunately coincides with the start of Trump's term. Even before leaving office, the last year of Obama's term he was kinda a background player.

In 2015-2016, Trump didn't campaign on the economy - because he couldn't. It was good.

What he did campaign on were things that effected the disaffected working class in rural areas and in cities - jobs being sent over seas, fearmongering over TPP, etc.

He presided over essentially the full breadth of the Obama recovery, and frankly, economically the period of 2014-2019 were great years for the American economy.

Then the pandemic hit and destroyed that. Trump's massive deficit spending with the stimulus checks (and the one under Biden) really began showing up in 2021, 2022 as inflation. This hit hard. Even now, it still feels like inflation is much worse than it was in 2019, even if it is much better than it was in 2022.

You have to understand that the economy is both a living and organic thing and also a mythic beast. A bunch of tables, and charts can't change what someone feels.

Call what we are going through 'feelflation'. Inflation may be better than 2022 and 2021, but to your average working class person, it feels like things never got better.