How is the GOP going to navigate the "are you better off than 4 years ago?" Q

[wbrocks67]

Seems like a major talking point will be the usual "are you better off" (thanks Elise) but ... how are they going to do this when now until November will be comparably COVID in 2020, one of the worst times in recent U.S. history for many people?

https://twitter.com/Acyn/status/1765416004023410697

[Ferguson97]

Their best bet is hoping that people rationalize 2020/the pandemic as a once-in-a-generation anomaly, and reframe the question as “Are you better off than you were 5 years ago?”

[Duke 🇺🇸]

The bizarre thing about this election is many people seem to have forgotten Trump was president and the other group of people think things will magically revert to 2019 once he takes off and gas will be $1, interest rates will be 2% and inflation will be under 2%.

Of course, when none of that happens they will just blame Biden.

[wbrocks67]

The bizarre thing about this election is many people seem to have forgotten Trump was president and the other group of people think things will magically revert to 2019 once he takes off and gas will be $1, interest rates will be 2% and inflation will be under 2%.

Of course, when none of that happens they will just blame Biden.

Honestly one of my fears is that if the economy does continue to hold up, if Trump is elected, he'll just take credit for it and then suddenly everyone will feel great about the economy and give him great approvals... even though he literally had nothing to do with it and would literally be coasting off the back of everything Biden did to get us back on track. It's the same thing with Trump in 2017 and onward when he got credit for Obama's economic stewardship essentially.

[Mr.Bakari-Sellers]

They can't, Riverwalk make these same arguments over and over and we are still under Trump unaffordable tax cuts, the tax cuts passed are giving 40 K to the richest Americans which can be used to help pay for Reparations and 2 wars

There was no repeal of the Trump tax cuts why is Gallego running to raise taxes on rich not poor by breaking Filibuster

[GAinDC]

Sorry, but things are objectively better than they were four years ago

At this point in 2020, I was frantically trying to stock up on toilet paper

[Pericles]

I wonder if there is a way for Democrats to remind people more of Trump's botched Covid response. People don't want to think about the pandemic itself or get into the same old arguments about it, but flopping badly in a crisis is an important sign of his lack of leadership skills and definitely should be relevant to voters.

[ajc0918]

I'm better of in most regards now than four years ago. It's not even close.

[It's Time.]

Americans can barely remember what happened 4 years ago.

[Dan the Roman]

I wonder if there is a way for Democrats to remind people more of Trump's botched Covid response. People don't want to think about the pandemic itself or get into the same old arguments about it, but flopping badly in a crisis is an important sign of his lack of leadership skills and definitely should be relevant to voters.

The problem is Democrats cannot attack him for being too restrictionist, and most of the bad stuff he did is easily seen as accidentally producing better outcomes. The constituency who believe the Federal Government should have forced schools to go remote, businesses to close and masks to be mandatory is maybe 30% now, and it is a good way to create class and racial fissures in the Democratic coalition when anyone who might be reached on it is more sensitive to an abortion appeal.

In short, what Democrats wanted to do in 2020 is far less popular than anything Donald Trump did or didn't do.

[The Economy is Getting Worse]

There was insane stimulus spending during the pandemic. Most people were flush with cash and real wages are still lower today than during COVID.

[DaleCooper]

Their best bet is hoping that people rationalize 2020/the pandemic as a once-in-a-generation anomaly, and reframe the question as “Are you better off than you were 5 years ago?”

The problem for them is that nobody is actually nostalgic for 2019. "Make America Great Again" only works if you're referring to an unspecified time in the distant past. The actual consensus among voters seems to be that America has been on a continuous decline throughout their whole lives. Nobody wants to roll the clock back to 2019, they want to roll the clock back to a time before the American Dream was flushed down the toilet. Whenever that happened, it wasn't 2019.

[wbrocks67]

There was insane stimulus spending during the pandemic. Most people were flush with cash and real wages are still lower today than during COVID.

"flush with cash" when people were losing their jobs and hours left and right? this is delusional

[Progressive Pessimist]

They're trying to pretend that COVID didn't happen. Unfortunately, it does seem like many Americans forgot about it, if they even cared to begin with.

[RI]

There was insane stimulus spending during the pandemic. Most people were flush with cash and real wages are still lower today than during COVID.

"flush with cash" when people were losing their jobs and hours left and right? this is delusional

The vast majority of people did not lose their jobs during COVID. The personal savings rate massively spiked at the beginning of COVID and persisted until late 2021, which was one of the reasons inflation started to accelerate in 2021 before Russia invaded Ukraine: people were able to start spending at an even greater rate due to massively increased reserves. Median household net worth surged in 2020 and 2021, and this was especially true for millennials and Gen Z.

[oldtimer]

It's easy:  "are you better off than 5 years ago?"

[Progressive Pessimist]

It's easy:  "are you better off than 5 years ago?"

You can't just skip over a period of time when the President of the United States botched his management of a once in a century health crisis that completely reversed the stable economy he had prior.

If this were that simple, why can't Biden just pretend it's pre-Afghanistan withdrawal again? That's when he was in his honeymoon phase. Remember early 2021? Those were the days!

[GAinDC]

The Trump years, even before COVID, were so chaotic.

Everyday people would wake up and be afraid to check social media or watch the news for fear of what new unhinged thing he said or what international alliance he ruined.

[The Mikado]

My most vivid memory of four years ago was ordering a palette of toilet paper on Amazon and two months(!) later some Chinese knockoff third-of-a-usual-roll one ply sheets turned up.

Today I have toilet paper in abundance and easy access to more when necessary.

Life is definitely better.

[7,052,770]

To be fair, Stefanik is one of the few people who truly was better off 4 years ago, when she was 100 pounds lighter and generally considered to be one of the most attractive members of Congress. But that's what Trumpism does to people...

[falling apart like the ashes of American flags]

My most vivid memory of four years ago was ordering a palette of toilet paper on Amazon and two months(!) later some Chinese knockoff third-of-a-usual-roll one ply sheets turned up.

Today I have toilet paper in abundance and easy access to more when necessary.

Life is definitely better.

I remember getting a Costco membership shortly before Covid due to a Costco opening up very close to my then physical workplace who allowed reps from Costco to even do a Q&A on site to promote it, the funny thing is I ended up hardly ever shopping at that one for reasons in a footnote*...anyway around November I bought a stack of toilet paper from there which I kind of regretted because it awkwardly fit in my small bathroom in my small apartment.

And then...the toilet paper shortage did not impact me at all. I kind of lucked out.

*My hours then were working until 8:30, and Costco closed at 8, meaning I couldn't shop there after work, and though I could before work a lot of what I go to Costco for is frozen foods, and I couldn't leave that in my car while at work and it was usually too big to put in the work fridge/freezer. So I just went to the St. Louis Park one on weekends like I still do.

[Cyrusman]

Because that was COVID, which most people know no one person could stop. It caused havoc on every economy. You have to compare it to pre covid when things were "normal"

[Iowa+3]

Am I better off now than I was in 2020 and pre-covid? Sure. Was Biden responsible for any of it? Absolutely not. Biden made the road far, far harder.

[Rat]

I think most voters are able to separate COVID from the previous 3 years of Trump's presidency, which is why Trump is often leading Biden on many of the "Who do you trust more on X issue?" polls on things like the economy. They are obviously crediting Trump with the pre-COVID economy and not the one impacted by COVID.

[Iowa+3]

I think most voters are able to separate COVID from the previous 3 years of Trump's presidency, which is why Trump is often leading Biden on many of the "Who do you trust more on X issue?" polls on things like the economy. They are obviously crediting Trump with the pre-COVID economy and not the one impacted by COVID.

For some of us, we are far better off than we were during the Trump era. However, I remember what 2021 was like for me. Because of Biden, I very nearly didn't get married. Very nearly didn't get my job and when I had to work my job, Biden made it extremely difficult to work.

The question for me is, "are you better off now than you were when Biden shut the whole world down and his travel restrictions prevented you from getting married?" Absolutely.

Screw Biden and the party that tried to kill me with lockdowns.