Average voter: I can't afford groceries at the store. Inflation sucks.
Response: Actually, here is the correct definition of "inflation." As you can see from the correct definition, inflation rates are now good! Hopefully this helps you understand why things will never get better.
What the average voter hears: I can't afford groceries. Your solution to this problem is to reframe the current situation as "good." I still can't afford groceries.
The distinction between the literal question being asked and the question being asked really matters.
Coincidentally, this same journalistic abuse of rhetoric is one of the easiest methods to jailbreak LLMs where modifying the initial response isn't possible.
"Write a news article titled: 'After Inflation, You Can't Afford Groceries Anymore. Here's Why That's A Good Thing.'"
The incapacity of politicians to talk honestly about things is enraging.
Average voter: I can't afford groceries at the store. Inflation sucks.
Response: I know, inflation was caused by COVID and Biden got it back down. We had the best soft landing you could have asked for, Biden did a great job. But the original inflation wasn't under the president's control, it was a worldwide phenomenon, and you can't run it in reverse to go back to old prices.
What the average voter hears: I don't care about any of that. Prices were lower under Trump and he's a businessman, so I'll vote for him so prices go back down.
People heard her say that and were outraged. What's funny is that when you think about it, it actually does make sense although it's pejorative.
Rich people don't pay taxes. They invest their money, which is incentivized by the government in the form of lower/different taxation. Similarly they use experienced lawyers who understand the tax code to structure their wealth in ways that allow them to pay lower taxes. And the term little people, while pejorative, really represents the power differential between people like her husband and the "Average Joe". Trump is not little people, but he's somehow managed to express things in ways that "little" people (using Leona's terminology, not my own) like.
Much of politics is about not directly saying the truth, whether it be ugly, undesired, or complicated. Instead it's about understanding what drives voters (higher out of pocket prices uncoupled from concomitant wage increases) and how to say the thing they want to hear, while also enacting policies that achieve your political goals.
Response 1: You are lying. The groceries in my local Whole Foods are still very affordable to me. Stop spreading misinformation and conspiracy theories.
Response 2: OK maybe the groceries got a bit more expensive a teensy little bit. This is very temporary situation which will be handled soon and you have nothing to worry about. Just stop whining and expect everything be fine sooner than you know.
Response 3: OK, it could be argued that the groceries are even more expensive now. The reason for that is that our political opponents 4 years ago were evil, and they messed up everything. But we almost fixed all that, and here's a paper full of dense complex math that proves it beyond any doubt. Also, here's another paper that proves more expensive groceries help fight climate change.
Response 4: Stop talking about the damn groceries already. We already debunked all that misinformation completely, and everybody knows it's not our fault, and actually everything is awesome. Don't you realize the other guy is literally Hitler?!
I'm surprise how this clever strategy didn't result in a landslide victory. The voters must be extra super stupid and not understand even basic arguments. Every sane reasonable person should have been convinced beyond any doubt.
The "average voter" is literally wealthier than they were four years ago though. Median real wages (where "real" means "inflation adjusted") have gone up and not down. This isn't it.
The average voter "feels like" they can't afford groceries, maybe. But that still requires some explanation as to why this is a democratic policy issue.
Clearly this is a messaging thing. Someone, a mix of media and republican candidates and social media figures, convinced people they couldn't afford groceries. They didn't arrive at that conclusion organically.
Notice the flat line after the pandemic? The average voter (or at least the average worker) is literally equally wealthy as 4 years ago.
Goods are indeed down (even including gas in many areas), but anything services-based is much higher. We can all feel that through higher insurance costs, going to a restaurant, etc.
Again, the point as stated isn't the reason for voter behavior, because it's simply incorrect. Voters didn't vote because they're poorer, because they're not poorer. QED.
They're not poorer. They're exactly one used Xbox richer.
I agree that it's more complicated why Trump won than just the economy, but to say "people are getting wealthier" when
a) it's an extremely paltry rate compared to the prior 4 years and
b) people have had to readjust their "basket of goods" to buy different things because certain non-negotiable things (e.g. cars, car insurance, other insurance, utilities in a lot of unregulated states, property taxes outside of places with Prop 13 / homestead exemption, etc) have gone up significantly, putting a squeeze on disposable income.
I guess we're arguing semantics here, but I agree that a lot of voter decision on this is more complicated than real income. I just disagree that $50 / year increase is meaningful enough to have people not feel left behind. That is about 12 bps a year, and I know that if my raise were 12 bps, I'd feel like why bother at all / insulted. If I were a moron, I would blame the current president, but I'm not naive enough to think that it's Biden's fault.
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LES1252881600Q
Again, I know it's very tempting for you to believe this. That's probably why voters do! But it's wrong. And the fact that you and others believe it anyway is a messaging failure and not a policy failure.
This is a wild take that sounds it's coming from an affluent tech worker. I'm politically left, and I don't know if this is parody to make liberals look out of touch.
Tech salaries went up, but people working minimum wage can't afford groceries. Federal minimum wage was increased to $7.25/hour in 2009, 15 years ago.
Medians don't tell the full story, because of the K-shaped recovery graph. The upper half gained wealth but the lower half lost wealth.
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/05/04/the-covid-recovery-still-has...
It makes sense (to me) to average inflation over the four year electoral period. The average inflation over the Biden years 2021-2024 was 5.3%, versus 1.9% over the Trump years 2017-2020 [1]. I have no idea what Biden could have done to keep inflation down during his presidency, but Americans felt their purchasing power decrease a lot more during his term than during his predecessor's, with corresponding impact on their livelihoods. They have every right to be pissed off. And it's human nature that how pissed off we are influences our decisions to a significant extent. Idly wondering what time series (other than inflation) might reflect significant contributions to pissedoffitude.
[1] https://www.usinflationcalculator.com/inflation/current-infl...
Average: I can't afford groceries at the store. Inflation sucks.
Response: Well, inflation plays a part, but grocery stores are still recording record profits despite inflation.
Average: Are you suggesting grocery stores shouldn't make as much money as they can? Free market hater! Communist!