Stop hand-wringing
People feel what they feel. Don’t tell them otherwise, suggests Dave Johnson (now blogging from across the Pond).
“Biden & Dems need to be saying, ‘We understand how hard it has been and we’ve been working on it. It is starting to turn around,’” Johnson reminds readers of Seeing the Forest. That was Bill Clinton’s message to the DNC convention that renominated Barack Obama in 2012. The economy was a wreck when Obama took over, but he’s turning it around, Clinton told the assembly:
Now, look. Here’s the challenge he faces and the challenge all of you who support him face. I get it. I know it. I’ve been there. A lot of Americans are still angry and frustrated about this economy. If you look at the numbers, you know employment is growing, banks are beginning to lend again. And in a lot of places, housing prices are even beginning to pick up.
But too many people do not feel it yet.
That was two months before the 2012 election. You know how that worked out. Given the overwhelmingly good economic numbers lately, what are the chances the public will “feel it” 9-10 months from now?
Democrats’ message needs to be “Everything is in place thanks to [Joe Biden] and things are starting to get better. You will feel it, just give it a little more time.” Don’t tell them they’re wrong, that they don’t feel what they feel, Johnson offers.
I’d amend that advice with this: Focus rather on promoting how good the economic numbers really are (“Repetition is really important. And so is repetition.“). Rather than ruminating on how negatively polls say the public feels about the economy, playing the good news on repeat can shift how people feel and help them notice it. Don’t use polls to take their temperature. Change it.
Can that work? The recent flood of alarmist reports about the coming Trump dictatorship has his top campaign officials freaking out. Repetition sure changed how they feel.
Catherine Rampell suggests we’ll all feel better soon:
Americans might be loath to believe it, but on paper, the U.S. economy is doing pretty well. So well, in fact, that we’re outperforming forecasts made even before the pandemic began.
The nation’s employers added another 199,000 jobs in November, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported on Friday. This is slightly better than Wall Street expectations. More significantly, it means that overall employment is now 2 million jobs higher than was expected by now in forecasts made way back in January 2020 by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office:
This is pretty astounding. When the pandemic hit, many economists feared it would leave lasting scars. After the 2007-2009 Great Recession, after all, it took a long time for the job market to heal and for displaced workers to regain their footing. Yet, somehow, following a once-in-a-century public health crisis that led to record-breaking job losses, American workers didn’t just recover all the ground they’d lost. They’re doing better than ever, better than had been imagined even before this traumatic global shock.
Soon enough (and with help), people’s mood will catch up with their consumption and investing. Perhaps the public is not ready to hear “Happy Days Are Here Again” (1929), but wringing hands over public opinion polls (Democrats’ default freakout) is not helpful either.
Oh, here’s what Wikipedia says about that song:
Closely associated with Franklin D. Roosevelt‘s successful presidential campaign in 1932, the song gained prominence after a spontaneous decision by Roosevelt’s advisers to play it at the 1932 Democratic National Convention: after a dirge-like version of Roosevelt’s favorite song “Anchors Aweigh” had been repeated over and over, without enthusiasm, a participant reportedly shouted: “FOR GOD’S SAKE, HAVE THEM PLAY SOMETHING ELSE”, which caused the band to play the new song, drawing cheers and applause, and subsequently becoming the Democratic Party‘s “unofficial theme song for years to come.”
Quote Investigator offers more about this classic advice: Tell ’em what you’re going to tell ’em; then tell ’em; then tell ’em what you told ’em.
Chris Hayes is on that:
Update: Knew I’d seen this somewhere.
Surprise: Americans are starting to feel better about the economy and inflation
The University of Michigan said Friday that its consumer sentiment index jumped 13% to 69.4, as people became less worried about inflation and more optimistic about a number of issues. That not only ended the downturn but reversed the decline, returning the sentiment index to where it was in August.