The 2024 election is done. Get over it.
The “I” s that doomed Biden
My somewhat arbitrary metric for handicapping this election is raw volume of mainstream media coverage. To no one’s surprise, Trump mania is currently at a fever pitch. Sure, he’s facing serious legal peril, which is certainly newsworthy, but it’s not just that; every lamebrained pronouncement and every lie is being covered breathlessly. And this time around his message is vastly amplified by an army of MAGA acolytes in Congress. Once again, his “earned media” ‘messaging dwarfs that of the sitting president.
The media elected him the last time and is about to do it all over again.
Media lionization aside there are four serious issues — all beginning with the letter I — that give Trump the edge over Biden.
The first “I” is immigration.
I struck up a conversation with my cab driver — a Bangladeshi immigrant and a New York resident of 25 years — while we negotiated rush hour Manhattan traffic. Was he a citizen? Was he planning to vote? Yes, to both. “Last time I voted for Biden, but this time I will vote for Trump,” he said, eyeing what appeared to be a group of recently arrived migrants milling about the entrance of a seedy hotel. “Trump will clean up New York.”
A reporter was interviewing attendees at Trump’s recent rally in the South Bronx. “I feel like a second-class citizen in my own neighborhood,” said one, an immigrant from the Dominican Republic. “We’re being overrun by these recent arrivals.” Others chanted “Build the wall,” and later, “Send them back.”
Is New York City, the forever-Democratic fortress, about to be breached? Two random opinions don’t make a trend, but you could sense that they speak for others of their ilk.
This one issue could seriously kneecap Biden. If he loses even a couple of points of support from naturalized citizens, he’s toast.
The second “I” is Israel.
Biden’s in a no-win situation here however much he tries to thread the needle. Whatever happens, he’s hemorrhaging support from the extremes of the political spectrum: From diehard Israel supporters at one end to those accusing Israel of genocide. It’s baked in already. In contrast, Trump whose antimuslim stance has been consistent, stands to gain mightily, while losing no one.
Steve Eisman, who’s become a prognosticator on all manner of subjects based on his “Big Short” fame, predicts that the country will watch appalled as the democratic convention in Chicago sees massive pro-Palestine protests and, “that will be it.” He predicts that Trump will win all swing states.
The third “I” is inflation.
The Biden administration likes to tout its unfortunately named and tone deaf “Inflation Reduction Act” which incentivizes green-energy projects, expands government-subsidized health care, lowers the costs of some prescription drugs and “tinkers with the tax code” according to the Economist magazine. Unsurprisingly, it’s gone mostly unnoticed by the average American. Investments in green energy — which, in any case, may take years to pan out — mean nothing when you’re trying to feed a family and the price of lettuce is up by half over the pandemic years, while gas prices steadily continue their upward march.
The curious fact, though, is that wages have been growing faster than inflation. But that, too, hasn’t made much of an impression on consumers, especially on an important voting segment of the population: the young,
“Social media reflects — and is potentially fueling — a deep-seated angst about the economy that is showing up in surveys of younger consumers and political polls alike,” the New York Times said. “Young people are especially glum: A recent poll by The New York Times and Siena College found that 59 percent of voters under 30 rated the economy as ‘poor.’” Black voters — key to Biden’s re-election — too, are unhappy with the economy. Forty-eight percent rated it as poor.
Again, the facts differ. The economy is not poor. It’s rather robust and that’s contributing to inflationary pressures.
All this points to the root cause of the persistence of a false impression. It’s the fourth “I” word: Ignorance.
American ignorance — of everything: history, geography, current affairs, the workings of its democracy — is well documented. Most can’t even point out their own capital on a map, let alone Ukraine. Their knowledge of history is abysmal. Only one in three Americans would pass the citizenship test which is focused on government, history and geography. (Try it here).
Americans, it seems, are an incurious lot. They simply don’t think they need to know. The problem is that if you don’t know how things around you work, you’re susceptible to hucksters claiming they can fix those things. It means you are easily fooled.
Consider the control and causes of inflation. Goaded on by Trump, Americans may blame Biden, but the reality is that a president — even Donald Trump — has little to no control over inflation. The agency mainly responsible for reining in inflation is the Federal Reserve, which is not beholden to the president. To keep inflation low, the Fed’s principal tool — deployed aggressively over the last few years — is raising interest rates. The interest rate control exerted by the Fed is called “monetary policy.”
When interest rates increase, borrowing — for home mortgages, car loans and for day-to-day expenses on credit cards — becomes more expensive. Basic economic theory holds that expensive borrowing can reduce demand since people have less money to spend and that, in turn, keeps a lid on prices for goods and services over time.
The problem today is that the Fed’s monetary policy is fighting previous “fiscal policy” (a measure of what the government spends to stimulate the economy). In the early Covid years the Trump administration adopted an aggressive fiscal stimulus amounting to more than 476 million payments totaling $814 billion in financial relief that went to households impacted by the pandemic. That’s a lot of — free — money and a lot of it is still sloshing around pushing prices higher.
Supply disruptions also cause inflation. Case in point: Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has seriously disrupted oil and gas supplies, driving up prices and significantly contributing to inflation. In general, oil prices are driven by global events far beyond the control of the U.S. president. There’s nothing that Biden can do about it — and neither can Trump.
Democrats, largely resigned to the probability that Trump’s legal troubles, even conviction, will only solidify his support, are hoping that reproductive freedom will be their ace in the hole. It’s a losing battle. Abortion rights did sway midterm and special elections, which typically attract motivated and knowledgeable voters, but it’s not at all clear if they will play a major role in the general where a lot of more people vote. In fact, some surveys and focus groups indicate that abortion is likely not the key issue for most women. Inflation and immigration consistently outrank it.
Let’s face it: Americans seem to have made their choice. We can continue to hope, but barring the unforeseen, Donald Trump is very likely to be the next president of the United States.
