Hey Joe, Wake up!
America is back. America is great again.
We need the president to tell us that.
This is the winter of our discontent.
Today's top story on CNBC describes a poll showing Biden's "economic approval sank more deeply underwater, with 37% approving compared to 56% who disapprove. . .. Some 41% of the public believe the economy will get worse in the next year."
They report low confidence on the economy is pulling down the overall approval for Biden and Democrats.
Republicans now sport a historic 10-point advantage when Americans are asked which party they prefer to control Congress, holding a 44%-34% margin over Democrats. . .. "If the election were tomorrow, it would be an absolute unmitigated disaster for the Democrats,″ said Jay Campbell, partner at Hart Research Associates and the Democratic pollster for the survey.
Notice that this article is in CNBC, not Fox. Amid the story of Biden gloom, they report that the economy is in rebound, the stock market is up, and unemployment is down. The worry is that the Fed may need to step in to cool things down.
The economy is ahead of where it was before COVID, back when Trump was saying everything was the best economy ever. The stock market has boomed during Biden's presidency. Businesses are prospering and almost everyone's 401Ks and IRAs are up. Home prices, too. The rich are much richer, of course, but the middle class is richer, too.
Worker participation rate was a worry, but recently the participation rate returned to 61.8%, the same rate as in pre-COVID March of 2000. Even with that, the unemployment rate has dropped to just 4.2%.
Below is a Fed chart of GDP. During Biden's presidency we did not just have trend line growth. We had accelerated growth to catch us back up to the trend line, and we have done so.
There is a simple, believable narrative for Biden to share. It has the advantage of being true. America is back. Government helping out businesses and people in need, when they really need it, is what the Democratic Party is all about. It worked.
Biden need not ignore problems. Jammed hospitals are a problem but by now Americans understand who is on which side of the COVID issue. It is primarily a pandemic of the unvaccinated. The people who want to protect themselves are vaccinated and can live at low risk amid peril. What the public does not yet understand is that this is success.
The problems of supply chain logjams which show up as soaring prices on some items is a problem of success. People want to build things and buy things faster than they can be delivered. There are help wanted signs everywhere, and that, too, is a sign of success. Businesses want to expand and workers have leverage to get treated better and paid more. This is good, and more people will understand it that way if Biden says so, enthusiastically. Biden is the pro-jobs president. He could do worse than be associated with Help Wanted signs. Own it.
We know what Trump would do. We saw it. He defined the recovery he inherited as "carnage." and then after 60 days claimed things were now great, finally, all due to him.
It was brazen, but Trump stuck with the story and a majority of Americans gave him credit. Selling drives sales.
Biden has an advantage. True narratives are easier to sell. Biden needs to cheer up and sell. It may be unfair to ask it of him. He appears most comfortable being America's grief counselor. He understands tragedy and loss, and it shaped him. That is only one of his jobs. The other job is to tell us that we have every reason to be optimistic when we do.
Biden is making America great again. It is working.