They’re getting frustrated. That sentiment among the Biden campaign was palpable during yesterday’s CNN interview with campaign co-chair Veronica Escobar. When you have no record and a string of failures that could scale K2, there is only one thing left to do, and it’s a losing strategy: blame voters. Escobar might have given us the national “malaise” moment for the 2024 cycle. Jimmy Carter had a similar moment when his dead presidency was gearing up for re-election.
CNN reporter Manu Raju pointed out how voters overwhelmingly backed Trump in handling the economy and felt times were better under his presidency, which is a fact. Small business and consumer confidence levels reached record highs, businesses were doling out bonuses to workers, Apple repatriated $350 billion in overseas cash, and that got wrecked by the COVID pandemic. We all lived through it, Escobar. We know what happened. Instead, she said Biden’s atrocious poll numbers can be attributed to voter “amnesia.” Yes, it’s your fault that you cannot see or be awestruck at the pervasive incompetence and failure of the Biden presidency. Yes, shame on us.
Biden campaign: Americans who felt life was better under Trump have “amnesia.”
— Philip Melanchthon Wegmann (@PhilipWegmann) June 26, 2024
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Escobar’s narrative is riddled with demonstrable lies. The COVID pandemic wasn’t Trump’s fault, and he never called it a hoax. He did say it was like a “bad flu,” which drove the media insane. Now, the CDC guidelines for COVID infection have been revised so that you can treat it like the seasonal flu.
Also, if I hear about how reducing drug prices and new laws to bust up monopolies helps the working class, I’m going to lose it. It doesn’t. Reducing drug prices is not unimportant—Trump made a significant push to drive down the cost of insulin in the final months of his presidency. What Americans want is more job creation, not this cockamamie Mickey Mouse part-time work agenda, and something to curb the inflation rate that’s torched American families for years. Biden can’t do it because he's mentally invalid.
Also, the nerve in redirecting the mental health line against voters is something Biden would order if he could walk without keeling over. Stop trying to rehabilitate the 86 percent figure, Biden people. It’s not going to work. It goes double now that a plurality of 2020 Biden supporters also think he’s too old and can’t be effective. And if things were going so well on the economy, why is the Teamsters president, Sean O’Brien, speaking at the GOP convention this summer? Why is the UAW president who admits that most of his members won’t vote for Biden despite his endorsement? Nate Silver took a sledgehammer to the ‘economy is good’ narrative the Biden camp is trying to sell. It was part of Silver’s analysis where Trump has a 66 percent chance of winning the election:
…the economy isn’t all that good. Real GDP grew by 2.5 percent last year, following 1.9 percent in 2022. It grew at an annualized rate of 1.3 percent in the first quarter of 2024, though it’s expected to return to trend for the rest of the year. Two-ish percent economic growth is fine — and may reflect the new normal — but it’s below the long-term median growth rate in the US.
Does Silver have amnesia? The 'don’t believe your lying eyes' routine isn’t working, just like how 'build back better' failed or how Biden was wrong about the supply chains, inflation, the Houthi rebels, and immigration. Add Biden’s mental decline to this list, and you see why the president is on track to lose re-election: he’s an unremarkable man with no political skill or charisma who presides over a river of failures.
But we’re the ones with amnesia.