Ezra Klein eviscerates lib talking points

Yeah, I care about what the facts are, not what morons are complaining about. Inflation caused a rise in prices during Biden's presidency (similar to the inflation that happened in basically every other developed country). People can legitimately gripe about that. Arguing that crime is rising or that the economy is bad is objectively incorrect. But the reality is that people's beliefs about crime rarely matches the realities of crime. For me, facts trump feelings. You may feel differently. Podcasters certainly do. They make a living on feelings, not facts.
What latest FBI data shows about violent crime
Seven reasons why today’s economy is historically strong

 

Said it many times. While the economy may be strong by objective academic metric to the voters responsible for the election of Donald Trump only a single metric really mattered. It was prices and they're significantly higher than they were before Joe Biden took office. While objectively Biden may not have been responsible for the inflation and it has moderated since it peaked in 2022, voters tend place the blame on the President. By the way the Republican nominee in 2028 is going to end up owning the economic shipwreck left by Trump. He or possibly she will be in the same position that John McCain was 2008.
One of multiple reasons for the coming economic disaster.
How a Trump Crackdown on Immigrants Could Fire Up Inflation

 

Agreed. Prices are a legitimate complaint. I don't think there's anything Biden could have done to avoid what happened, but it's real, and it happened. What I won't indulge is fantasy.

 

I guess we shall see if Democrats learn some lessons from this. They lost to arguably the worst presidential candidate in history - although they did face headwinds due to worldwide covid inflation that has eviscerated sitting governments around the world regardless of whether left or right.

There wasn’t a ton Biden could do about inflation. But some left leaning economists and politicians needed a refresher about how politically toxic inflation is. You had MMT types who just said just deficit spend as much as you want until inflation hits. Even guys like Krugman said that moderately higher inflation may be of net economic benefit. That technically may or may not be correct but that completely ignores how people experience inflation.

It has become generally accepted concensus amoung economists that the post 2008 stimulus was insufficient. As a result, Democrats pulled out all the stops post Covid. No amount of excess was too much. While it didn’t cause the inflation, it certainly made it worse.

How could Democrats have adapted? It was difficult and pretty much impossible for Biden or Harris - since they were part of it. The only hope may have been a more moderate candidate - maybe like a Josh Shapiro, who wasn’t connected to it, and was willing to speak out to Democratic “mistakes” and propose something tangible to fight it, including fiscal responsibility aka Bill Clinton style. Would that have moved the needle? I don’t know, but it was probably the only chance.

The next question is whether mainstream democrats are willing to step away from and speak out against the toxic cultural issues - trans issues, open borders, identity politics. It’s not enough to just downplay them and say there are immaterial - they need to be able to say these things are stupid. Can/will they credibly do that? I don’t know.

Uktimately they have to decide if they want to feel morally superior and lose elections, or become pragmatic and win elections.

 

Perception is reality. And people perceive losses as worse than wins as being good. Incumbent governments are losing elections all over the world because of inflation that was impossible to avoid. And Trump made it seem like it was all Biden/Harris' fault. The truth doesn't matter. People's perceptions do.

 

Speaking of Ezra, I listened to a discussion of his about disorder and crime, perceptions and data, etc. a few weeks ago. I thought it was interesting.

 

What is the proof of this? European countries like Italy, Britain, and Germany got hit even harder by inflation.

It's interesting how the solution to the problem just happens to be the Democrats messaging the way you want them to message. You're not alone in thinking that. Moderates to the far left have all claimed post-election that the secret to success just happens to be taking the positions they personally like. Let's be clear, Harris ran on border security, did not emphasize "identity politics" (in fact, Trump leaned into race), and minimized trans issues. But you know who showed up and voted for her? Black people, Jewish people, and members of the LGBTQ+ community.

Democrats will need to do some thinking on strategy. But I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that sticking it to your own base is not likely to be the best answer.

 

Inflation by country 2024 | Statista

Take a look at US vs Germany starting in 2021 going forward. From 2021 to mid 2022 US inflation was higher. US was running about 2 pts higher. Then mid 2022 Germany started to catch up and late 2022 Germany was higher. So what happened in 2022?

Ukraine war. This had a much more severe impact on Germany and Europe than the US - especially with energy prices. That’s why European inflation was higher.

To assert or imply that flooding the economy with trillions of extra dollars while supply was constrained had no impact on inflation is delusional thinking.

I’m not sure how pivoting to center is sticking it to the base. Actual trans voters are rounding error. Black voters while still heavily democratic trended more republican. I’d be surprised if pro hamas positions are winners among the Jewish community.

Yes Harris pivoted on these issues, but it was too little too late. There was too much material from 2019/2020 and from the first 3 Biden years that she couldn’t credibly pivot away from it. I don’t think there was any way Harris could win this election. I don’t think Whitmer or Buttigeg would have won, although they may have been better. Shapiro - maybe - but I don’t know how he holds up on a national stage.

 

Yeah, except the data shows both the U.S. and Canada spiking early with Europe spiking later. If this was due largely to domestic policy, why are the trends so similar (Canada & U.S. v. Europe)?

They pivoted to the center and lost. You can explain it away, but you largely got the messaging you wanted. It didn't win. Does that mean the Democrats should run to the far left? No. But it does mean that these things are a lot more complex than you seem willing to acknowledge. Like most people, you're convinced that the issues and messaging that matter most to you are the keys to the winning formula. I don't think it's that simple.

 

the chart is making my point. Inflation in Europe was increased by the Ukraine war, much more so than the US.

You are missing my point. Messaging didn’t matter - given the source. Kamala could have come out in August as a deficit and immigration hawk, and called for a trans ban - and it wouldn’t have mattered, because she would have no credibility on those stances given her history.

it comes down to what did persuadable voters care about. Saving Democracy? No. Insurrections? No. Presidential criminal behavior? No. That didn’t affect them. But they felt like inflation, cultural issues and some Covid issues did affect them.

 

Exactly. That clown does not site fact or stat one, just his feelings after talking with Trump supporters who don't seem to be particularly interested in things like facts and actual stats.

Perhaps being named "Ezra" has just made him angry.

 

I ask again. If our domestic policy played such a huge role in the inflation spike, why did Canada follow the same trend line? The G7 countries in North America trended the same way (early inflation spike), as did most of the G7 countries in Europe (later inflation spike).

It's a convenient excuse. The Democrats adopted your preferred messaging and lost. Your response is it was a candidate problem and the Democrats must double down. My response is that your strategy just happens to align with your priors, which is something I've consistently seen from people after this election. The silver bullet just happens to be adopting whatever messaging and positions aligns with their own values.

I think you're searching for a simple and convenient answer to a complex problem. I would love to sit here and say the secret to winning elections is the Democrats backing every position I personally support and using the messaging that most appeals to me. But I don't believe it's that simple.

 

I’m not quite sure what you are asking.

The US had higher inflation early on than the European countries. Not coincidentally the deficit to GDP ratios in the US in 2020 and following years were about twice as high. The US (and Canada) reached 15% of GDP in 2020 and the US was about twice as high in following years.

Federal Surplus or Deficit [-] as Percent of Gross Domestic Product

Canada Government Budget.

Euro area government deficit at 3.6% and EU at 3.5% of GDP - Eurostat

Europe inflation spiked in 2022, due to Ukraine war - mainly cost of energy (gas and oil) but also food.

The US and Canada to a large degree function as a single economy. 90% of Canadian population lives 100 miles from US border. 70% of the population (in the east) actually lives south of the border parallel separating US and Canada from MN going west.

For the third time, messaging was mostly irrelevant. Republicans could credibly post ads on TV that Kamala supported gender reassignment in prison - and that moved the needle. You act as if this resonates with me, I frankly could care less on such issues. But the people who go back and forth - the Reagan/Clinton/Obama/Trump voters - this shit resonates with them.

As to inflation I personally think it is ridiculous to think Trump is better for inflation - and I am of mixed opinion as to whether the 2021 post covid excess deficits did more harm than good - they raised inflation maybe 2 pts, but gave the economy a little more juice coming out. But these swing voters blame all of the inflation on Biden and Harris, mostly unfairly so.

My wife who has similar political views as I, and voted for Harris, nonetheless voted for Ted Cruz, because she didn’t know much about Allred, and she saw some ads saying he supported biological men in women’s sports. In spite of being fairly moderate she is activated by these stupid (and largely irrelevant ) trans issues.

Democrats post 1970 have only won the White House when they have been perceived as being moderate or having moderate streak. Carter was a southern moderate. Clinton was a southern moderate. Obama, while not a moderate on paper, rose to popularity on a unifying message where he openly spoke out against identity politics - and Biden was generally perceived as a moderate.

The electoral college makes it very difficult for a cultural liberal to win the presidency.

 

The economy is good. The republicans just had a 30% improvement in their consumer sentiment scores.

Republican Consumer Sentiment Up 30%

 

Funny… you offer an anecdote then warn about an incoming anecdote… doesn’t that feel like punching yourself in the face?

I simply reported what conservative consumers are saying. It’s probably a good chance we will be looking on the last few years fondly - but who knows?

 

If find these sort of threads kinda weak. You post an opinion piece by what you consider an authority and magically it undercuts assertions made here in the past.

Want to disprove crime, economy, and other trend assertions? Make a counter argument with reputable facts. Then take your victory lap.

 

Few excerpts below that I think summarize the nuanced discussion (with Charles Fain Lehman) about the disparities between perceptions and stats. They also end with a discussion about drugs and other vices.

One thing Ezra tried to tackle is why people feel less safe when the rates of homicide and violent crimes have come down since the Covid spike. His theory, in part, is that people remain more likely to witness and be personally affected by disorderly behavior as well as less serious crimes such as public drug use, public defecation, shoplifting, people with mental health issues harassing people on the street, etc.

I think these are some interesting points if we are trying to be honest about perceptions without ignoring actual data.

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Lemme use to politics of two places I've, I've lived in recently to get it maybe some of the complexity here. So I lived in San Francisco until a year ago, may, and there you, you would have this bifurcated discussion where people on, on X and in the city would sort of talk about San Francisco as a kind of hellscape. And then you would have earnest liberal leaning wonks come in and say, look like San Francisco has a lower murder rate than than Jacksonville, Florida. It is less violent than many other big cities. This idea that San Francisco is, is uniquely violent, that you are unsafe here. It just isn't true. Like we can look at the data and tell you that San Francisco does not look like an an unsafe city compared to many other cities that do not get this kind of coverage.

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Yeah, and you know, I do want to emphasize first that I think that many times those perceptions are warranted. People are pretty sensitive to changes in the risk of even relatively rare events vis-a-vis crime. It shows up in lots of ways. And the way that I think about this is like people will pay a big, big premium in rent to avoid living in a crime ridden area. Even though if you go to those areas, your risk of victimization is quite low. And in many places in America, people are responding to the fact that crime is still elevated over a baseline. Violent crime is still elevated baseline. That said, the reality is that when people feel unsafe in a place, it's often not responsive to the kinds of major crime that became more prevalent in America over the past four years.


San Francisco is interesting. They do have a, they had a homicide spike a little bit. It is nowhere near the magnitude of other cities. What San Francisco has though is this enormous problem with what I would talk about as disorder, disorderly behavior. And this is in fact what San Francisco is like. Infamous for San Francisco is the city where the city government has to issue, I believe a quarterly report on the frequency of human feces found on the sidewalk. San Francisco has these very large open air drug markets. San Francisco has an uncontrolled public homelessness problem, public serious mental illness problem. San Francisco, when I last looked at the data a couple of years ago, measurably had a shoplifting problem.

***

All of these are not what we would traditionally think about as major offenses. They're not homicide, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, et cetera, but they are much more prevalent than those offenses. You are much more likely to be witness to them to be victimized in association with them. They are much more therefore likely to affect your perception of what it is like to live in the city. And so I think often in the case of San Francisco, but as I have argued increasingly in many other places, for example here in DC where the violent crime level is coming down, there are signs that the level of disorder is substantially elevated.