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Comment by commandlinefan | Hacker News Reader

Not to put words in your mouth, but this comment seems to imply that politicians successfully painted a negative picture of the economy that didn't reflect reality and used that to win the last election. While I wouldn't put that past them, why was it successful this time and not every time? Nobody even tried to pretend the economy was bad when Clinton, Bush or Obama were up for re-election, because it obviously wasn't.

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> why was it successful this time and not every time?

Isn't there a pervasive belief that Republican administrations are better for the economy than Democratic administrations, despite the economy performing better under Democratic administrations for the vast majority of postwar history?

There is a reason the market rallied when Trump was elected.

Only one reason? Is it because the winner was the side that would have tried to overthrow the election if they had lost? The market probably doesn’t like the prospect of constitutional crisis.

Is it the same reason why the Trump meme coin did also?

In 2016 they absolutely pretended that the economy was very bad, and then suddenly it was very good in February 2017.

When high gas prices are over, they go back down to being relatively low.

When high inflation is over, prices don't go back down, they just increase at a more reasonable rate going forward. But they'll still feel high for at least a few years as people mentally adjust.

Gas is around the lowest it will ever be going forward. The extra energy to pump and refine oil has been and will continue to increase.

when clinton, bush, or obama were elected, the opposing party was much less willing to engage in bad-faith arguments and outright lies for their own gain.

Oh boy. Yes, they did. For example: https://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/12/us/politics/12bai.html

"How the US Economy Is Doing Depends on Your Politics" says that the trend started in late 90s: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-03-21/consumer-...

My guess: the COVID related inflation was visible, made for a relatable talking point, and our modern day communication technologies made it easy to repeat that talking point over and over.

This. Even though inflation is just about back to where it was pre-covid, the winning candidate gave his voters the impression that he could lower the prices that had gone up during the earlier inflationary period. The majority of voters don't understand the underlying economic issues: Unless you get a negative inflation rate (deflation) you're not going to see lower prices. And the only way you get deflation is during severe economic downturns - now it could be that his promise will come true and we'll get a severe economic downturn that leads to lower pries, but I don't think the people that voted his way had that in mind.

Of course people don't really want deflation either, and most people don't really believe prices will magically drop 30% back to where they were in 2019.

But it's still reasonable to punish those who presided over the inflation spike if you think their policy choices played a role in causing it.

Except the causes for it are due to multiple elections of people with almost the same policies regarding regulation and taxation, leading to consolidation.

So, punished people by electing people with the same policies, just with more lies. Perverse incentive is to keep the same policies, but lie more.

Except they voted for the guy who arguably started the inflation spike and will stoke inflation again by imposing tariffs on all imports (not to mention increasing deficits faster than the other guys would have).

> and most people don't really believe prices will magically drop 30% back to where they were in 2019

You'd be surprised. Most people don't, but a most of the people who voted for him did seem to that he was going to magically drop prices.

> why was it successful this time and not every time?

The tools for fooling people are becoming easier to develop and deploy.

There's an ongoing trend of increased polarization, you shouldn't assume that politics and partisanship is the same as 20 years ago.

iirc Trump campaigned on the sluggishness of the Obama-era economy. It was characterized as burdened and shackled, but not downright terrible.

Yeah, there was a perception then (in 2016) that the economy was growing too slowly when in fact it was doing pretty well. Yes, the recovery from the '08 Great Recession was very slow, but by 2016 things were pretty good. Then this time around he ran on the economy being supposedly better during his first term when in fact most of that was just inherited from Obama. Towards the end of Trump's first term inflation was already starting to heat up due to the trade wars and tariffs he started. Covid hits and that inflation goes into high gear. Most of it was from covid and supply chain issues - not really Biden's fault, but it was easy for him to pin it on Biden.

My guess is that journalism failed this election and social media won it.

* Advertising is failing for news sites, so paywalls are becoming the new thing. Those are a barrier to entry for most potential readers.

* As one of the largest social media platforms, X did made two key moves. First, they limited reach for users who share external links.[1] That breaks news sites' revenue and readership models. Second, the CEO of X came out as a massive Trump amplifier on that platform. Neither of these things limited users' access to information, but it deeply affected their access to truth.

* At the same time Meta backed completely out of the "breaking news" business (maybe on both FB and Threads ... I don't keep track that well).

* Trust in MSM was already declining.

Once the fourth estate was hobbled, social media, podcasts and chat platforms became the dominant means for storytelling. Not only were the Democrats not getting their act together on those platforms, but neither was the press.

Personally? Measured by the number of homeless people I see around me I think the economy is still pretty crappy even though my stock and crypto portfolio is doing great.

[1] https://techround.co.uk/news/musk-limiting-external-links-x/

And if you read other social media platforms like reddit , you would believe that Harris would win in by a landslide.

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