If you look at a variety of data—consumer sentiment, presidential approval, etc.—they all start to turn down around May or June of last year. This is well after the January 6 insurrection, so that's probably not to blame. Ditto for President Biden's inauguration. And it's well before the Afghanistan withdrawal, so that's not to blame either. Nor was there anything new going on with COVID. In fact, this was after vaccines had been widely taken up and COVID case rates were close to zero.
So what happened? The best fit with the data seems to be inflation. Inflation started to rise in March and hit 5% by May. TV news was flooded with horror stories about the price of milk and bacon. Gasoline prices had been going up for a while and breached the three dollar barrier in the middle of May. Wages failed to keep up with inflation. Federal assistance programs were still up and running, but warnings were everywhere that they had only another few months to go.
From an employer point of view, supply chain problems were causing havoc everywhere. Unfilled job openings hit 10 million and the Wall Street Journal warned that workers now had all the leverage and could quit at a moment's notice if they weren't treated with kid gloves. And prices were going up for corporations too.
Sure, the economy was growing and unemployment was low. But the former was mostly invisible and jobs seemed unusually precarious. Employers complained they couldn't find workers, but workers scoffed, complaining that hiring requirements had become ridiculous and finding a new job was harder than ever.
These are not huge problems, and so far they're fairly short-lived. All things considered, with COVID vaccines readily available, schools mostly returning to normal operation, and nearly everyone employed, we should be pretty happy. But even small problems can be hard to bear when you layer them on top of a seemingly endless COVID-19 pandemic. It's just one damn thing after another.
And there's not much anyone can do about this. We just have to wait it out.
FOX!
Excuse making.
Rapid acceleration of inflation, particularly in daily consumer items has always been something massively political sensitive.
The Left's repetition of its 1970s style autistic theoretician response has not helped you - the fundamental signs were evident to specialists from mid-year 2021 that this time inflation issues were not the mere figment of the imagination of the usual inflation hawks (understandable to ignore them, since they've been crying inflation for 30 odd years, but using them to justify blindness is a blunder).
Well were is the inflation in 2022???? That is my point. Your post is backward. When year over year inflation falls below 4% later in the year, what then?? Do you need taken by a nostril and ripped to the point of feeling pain??? Your backward looking on a expected event. Think ahead idiot.
This comment is really about the MVT post below, but there's like 100 plus comments on there so I wanted to post it here in case Drum sees it, because I really really would like to know his thoughts on this, and it seems to be in line with a lot of his recent posts (such as the how to make people afraid of republicans post):
I wonder if Drum has heard of Rachel Bitecofer and Strikepac? She is trying to do exactly what Drum says we need here (and I agree with him). That is, it's not enough to talk about what an insane, fascist buffoon Trump is. We need to rebrand the entire Republican party as the insane, fascist party it has become so that people learn to fear the GOP (appropriate) rather than liberals (completely batty given the reality of the liberal project), and she has a plan for that. Would love to hear Drum's thoughts on he approach. https://www.strikepac.com/
Lol, Trump is no fascist, indeed the opposite, a plutocrat. You need fingers snapped. Then a eye ball gouged. This kind of dialectical lie does not help and only uniforms.
Stop whining about the jew. Con men con.
I don't usually bother respond to your word salad, Shootie, other than to say "Bottom's up!" But the notion that 'fascist' is 180 degrees from 'plutocrat' was suffieciently droll for me to explicitly point it out.
His troll commentary is oddly entertaining as it shows little coherence from day to day or even from comment to comment. Sometimes apparently memes from the hard left, sometime the hard right (but perhaps all from SVR)
Does his own research.
Then inflation collapses yry. What then?? You try too hard. The economy is no better than Trump era overrated economy. But this is about as good as it can get without a major debt bubble. The party of capitalism died in 2008(really 1929). This is hospice care before nation states disband.
This comment is really about the MVT post below, but there's like 100 plus comments on there so I wanted to post a version of it here in case Drum sees it, because I really really would like to know his thoughts on this, and it seems to be in line with a lot of his recent posts (such as the how to make people afraid of republicans post):
Drum should check out Rachel Bitecofer and Strikepac if he hasn't already. She is trying to do exactly what Drum says we need here (and I agree with him). Which is to say, it won't work to just focus on what an insane, fascist buffoon Trump is. Instead, we need to rebrand the entire Republican party as the insane, fascist party it has become so that people learn to fear it (as they really, really should) rather than liberals (who they really shouldn't), and she has a plan for that. https://www.strikepac.com/
Trump is all those things. Why do you want political power to implement programs no one really cares about?
Strange, I got a warning when I tried to post the first comment, so changed the wording to post the second, but then both showed up? Anyway, sorry for the redundancy.
I'm reminded of a claim I heard not long ago on right-wing radio: the mainstream media have been ignoring inflation.
Bhahahaha. Again, inflation collapses. What then????
I hear this kind of thing ENDLESSLY from right wingers. "Nobody's talking about..." "How come nobody's reported on ...." "I haven't heard anything about..."
And the objects of all this ignorant bewilderment have literally been in the news for weeks by the time of their comments. Which leads me to conclude that they don't partake of the actual news, and they're being lied to by whatever sources they do use.
Or just plain senility, like when my mother commented, a few months back, "Why hasn't anybody said anything about the flu pandemic in 1918?" (Because they spend most of 2020 talking about it, maybe??)
KKKlay Travis got a bad batch of pudding & the botulism went to his brain?
At this point the “seemingly endless Covid-19 pandemic” is a self inflicted wound:
“Modeling estimates from a team at USC studying the Omicron wave through mid-January say that L.A. County could have seen 85% fewer infections, and 87% fewer hospital admissions, if everyone eligible had been vaccinated. If everyone eligible had been boosted, there would’ve been 95% fewer coronavirus cases, and 98% fewer hospital admissions.”
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2022-02-01/why-southern-california-hit-harder-by-omicron-than-bay-area
I don't care about inflation. I can afford to cut back buying junk I don't need and so there has been no effect on my life. I still have a job so all this is media hype to me. Gas costs more now than in 2020 at the start of the pandemic, but I only drive about 8000 miles a year so again, this is hardly noticeable.
The media hype was crazy. And people are pretty stupid these days. If you wanted an excuse to be mad about life, this was as good a one as any.
I think it is not a good idea to encourage people to complain. Things used to be much worse, for example during World War II (even worse in Europe of Asia of course) and people got through it without the constant bitching we hear now all over the place. Forget about assuring everybody that they are "deeply traumatized" but the pandemic when the "trauma" in question consists of masking and vaccinating.
People who lost loved ones of who have loved ones (or themselves) in danger are allowed to complain; everybody else should shut up.
At some point the message has to be: Suck it up
What, you're advocating this during an era where every "micro-aggression" takes on a macro, societal scale?
For what it's worth, I tend to agree. But then, I'm old.
Biden needs more "hot mic" incidents...
Like +10!
(No, that isn't ten factorial. But maybe it ought to be.)
+1 big fuckin deal
Things aren't all that spectacular but, we are still alive, breathing and eating. Covid has been a great leveler for most but the negative press about Biden, from all quarters is a bit discerning. Good heavens, the orange cheeto was no saviour, more the opposite. Let's give Biden a break.
Meh, like people care what the media says. Biden rising in swing states is telling: trade warrior, onshoring, less globalism. It works
Omicron is in the collapse stage.
Never before has a good economy seemed so bad
It's not just covid, or not just Trump, and not just Fox.
It's that people have a lot to be angry about but only the wrong people have a monopoly on anger.
And Democrats aren't helping.
If you're not against Republicans, if you're not against conservatives, if you're not against Fox and Nazis and anti-vaxxers you're not against anything. Build Back Better and voting rights is a pretty thing, but so what, it doesn't help with any of the real problem, the real problem that prevents it from ever happening.
If Democrats aren't against the real problem what the fuck good are they?
They never talk about it, no one who should talk about it talks about it, --so the economy sucks.
The job situation is weird. Employers are going on and on about how they're going begging for workers, and yet just this week, I heard no fewer than three people I know complain that they've applied to a bunch of jobs recently -- all through online hr systems, it should be noted -- and never get a response. Even for positions they appear on paper to be more than qualified for. My own recently-HS graduated kid has applied for several entry-level, part time positions to places that have huge, desperate help-wanted signs in their storefronts and...nothing. She's even resubmitted applications. Nothing.
WTF is going on?
They don't have the people to review applications???
It really is bizarre...
Smaller places are desperate for workers, yet afraid to hire.
Larger places count on churn
And online applications? They'll screen with outlandish requirements--then skip those that make it through for being over qualified, i.e. they'll move on in a month or two....
Maybe....
It's inflation.
My father swear's Biden has sent us to eternal damnation.
"Uh, dad, you are rich, have assets, don't drive, won't buy a car, you are fine".
"WHAT DOES THE PRICE OF CARS HAVE TO DO WITH INFLATION!!!!"
"Nevermind".
The budget hawks were going to be right about inflation, eventually, even if they don't know how to calculate it any better than the drunk idiot at the end of the bar. And it's a lot easier sell than BBB.
Pull the plug on dear ol' dad.
Gas prices.
Which is why we'll never really tackle climate change. Dems will be voted out when prices go up.
Very plausible. Not to mention being voted out if they increased taxes. Which is why things are falling apart and apparently "nothing can be done." If only there were some way of showing the voting public that these two things were linked!!
Lol, nope. Gas prices are a coastal thing. Swing states it is a positive.
Kevin, interested to get your thoughts on Josh Barro's take that work life sucks in a number of ways that don't get recorded in statistics, explaining much of the disconnect:
https://www.joshbarro.com/p/voters-are-right-to-be-mad-about
Why do I care what a z-grade Loq Qabin Republiqan has to say about anything?
Put him in a subhuman centipede with Nate Silver & Lindsay Graham.
"We just have to wait it out."
Agreed although for a politician running in an election year it's little comfort but it is the truth.
Here's something that may seem trite but could be a good indicator. When was the last you remember going to a McDonald's or some other fast food joint an actually go inside and sitting down for a meal? Been awhile hasn't it. People probably can't understand why they are still closed if schools and bars and other establishments are open. If they reopened for walk-in traffic this year, it wouldn't
surprise me that some of the "irritation" in the body politic would go away.