[whoknew1122]

But what is the response that works?

Average: I can't afford groceries at the store. Inflation sucks.

Response: Well, inflation plays a part, but grocery stores are still recording record profits despite inflation.

Average: Are you suggesting grocery stores shouldn't make as much money as they can? Free market hater! Communist!

[phtrivier]

The response should have been :

"You're right, prices are too high, and wages too low. Especially housing prices, and wages for young men without a college degree.

It's in part the consequences of some things we did.

Here are our proposals to make prices go down, or make wages go up:

Proposal 1: ...."

My deep belief is that the hard part, and the reason Democrats did not do that, is not in the difficulty to find solution.

The hardest part is that it meant recognizing they were, at least in part, responsible for the problem.

The second hardest part was recognizing that the problem was hurting a category of people that's "outside of the tribe".

So, faced with a complex problem, they decided to deny the problem existed altogether, focussed on something else (not necessarily unworthy issues, but, simply, not the one at hand.)

"Ventre affamé n'a point d'oreille."

The silver lining is that:

- either the Republicans somehow manage to get prices down or wages up

- or the next election will swing the other way.

It's still, after all, no matter what, "the economy, stupid" - just, the real economy, no the the fake financial one.

[phtrivier]

Also, it's striking that one of the problems on which the Democratic Party focussed did win in the ballot : if I read it correctly, in most of the places where women's reproductive rights were on the ballots, the position of the Democratic Party prevailed.

Why they decided to be myopic, and assumed that they had to defend the rights of women _or_ the rights of workers, and could not do both, is a bit beyond me.

[Izikiel43]

It feels like democrats were talking to women, LGTB people, and some elites.

They completely forgot about the other half of the electorate, and when reminded of their existence and issues, they considered the other stuff more important. This result shouldn't surprise anyone.

[hanniabu]

You do realize the high inflation is due to actions Trump made....

[ComplexSystems]

Well, for starters, a response that would have worked won't involve both of these contradictory positions at the same time:

Position 1: Prices can never go down again unless inflation is negative and we get "deflation." Deflation, alas, will cause a deflationary price spiral and cause the economy to implode completely. Why? Well, reasons. Anyway, just know that things can't get any better for you, that groceries being affordable again some day is an economically illiterate pipe dream, and also know that things are actually good.

Position 2: Also, we'll just force stores to lower prices. Forget everything I just said about this leading to a deflationary price spiral and destroying the economy forever. Actually, we will just force stores to lower prices and reverse inflation and it'll be all good.

[carom]

More reasonable would be to explain the grocery prices will likely never come back down but we can increase workers' wages through certain policies. Biden's policy of opening the border to undocumented labor is not a policy that I believe will help increase the wages of those concerned about the cost of groceries.

[EricDeb]

The best solution imo would have been 1. to run a candidate not associated with Biden. 2. To say "inflation happened globally" and double and triple down on that. Half baked solutions like you're suggesting from someone associated with Biden + gaslighting the public that its not that bad were not the answers people wanted.

[TimTheTinker]

how about an alternative:

Position 3: Introduce policies that stimulate domestic production and decrease foreign competition. This will lower prices without forcing domestic producers out of business.

[pie_flavor]

There isn't, really. Inflation is irredeemable and you just have to be overwhelmingly better in other aspects, which she wasn't. The solution is to not have allowed it to happen in the first place.

[spankalee]

> The solution is to not have allowed it to happen in the first place.

How, exactly?

The biggest causes of inflation were stimulus, supply-shock, and housing prices.

Stimulus started under Trump and was the correct response to COVID. Without it we would have had even worse economic suffering that we did. Inflation was the lesser-of-two-evils.

The supply shock was global, and there probably wasn't much to do about it, besides maybe some more supply-side stimulus.

Housing is just a shit-show, but people have been grinding to get more built to address the problems for years.

But stimulus was the thing that could have been changed the most, yet it kept us from having a much, much worse recession.

[burningChrome]

You know what doesn't work?

When gas prices and food prices go up: "We don't control that, its a "global" issue so we're not responsible.

When gas prices and food prices go down: "See everybody! Look! Our economic policies ARE working! You just have to trust us!"

This all we heard the entire four years Biden was in office. People are not stupid. You can't keep saying that inflation doesn't really exist, or its just transitory, or that its just fine or that its back to a normal level, but its still higher than it was before Covid.

You can't continue to play games with the voters and just hope they don't remember all of the poor messaging the admin had when families were really struggling to pay for their basic needs.

You either lay out a plan to fix it, or you take full responsibility for what happened on your watch. Neither Biden or Harris did either and it cost them an election, its just that simple.

[michaelmrose]

There isn't a way to fix it and they actually aren't responsible. Taking fake responsibility would imply fault and suggest that voters ought to switch sides to the party which actually mismanaged the covid response which is absolutely nonsensical.

[spankalee]

I think there are two things:

1. Try the Trump/populist playbook on the topic: identify the problem, empathize, be mad, let them vent, but don't really focus on a solution.

2. Advocate austerity as a solution to inflation. Might be less economically ideal, but more politically viable.

edit to add: iow, Harris and other Dems could have thrown Biden under the bus a bit to try to avoid some of the blame. It's cold, and Biden directed an actually decent response to the supply-shock-driven inflation, but it'd be a kind of shrewdness like getting Biden to drop out that might have helped.

[UncleOxidant]

> Try the Trump/populist playbook on the topic: identify the problem,

And ideally put the blame on people who don't have any/much political or economic power within the country, like immigrants. Us vs them. "If we just get rid of 'them' everything will be fine"