Let's dig a little deeper on how the public mood and political attitudes have shifted over time,

tied in no small part to economic shifts and dislocation.

Paul Salman recently spoke with economist and columnist Paul Krugman about his career

and how the combination of polarization, globalization, and job loss changed the way many Americans see the economy.

For just short of 25 years, Nobel laureate economist Paul Krugman was a New York Times columnist.

He began the column in the Clinton years.

Krugman left the Times just before Donald Trump was inaugurated.

I asked him back then what has changed in 25 years.

When I began writing the column, people were extremely optimistic. I was hired basically

to talk about all the good news and maybe funny stuff that was happening in this glorious

late 1990s economic boom. And it's been a very troubled world since then.

By trouble, he means, at least domestically, Donald Trump's policies. But Americans voted

for them, didn't they? Most voters have very little idea of policy. I mean, you look at the polling,

ask people, do you approve of Obamacare, and it's still pretty

negative. And you ask, do you approve of the Affordable Care Act? And it's very positive. So that's

telling you something about what voters understand about policy. Krugman pointed to this recent

Michigan Consumer Confidence survey question. Are you personally better off than you were five years ago?

In October, a clear plurality of Americans said, no, we're worse off.

In November, a clear plurality of Americans said, yes, we're better off than we were five years ago.

So people's assessment of their own financial situation turns out to be kind of driven by

narratives that are floating out there. Krugman supported President Biden's policy of manufacturing

investment to help regions hurt by trade and China. But voters in those regions went for Donald

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