Were You REALLY Better Off Four Years Ago?
Politix
Politix
4.6 • 1.4K Ratings
🗓️ 6 March 2024
⏱️ 42 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This week on Politix, Matt and Brian discuss:
* How Donald Trump wriggled away from his disastrous pandemic response and the horribleness of 2020;
* Whether Joe Biden’s pandemic response made voters more inclined to forgive Trump;
* The extent to which the switcheroo was the product of rational thinking vs. the political strategies of the two parties.
Then, paid subscribers get a prospective look at how Democrats persuade voters that their initial instinct to vote Trump out was correct. Can they raise the salience of the pandemic annus horribillis again after almost everyone has moved on? Will they ask the canonical question: “Are you better off than you were four years ago?” Would they forgive Biden for a year of inflation if they understood it as part of the long, difficult process of fixing an economy Trump broke—and will break again? Upgrade to find out!
Further reading:
* The final report of the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis.
* Brian on the political perils of always looking forward, not backward.
* Evan Osnos on Biden’s defiant confidence in the face of losing poll numbers.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | COVID is a great issue for threading this needle that you've always talk about. |
| 0:04.6 | Because not only was he a bad president, but he was a bad president because he had these |
| 0:09.0 | corrupt motives for not responding well. |
| 0:11.3 | Bad for you, like the normal middle class American. |
| 0:18.6 | You, the average pooping citizen who wants to be able to wipe their butt with toilet paper. |
| 0:25.0 | Hey everyone, you're listening to a free preview of the politics podcast. So we've seen |
| 0:34.6 | some evidence in recent days that the Joe Biden's running behind Donald Trump |
| 0:38.8 | in part because a chunk of Trump-Biden voters plan for now at least to switch back to Donald Trump. |
| 0:45.7 | So in this episode Matt and I will discuss how and why voters who four years ago abandoned |
| 0:52.0 | Trump over mostly I think his pandemic failures |
| 0:55.4 | how they have come to a revised view and a sense of sort of Trump |
| 1:00.9 | nostalgia. So what actually happened in 2020? How much of it was Donald Trump's fault? |
| 1:06.0 | And how can Democrats convince those swingy voters that their instincts were right the first time around. |
| 1:13.8 | We hope you enjoy the conversation and if you like what you're hearing and you want to listen |
| 1:17.1 | to the whole episode, you can upgrade your subscription to paid at politics. F.M. |
| 1:23.0 | Hello and welcome to the politics podcast. I'm Brian Boiler. |
| 1:31.0 | I'm Matthew Iglesias. |
| 1:32.0 | So you know if you're a regular listener that Joe Biden is |
| 1:37.5 | losing the election. Polls last week confirmed this, the New York Times, |
| 1:43.2 | Siena Poll, which has a pretty good track record, |
| 1:45.2 | I think it's highly thought of, |
| 1:47.0 | had Biden down 5 points, 48 to 43. |
... |
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