Michael Whatley, the current chair of the Republican National Committee, appeared on Fox News late last week to summarize what he sees as the foundational question of the 2024 presidential race:
“The American voters are going to go vote based on whether they are better off today than they were four years ago. And there’s not a single metric that President Biden can show where America’s better off than they were four years ago.”
The RNC chief obviously had some grammatical trouble toward the end of the quote, but putting that aside, Whatley peddled a familiar refrain. Republicans are heavily invested in the idea that President Joe Biden will lose for the simple reason that the country was better off four years ago.
Indeed, Whatley can’t think of “a single metric” that’s moved in the right direction when comparing 2020 and 2024.
Of course, if the RNC chair is genuinely interested in the underlying question, there’s all kinds of evidence for him to consider. The New York Times’ Paul Krugman explained in a recent column that the Reagan-era “Are you better off than you were four years ago?” question is “almost ludicrously favorable to President Biden.”
After all, four years ago, thousands of Americans were dying each day of Covid-19. Soaring deaths aside, four years ago more than 20 million Americans were unemployed; Trump left office with the worst job record of any president since Herbert Hoover. Also, the country was in the grip of a violent crime wave, with murders soaring. Today, by contrast, we’ve just experienced the longest stretch of unemployment below 4 percent since the 1960s, and the violent crime wave — Trump didn’t cause it, but it did happen on his watch — has been rapidly receding.
Krugman’s list, of course, was just a sampling. As we’ve discussed, there are plenty of other related data points: The nation’s uninsured rate improved under Biden. The supply-chain challenges improved under Biden. The cost of many prescription drugs improved under Biden. Infrastructure investments improved under Biden. The budget deficit improved under Biden. The U.S. murder rate improved under Biden. The United States’ global standing improved dramatically after Biden replaced Trump in the White House. Whatley would have Americans believe there’s “not a single metric” that’s improved over the last four years. If we’re overly literal about it, I suppose there’s a kernel of truth in that assessment — because there are a great many metrics that show how much better off the United States is as compared to four years ago.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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