Wasn't the inflation done by Trump though? Not allowing Powell to raise rates and threatening to remove him?

Yes. We Americans have the collective memory of a Mayfly and the inability to pay attention to things that drive actual inflation that take a lot of time to resolve, like bad housing policy, logistics logjams, and starving the beastly budget needed for oversight.

Could be, or the Ukraine war, the pandemic, or some other policy

It's nonfalsifiable. People will settle on the simplest observation:

it happened under Biden

of course. And this was a failure of messaging by dems

I completely agree that Trump printed a ton of money, but Biden also continued to print a ton of money.

In addition, people tend to associate outcomes with the administration in power even if it’s due to a prior administration. Inflation appeared under Biden, not Trump. Inflation decreasing also does not mean prices decreasing.

Inflation was global, and the USA navigated it much better than other Western economies.

But of course that’s far too much nuance for the average voter anywhere.

Funny thing is we saved ourselves from 2008-style economic collapse with stimulus, which partially caused the inflation here but also caused it in all the other countries. But nevertheless, all their incumbent parties lost over it.

When you get punched in the face, the first thought is not who else got punched. Of course ppl will vote based on their own recent face punching. "I didn't get punched in the face when the other guy was president"

So what you're saying is that voters are stupid? Punch-drunk unable to think about the consequences of their actions?

I wouldn't say stupid, I'd say ignorant. A more progressive interpretation: you can't help someone else until you have your own mask on. People are voting based on how they feel their life is compared to 4 years ago and apparently half of america very much recalls life being better then. They don't feel the need to dig any deeper than that; they need to get their own oxygen mask on.

Which is a bit of a weird argument because people did get punched hard in 2020. Things were mostly very bad during Trump’s last year in office. Jobs were lost, millions died; Trump himself spent days in intensive care in October 2020.

Political memories are very short. Trump can get excused for the botched Covid response because it’s ancient history, but Biden can’t get excused for global inflation which followed from the same disaster.

> Inflation was global, and the USA navigated it much better than other Western economies.

This comes across as very out of touch. By "navigated it" you mean brought inflation under control. But it's not like prices came down.

The $1,500 per month grocery bill that was $1,000 in 2019 is still $1,500.

People don't look at the CPI and think "phew, glad the Fed was able to get inflation back to target" they think "I remember when I used to have $1,000 left over each month".

And they remember that every single month.

It is astounding how many people don't get that.

Also how many people blame it on Biden while giving Trump credit for Obama's work.

Not only will Trump not fix these things but he’s the cause or at least contributor to all the things you just mentioned. You may be right that those are the reasons people voted for Trump, but if they did they’re naive at best.

Spot on. You nailed it. And dems needed to communicate why those things were not their fault or have answers... instead they tried "vibes"

> Inflation.

The lack of basic macroeconomic education is truly becoming an ever more problem in free societies.

Living in capitalism while not really understanding basic tennents makes one ripe for manipulation and that way endangers freedoms we all cherish.