There's a common theme among the left-wing consulting class that supposes no Democrat policy is ever wrong or truly unpopular. Rather, any public discontent is the fault of voters for simply being too stupid to understand how great it is.
Amid very low approval for the "Affordable Care Act," Barack Obama and his staffers constantly suggested people would love the disastrous healthcare bill if they just weren't so stupid. The issues change, but the strategies never do. It's always a supposed "messaging issue."
Enter Joe Biden. His handlers are beginning to face the reality behind closed doors that they can't gaslight voters into believing the economy is on the "upswing." More succinctly, there's no "messaging" fix to this.
Inside Biden’s orbit, the fear is that there’s little new the administration can do to change the perceptions of a stubborn electorate that’s living through an upswing — yet simply refusing to believe it.
“If half of the people think that unemployment is at a 50-year high when it’s actually close to a 50-year low, this is a problem of misinformation, it’s a problem of perception,” said Ben Harris, a former senior Treasury Department official who helped craft Biden’s economic agenda. “I think, unfortunately, it’ll have a major impact on the election.”
Let me translate that for you. You are "stubborn" and dumb because you don't believe the economy is on the "upswing" while paying exorbitantly higher prices today than when Biden took office. Those mortgage rates that have made buying a home nearly impossible for most people? Those aren't an issue. What you should care about is the massaged unemployment numbers that have zero effect on your finances.
That's the line the White House is going with. As they say, it's a bold move. Let's see how it works out for them.
Still, there was at least one Biden advisor who spoke on the condition of anonymity who seemed to get it.
“The big problem is the pain points are things they feel every week, every month, every day,” conceded one Biden adviser who was granted anonymity to express the internal sense of dismay. “Is that fixable? It’s unclear.”
It's not unclear whether the pain point of higher prices can be fixed before the election or not. The answer is that it can't be. There's just not enough time at this point. You would need inflation to drop another percent and a half just to meet the two percent goal of the Federal Reserve. That's not happening in six months, and even then, the huge price increases of the last three years will remain baked into the cake.
Does that mean the election is over? No, I wouldn't be so arrogant as to proclaim that. Voters are a fickle lot, and while there's no time for significant economic changes before the election, there's plenty of time for other possible game-changers to land.
Biden is certainly in a bad spot, though. Once voters make up their minds about an issue, it is really hard to change the dynamic, and most think the economy isn't working for them. They don't care about employment numbers because, as I said, those are just headlines. They mean nothing to the normal working American. What means something to them is what's in their bank account, and Biden and his handlers can't pee on peoples' legs and convince them it's raining.