Politics

Opinion: What's convincing voters that the economy is worse than it ever was?

Published

2 years ago

May 28, 2024

Opinion: What's convincing voters that the economy is worse than it ever was?

One of the worst things about democracy is the way we talk about it.

For instance, politicians love to talk about unity, but our constitutional system was to set up to keep unity at bay, preferring a more adversarial approach, pitting faction against faction. Checks and balances, separation of powers and the divided authorities between the federal and state governments are predicated on the idea that unity will be rare and temporary. The Constitution places our most cherished liberties on a high shelf, hard to reach during moments of unifying populist passion.

The rhetorical mismatch doesn’t just apply to the mechanisms of democracy but also to the culture of democracy. Democratic manners demand that politicians never say the voters are wrong. But competitive elections — essential to any workable definition of democracy — require some voters to be “wrong.” I don’t necessarily mean in their policy preferences (though that’s frequently the case), I just mean elections create winners and losers. And yet, winning politicians, with barely half of the electorate on their side, routinely declare that the “America people have spoken” after every victory.

More to the point, voters are often simply wrong about basic facts going into an election. For instance, the Biden campaign is struggling with an electorate that believes the economy is far worse than it is. To be clear, I didn’t say they the economy is good, though that argument can be made. No, President Biden is struggling to convince the electorate that the economy isn’t the worst ever.

A recent YouGov survey asked voters to say which decade, starting in the 1930s, had the worst economy. A third (32%) said the 2020s, our current decade, is the worst, worse even than the 1930s or 1970s. Only 23% said the ’30s and a mere 5% named the ’70s as the worst. This is, by any objective measure, wrong, spectacularly wrong.

Now, there’s a lot of partisan bias at work here. Only 19% of Democrats said ours is the worst decade and 24% did say the 1930s were, but 45% of Republicans believe the 2020s are the worst. Still, when nearly 1 in 5 Democrats wrongly believe things are worse than during the Great Depression, Democrats have got a problem.

This is merely one facet of Biden’s “vibes” problem. Large numbers of Americans (42%) think the 2020s are the worst decade for crime, which is just wrong. Twenty-eight percent think the 1940s — World War II, duh — had the “most war.” Only 4% named the 1970s and 6% cited the 2000s — when America fought, respectively, the Vietnam war and invaded Iraq and Afghanistan. But 19% said the current decade had the “most war” — and we’re not at war, though events in Ukraine and Gaza do make the times seem bellicose. From scientific breakthroughs to family unhappiness to racial inequality, lots of Americans just think things have never been worse.

Now, subjectively, there are perfectly valid arguments that things are not going well or that they can or should be going better. But we’re talking about objective judgments here, and objectively huge numbers of Americans are objectively wrong. And in fairness to them, I suspect many people don’t think they’re making objective judgments. When people say, “I’m having the worst day — or decade — ever!” they’re not necessarily being literal. They’re making a vibes declaration.

This is obviously a huge problem for Joe Biden. Thanks in part to the ravages of inflation and high interest rates and in part to his own shortcomings, he can’t change minds about the economy. But the causality works both ways. Economic realities contribute to negative attitudes and negative attitudes shape how the economy is perceived. And on many fronts, particularly race, Biden is fueling those negative attitudes (see his commencement address at Morehouse College).

But that explanation is insufficient. Democracy depends on the promise of incremental, cumulative, progress. James Madison didn’t want polls to be the measure of the voters’ mood, but elections. Which is why we have them constantly, at every level of government. Democracy, for Madison, isn’t about unity or agreement, but about argument and disagreement, and constant self-correction.

Thanks to that vision, we’ve made enormous strides. But now, both parties wallow in catastrophism and presentism. Donald Trump — who has the historical memory of a goldfish — falsely screeches that things have never been worse. Yet as cartoonish as his rhetoric is, he’s making a right-wing version of a common left-wing argument. Indeed, every four years, partisans insist that this is the “most important election ever” and that catastrophe or salvation is on the ballot. Relentlessly crying wolf has fueled the mess we’ve found ourselves in, and perhaps the mess to come.

After all, when you constantly tell people we’re in an existential crisis, the vibes can create the reality, whether it’s warranted by the facts or not.

@jonahdispatch

Politics

Video: Protests Against ICE in Minneapolis Continue Into Friday Night

Published

9 hours ago

January 11, 2026

Press Room

Video: Protests Against ICE in Minneapolis Continue Into Friday Night

new video loaded: Protests Against ICE in Minneapolis Continue Into Friday Night

transcript

Protests Against ICE in Minneapolis Continue Into Friday Night

Hundreds of protesters marched through downtown Minneapolis on Friday night. They stopped at several hotels along the way to blast music, bang drums and play instruments to try to disrupt the sleep of immigration agents who might be staying there. Mayor Jacob Frey of Minneapolis said there were 29 arrests but that it was mostly a “peaceful protest.”

: The vast majority of people have done this right. We are so deeply appreciative of them. But we have seen a few incidents last night. Those incidents are being reviewed, but we wanted to again give the overarching theme of what we’re seeing, which is peaceful protest. And we wanted to say when that doesn’t happen, of course, there are consequences. We are a safe city. We will not counter Donald Trump’s chaos with our own brand of chaos here. We in Minneapolis are going to do this right.
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Hundreds of protesters marched through downtown Minneapolis on Friday night. They stopped at several hotels along the way to blast music, bang drums and play instruments to try to disrupt the sleep of immigration agents who might be staying there. Mayor Jacob Frey of Minneapolis said there were 29 arrests but that it was mostly a “peaceful protest.”

By McKinnon de Kuyper

January 10, 2026

Politics

Trump says Venezuela has begun releasing political prisoners ‘in a BIG WAY’

Published

10 hours ago

January 11, 2026

Press Room

Trump says Venezuela has begun releasing political prisoners ‘in a BIG WAY’

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President Donald Trump said Saturday that Venezuela has begun releasing political prisoners “in a BIG WAY,” crediting U.S. intervention for the move following last week’s American military operation in the country.

“Venezuela has started the process, in a BIG WAY, of releasing their political prisoners,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “Thank you! I hope those prisoners will remember how lucky they got that the USA came along and did what had to be done.”

He added a warning directed at those being released: “I HOPE THEY NEVER FORGET! If they do, it will not be good for them.”

The president’s comments come one week after the United States launched Operation Absolute Resolve, a strike on Venezuela and capture of dictator Nicolás Maduro as well as his wife Cilia Flores, transporting them to the United States to face federal drug trafficking charges.

US WARNS AMERICANS TO LEAVE VENEZUELA IMMEDIATELY AS ARMED MILITIAS SET UP ROADBLOCKS

Government supporters in Venezuela rally in Caracas. (AP Photo)

Following the military operation, Trump said the U.S. intends to temporarily oversee Venezuela’s transition of power, asserting American involvement “until such time as a safe, proper and judicious transition” can take place and warning that U.S. forces stand ready to escalate if necessary.

At least 18 political prisoners were reported freed as of Saturday and there is no comprehensive public list of all expected releases, Reuters reported.

Maduro and Flores were transported to New York after their capture to face charges in U.S. federal court. The Pentagon has said that Operation Absolute Resolve involved more than 150 aircraft and months of planning.

TRUMP ADMIN SAYS MADURO CAPTURE REINFORCES ALIEN ENEMIES ACT REMOVALS

A demonstrator holding a Venezuelan flag sprays graffiti during a march in Mexico City on Santurday. (Alfredo Estrella / AFP via Getty Images)

Trump has said the U.S. intends to remain actively involved in Venezuela’s security, political transition and reconstruction of its oil infrastructure.

The White House did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.

President Donald Trump said Saturday that Venezuela has begun releasing political prisoners. (Mark Schiefelbein/AP Photo)

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Fox News Digital’s Morgan Phillips and Greg Norman-Diamond contributed to this reporting.

Jasmine Baehr is a Breaking News Writer for Fox News Digital, where she covers politics, the military, faith and culture.

Politics

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth tours Long Beach rocket factory

Published

10 hours ago

January 11, 2026

Press Room

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth tours Long Beach rocket factory

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, who is taking a tour of U.S. defense contractors, on Friday visited a Long Beach rocket maker, where he told workers they are key to President Trump’s vision of military supremacy.

Hegseth stopped by a manufacturing plant operated by Rocket Lab, an emerging company that builds satellites and provides small-satellite launch services for commercial and government customers.

Last month, the company was awarded an $805-million military contract, its largest to date, to build satellites for a network being developed for communications and detection of new threats, such as hypersonic missles.

“This company, you right here, are front and center, as part of ensuring that we build an arsenal of freedom that America needs,” Hegseth told several hundred cheering workers. “The future of the battlefield starts right here with dominance of space.”

Founded in 2006 in New Zealand, the company makes a small rocket called Electron — which lay on its side near Hegseth — and is developing a larger one called Neutron. It moved to the U.S. a decade ago and opened its Long Beach headquaters in 2020.

Rocket Lab is among a new wave of companies that have revitalized Southern California’s aerospace and defense industry, which shed hundreds of thousands of jobs in the 1990s after the end of the Cold War. Large defense contractors such as Northrop Grumman and Lockheed Martin moved their headquarters to the East Coast.

Many of the new companies were founded by former employees of SpaceX, which was started by Elon Musk in 2002 and was based in the South Bay before moving to Texas in 2024. However, it retains major operations in Hawthorne.

Hegseth kicked off his tour Monday with a visit to a Newport News, Va., shipyard. The tour is described as “a call to action to revitalize America’s manufacturing might and re-energize the nation’s workforce.”

Long Beach Mayor Rex Richardson, a Democrat who said he was not told of the event, said Hegseth’s visit shows how the city has flourished despite such setbacks as the closure of Boeing’s C-17 Globemaster III transport plant.

“Rocket Lab has really been a superstar in terms of our fast, growing and emerging space economy in Long Beach,” Richardson said. “This emergence of space is really the next stage of almost a century of innovation that’s really taking place here.”

Prior stops in the region included visits to Divergent, an advanced manufacturing company in aerospace and other industries, and Castelion, a hypersonic missile startup founded by former SpaceX employees. Both are based in Torrance.

The tour follows an overhaul of the Department of Defense’s procurement policy Hegseth announced in November. The policy seeks to speed up weapons development and acquisition by first finding capabilities in the commercial market before the government attempts to develop new systems.

Trump also issued an executive order Wednesday that aims to limit shareholder profits of defense contractors that do not meet production and budget goals by restricting stock buybacks and dividends.

Hegseth told the workers that the administration is trying to prod old-line defense contractors to be more innovative and spend more on development — touting Rocket Lab as the kind of company that will succeed, adding it had one of the “coolest factory floors” he had ever seen.

“I just want the best, and I want to ensure that the competition that exists is fair,” he said.

Hegseth’s visit comes as Trump has flexed the nation’s military muscles with the Jan. 3 abduction of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, who is now facing drug trafficking charges to which he has pleaded not guilty.

Hegseth in his speech cited Maduro’s capture as an example of the country’s newfound “deterrence in action.” Though Trump’s allies supported the action, legal experts and other critics have argued that the operation violated international and U.S. law.

Trump this week said he wants to radically boost U.S. military spending to $1.5 trillion in 2027 from $900 billion this year so he can build the “Dream Military.”

Hegseth told the workers it would be a “historic investment” that would ensure the U.S. is never challenged militarily.

Trump also posted on social media this week that executive salaries of defense companies should be capped at $5 million unless they speed up development and production of advanced weapons — in a dig at existing prime contractors.

However, the text of his Wednesday order caps salaries at current levels and ties future executive incentive compensation to delivery and production metrics.

Anduril Industries in Costa Mesa is one of the leading new defense companies in Southern California. The privately held maker of autonomous weapons systems closed a $2.5-billion funding round last year.

Founder Palmer Luckey told Bloomberg News he supported Trump’s moves to limit executive compensation in the defense sector, saying, “I pay myself $100,000 a year.” However, Luckey has a stake in Anduril, last valued by investors at $30.5 billion.

Peter Beck, the founder and chief executive of Rocket Lab, took a base salary of $575,000 in 2024 but with bonus and stock awards his total compensation reached $20.1 million, according to a securities filing. He also has a stake in the company, which has a market capitalization of about $45 billion.

Beck introduced Hegseth saying he was seeking to “reinvigorate the national industrial base and create a leaner, more effective Department of War, one that goes faster and leans on commercial companies just like ours.”

Rocket Lab boasts that its Electron rocket, which first launched in 2017, is the world’s leading small rocket and the second most frequently launched U.S. rocket behind SpaceX.

It has carried payloads for NASA, the U.S. Space Force and the National Reconnaissance Office, aside from commercial customers.

The company employs 2,500 people across facilities in New Zealand, Canada and the U.S., including in Virginia, Colorado and Mississippi.

Rocket Lab shares closed at $84.84 on Friday, up 2%.