This week in Bidenomics: Something bigger than 'Bidenflation'
President Biden wants voters to think of anything this year other than the inflation that popped up during his presidency and is still weighing on family budgets.
Now there is something: Donald Trump’s conviction on 34 criminal charges and the new sobriquet he must wear like a dirty shirt — “convicted felon.”
Biden, so far, has had a low-key response to Trump’s epic smackdown. In a statement posted after the May 30 verdict, Biden said, “In New York today, we saw that no one is above the law.” In remarks a day later, Biden rejected Trump’s claim that the trial was rigged and said, “Our justice system should be respected and we should never allow anyone to tear it down.”
Yet the jury is still out (ha) on whether Biden can effectively exploit the Trump convictions and turn them into a decisive electoral advantage. The election is still five months away. The key undecided voters likely to swing the election in five or six battleground states might not decide on their candidate until weeks or days before the election. By then, the Trump convictions will be oldish news.
One thing that seems clear for Biden is he can’t merely hope that inflation improves by enough during the next five months to suddenly put voters in a cheerier mood. The inflation rate has fallen from a peak of 9% in 2022 to just 3.4% today, yet Americans still feel stung by prices that have risen and in most cases stayed at their new, higher levels.
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One key lesson of "Bidenflation," as the president's critics call it, is that, unlike economists, ordinary people don’t measure inflation by the annual rate of change in the Consumer Price Index. They measure it by how much more they have to pay for stuff than they used to. The timeframe could be one year, but it could also be one month, three years, or however long ago it was when gas was under $3 per gallon.
By the endlessly variable consumer definition of inflation, prices are too high now and they’re still going to be too high on Election Day in November. That’s why Biden’s approval rating remains dismal, even amid low unemployment and a nicely growing economy. It’s why Biden can’t outpoll Trump even though Trump has more messy baggage than a busload of spring breakers.
If Trump’s rambling rant the day after his conviction is any indication, Biden might get help from Trump himself. Trump, the master of grievance, sounds more bitter and more cringey than ever as he complains about the “rigged trial,” the mean judge, the misguided bookkeeper, and all the other unfairness thrown at the poor billionaire who inherited a ready-made franchise from his father. If Trump’s rallies and interviews and online rants are now going to be largely devoted to beautiful bookkeeping entries that were not remotely illegal or fraudulent, it might dawn on swing voters that Trump isn’t thinking very much about them or their problems.
Biden, meanwhile, seems poised to address what is probably his second-biggest vulnerability, with a pending announcement of some new executive action meant to clamp down on illegal migration at the southwest border. Few have noticed, but migration trends have been going Biden’s way of late, with crossings down 50% from the record levels at the end of 2023. The Mexican government, prodded by its northern neighbor, has been intercepting more migrants before they get to the US border.
This could be an effective way for Biden to hit Trump while he’s down: incessantly reminding voters that his electoral opponent is a “convicted felon” while shoring up his own weaknesses where he can. Inflation is not going to land where voters or Biden want it to this year, but that might not be a fatal outcome for the incumbent after all.
Rick Newman is a senior columnist for Yahoo Finance. Follow him on Twitter at @rickjnewman.
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