Before arguing about whose fault it was (if any), important to start with the basic fact that public discontent is primarily about high inflation combined with expiration of various income supports causing real income to decline in the middle of Biden's term, -6% in 2022 by my calculation on Fred.
I don't disagree exactly, but I don't think we can know the effects of the pandemic on public discontent. Maybe it's not a factor at all, maybe it's a small one, but it could a be a major factor. Just no historical comparison to go by.
I agree with that. We just can't know the political effects of the broad social and psychological trauma. But we know that real disposable income growth has big political consequences. So I think we can start with that, before getting into the unknown stuff.
