Honestly, looking deeper into it, it may just come down to the economy. Voters are always going to vote with their wallet, and inflation in 2022 happened with the Democrats in office, so the average voter believes they’re to blame. Which has been the Republican strategy regarding the economy for so long. Lower taxes, creating massive debt, forcing the next administration to raise taxes to erase that debt, then blame them for raising taxes.
The “safe” blue states were astoundingly close, and I think the economy was the main reason for that. Like, no state hates Trump like New Yorkers hate Trump, and he got a 13 point swing in that state from 2020 to this past election.
Oh I do think there's a lot about the economy to it.
I keep reading about how strong it is, how many jobs that Biden has created and how unemployment is at such a low. And all I have to say about that after being unemployed myself for the last 7 months.... Bullshit. The economy is
broken. If you lose your job right now, good f***ing luck getting another one. Its damn near impossible to get a call back, its damn near impossible to speak with anyone. And if you're above the age of 35, you're even more f***ed than you could possibly imagine. I applied to over 400 jobs, and from all of those applications, I maybe got a callback for a phone screening 20 times. Of those 20 I think I moved to an interview about 8 times and a final interview once. The job I ended up being offered, I didn't even apply to it, a recruiter reached out to me.
And I'm someone who spent 15 years in the industry and I'm only looking for a lateral move. Don't tell me that everything is the strongest its ever been when my own eyes can tell you its bullshit.
As for the unemployment numbers, of course the national numbers are low when there is no federal unemployment and basically every state in the country has slashed their unemployment benefits from where it used to be. When I was on unemployment in 2010, I was able to file to keep myself afloat and the benefits would allow me to collect for 26 weeks. This time around, coming off a job that payed over 3x what I was making back then, my eligibility was about half of what it was in 2010 and it was only good for 13 weeks. Of course unemployment numbers are going to look better when people drop from the register in half the time as it took before.
