The Vibecession

 The basic quandary that the Biden re-election team has to face is that the economy is really healthy in many fundamental ways, but people don't like it. You'd like to take credit for Bidenomics, but that's risky when people seem deadset on believing it's a terrible economy. This steadfast belief is true across the world, as incumbents of all types are losing elections (or would if the elections were held today). Some of this is Covid hangover - both economically and politically - but in other countries things are demonstrably worse. Biden and American have done better than just about any comparable economy in recovering from Covid.

It gets weirder when you look at the popularity of incumbent governors in the US. This mirrors something we see with polling about public education. Most people think public education is failing badly, but they also think their school system and teachers are excellent. You can squint and make a case that people liking their governors and hating on Biden are two dynamics. This first is negative polarization (no Republican is going to say they like the economy) and the second is that there is usually a lag between improving economic conditions and politicians getting credit for it.

There's also, though, the "Vibecession" or the fact that things feel bad, regardless of the economic data. On explanation proffered here is that rising minimum wages has created a status problem for bougie middle class people who don't want to concede anything to the working class. The problem I have is that this requires walking into a Five Guys, dropping $50 on lunch and tying that directly to rising wages. People don't understand economics that much.

The Tweet at the top of that thread illuminates something important though. Someone posts a ridiculous, economically illiterate post about the cost of fries (but more about the mark-up of Uber Eats) and then admits they don't know what they're talking about (which is actually refreshing). Still, people liked the post. I think there are two important points here.

The first is that social media thrives on negative engagement. People click on stuff that angers them more than things that make them happy. (Not me, baby. I'm all about Puppy Tik Tok.) The second is a bit more conspiratorial. People get "engagement" for posting fundamentally negative stories like the false idea that fries cost $7. I have to wonder though how much hostile governments are rewarding this cognitive process. Bots can boost a negative message just as much as actual people can, and Tik Tok is owned by China. If you don't like America, a Trump re-election is the best possible thing you could hope for. Tweaking your algorithm to flood social media with negative bullshit doesn't seem implausible and wouldn't be that hard or expensive to do.

There is legitimate outrage over the way Israel has conducted its war on Hamas. They've been brutal, but Hamas knew that would be the response when they launched the attack. The sudden cause celebre of Palestinians would've made sense among, you know, Palestinians and Muslims in general. The total embrace of fucking Hamas by the online Left feels...off. Sure, they are mostly knuckleheads and grifters at the top, but a distressing number of young people get their news from social media. We are already wired to engage with negativity, and if China or Russia wanted to press the issue it would be really easy.