Ultimately voters don't distinguish between unpleasant things that their leaders and governments have direct control over, and those that are international phenomena resulting from supply-side disruptions caused by a global pandemic or the warmongering of an ageing autocrat halfway across the world.

Voters don't like high prices, so they punished the Democrats for being in charge when inflation hit. The cost of living was also the top issue in Britain's July general election and has been front of mind in dozens of other countries for most of the last two years.

That different politicians, different parties, different policies and different rhetoric deployed in different countries have all met similar fortunes suggests that a large part of Tuesday's American result was locked in regardless of the messenger or the message. The wide variety of places and people who swung towards Trump also suggests an outcome that was more inevitable than contingent.

But it's not just about inflation. An update of economist Arthur Okun's "misery index" " the sum of the inflation and unemployment rates " for this era might swap out joblessness and replace it with immigration. On this basis, the past couple of years in the US, UK and dozens of other countries have been characterised by more economic and societal upheaval than they have seen in generations.

Not to interfere with the circular firing squad, and certainly Dems made plenty of mistakes, but if you take a gander at that chart you'll see that the Dems actually did far better than governing parties in almost every other nation.

Another link to the article if the provided one doesn't work for anyone:

That's going to werk out SO well!
#4 | Posted by Corky

Ever since democrats abandoned populism their only win was due to a pandemic being flubbed by the republican.
#5 | Posted by SpeakSoftly

I'm coming to the conclusion that people just don't care, absent some great crisis.