How bad is the environment for Democrats this fall? So bad, that Mark Zandi, the chief economist at Moody’s Analytics and the most prominent Biden apologist on Wall Street, is throwing in the towel on the White House’s inflation problem. Today’s Washington Post quotes the “go-to” economist for Democrats as saying: “I think the economic backdrop is as dark as it has been since the start of the administration. It’s just a very, very dark and deep problem. . . . There’s nothing more pernicious on the collective psyche than having to pay more. And it’s only set to get worse.”
In February, Zandi was already worried enough about inflation that he warned against passing chunks of Biden’s $5 trillion Godzilla bill by saying: “None of these ideas so far will help to a meaningful degree, and could do some harm because they could juice up demand at a time supply is constrained by the pandemic and worsen inflation.”
Biden’s “Build Back Better” bill is now officially dead, but Zandi still says that Democrats face one of the most challenging environments any party in power has confronted. “Most Americans have never experienced high inflation like this, particularly on gas prices, and it has gotten everyone very upset,” he told Politico. “Behavioral economics reveals that people hate inflation more than they love a low unemployment rate.”
But in November, we predict that swing voters will hate the Biden administration even more than inflation, and Democrats will suffer the consequences.