I have a lot of different thoughts on your post that I will probably have to break up into multiple comments.
First one thing that I myself acknowledge to have underestimated is the public is quite unhappy with economy's most recent bout of inflation. Yes, this most recent period of inflation isn't as "bad" numerically as what happened in the 1970s but a lot of today's voters weren't around in the 1970s and besides the "voter" is always right as they say. I bring up inflation because there are two interesting things about it. One is it has affected multiple countries and made there governments including the likes of Canada, the UK, EU, Australia, and New Zealand deeply unpopular yet Switzerland and the East Asian democracies largely avoided(The Swiss election last fall actually went relatively "normal" perhaps a sign of Switzerland healthier levels of inflation). Second notwithstanding Jimmy Carter's famed appointment of Paul Volcker the Democratic party still has really deep long term ideological challenges dealing with inflation. Truth of the matter is I am not sure Democrats have ever seen inflation as something affecting "their" voters and right now this attitude is biting them in the ass.
This is ironic as for many years after 2016 many Democrats were blaming Paul Volcker's inflation fighting policies for the rise of Donald Trump.
As an aside I have been reading up on the history of Rueben Askew's 1984 Presidential campaign. I am surprised Kartik hasn't discussed this more on his blog and podcast.
Not like there haven't been people warning for at least a year. Maybe two. He should have honored his original pledge to serve one term.
I have a lot of different thoughts on your post that I will probably have to break up into multiple comments.
First one thing that I myself acknowledge to have underestimated is the public is quite unhappy with economy's most recent bout of inflation. Yes, this most recent period of inflation isn't as "bad" numerically as what happened in the 1970s but a lot of today's voters weren't around in the 1970s and besides the "voter" is always right as they say. I bring up inflation because there are two interesting things about it. One is it has affected multiple countries and made there governments including the likes of Canada, the UK, EU, Australia, and New Zealand deeply unpopular yet Switzerland and the East Asian democracies largely avoided(The Swiss election last fall actually went relatively "normal" perhaps a sign of Switzerland healthier levels of inflation). Second notwithstanding Jimmy Carter's famed appointment of Paul Volcker the Democratic party still has really deep long term ideological challenges dealing with inflation. Truth of the matter is I am not sure Democrats have ever seen inflation as something affecting "their" voters and right now this attitude is biting them in the ass.
This is ironic as for many years after 2016 many Democrats were blaming Paul Volcker's inflation fighting policies for the rise of Donald Trump.
As an aside I have been reading up on the history of Rueben Askew's 1984 Presidential campaign. I am surprised Kartik hasn't discussed this more on his blog and podcast.