President Joe Biden exploded at the director of his National Economic Council, Brian Deese, over projected midterm losses, anonymous sources told Bloomberg ahead of the elections.
Biden’s chief of staff, Ron Klain, disputed the accounts, but understandably, Biden would feel duped by his economic team, which continues to try spinning the current recession and inflation so that it doesn’t look so bad.
The economy was cited by those in both parties as the number one concern, although election results in some areas don’t seem to show that people blamed Democrats for the bad economy as much as some expected.
Biden was apparently also angry that economic advisors told him that inflation would be transitory when it first began to be a problem.
Biden reaction unfounded
Biden’s reaction was based on polls that showed Republicans could win more than 30 seats in the House and end up with a 53-47 majority in the Senate.
He is undoubtedly much calmer now that election results show a much smaller red wave in the House and possibly a 51–49 minority for Republicans in the Senate, though results are still being reported.
While traditionally, such a weak economy leads to large gains by the party out of power, the country has shown that it is more polarized and entrenched than it seemed, even in polling that was not particularly conservative.
It appears that weak Democrat candidates like Pennslyvania’s John Fetterman and even Biden himself can now sweep into power just because they have a “D” after their names, even if they don’t seem coherent or able to carry on a conversation, let alone lead a state or a country.
No end in sight
While the economy will likely remain weak through 2024 with no end in sight for inflation, it looks like Biden may not be forced to take responsibility no matter what he does.
The old ways of doing politics are seemingly out the window.
These days, Democrat politicians just spend a lot of money on ads smearing the other guy and get re-elected whether they are actually doing anything laudatory or not.
Biden’s good at that, so no wonder the red wave never materialized.