For a long while now, even as Democrats unequivocally rejected the "Bidenomics" pitch in their bid for reelection, Biden and the White House held firm, thinking they were harnessing a secret weapon that would convince Americans that everything is just great, inflation is going down, wages are up, and things have been better on his watch.
For the longest time, the White House didn’t get the message that telling people to deny the realities of what they were seeing and experiencing firsthand wasn’t a solid strategy. In fact, it is likely that after November, it will be seen as a devastating political blunder that cost Biden the election, as he spent months announcing ownership of an economy that people are just not happy about.
You no doubt heard Biden sing the praises of his economy, declaring time and time again that “Bidenomics is working” even though the public just wasn’t seeing it that way. Wages haven’t kept up with price increases, and people continue to struggle to make ends meet. Whether you attribute it to stubbornness or the fact that the Biden and his inner circle are too divorced from the realities that the average American faces, the White House refused to give up on the idea that they can convince the public that "Bidenomics” is a positive thing.
However, it’s become increasingly obvious that the White House has been phasing out the Bidenomics messaging, in an apparent concession to the fact that they failed to convince the public that everything is awesome. For sure, when was the last time you saw Biden give a speech in front of one of those “Bidenomics” banners? I suspect they’ve been recycled, or buried in a landfill next to Atari's collection of unsold cartridges of its "E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial" game.
By December, the term “Bidenomics” was reportedly dropped from his speeches, and, according to an analysis by Issues & Insights, “Bidenomics” messaging is indeed in the process of being entirely phased out of the White House lexicon.
"We did a Google search of the White House website to see how many times anyone there used the term,” explains the I&I Editorial Board. "The administration records every utterance of White House officials, every written statement, every fact sheet, etc. So it’s a complete compendium of the use of the term ‘Bidenomics' by the White House."
The results speak for themselves. "Whereas searches for ‘Bidenomics' on www.whitehouse.gov returned 59 results in July 2023, there were just 10 in February,” they found.
Prices might be going up, but one thing has been trending downward under Bidenomnics. https://t.co/aoy2lweMcy pic.twitter.com/es7PckgYsm
— Issues & Insights (@InsightsIssues) March 4, 2024
"Bidenomics – by which we mean massive, deficit-financed inflation-fueling spending, an avalanche of costly new rules and regulations, a huge 'clean energy' push, higher taxes, open borders, no new free trade agreements – has failed the country,” they continue. "The White House, and possibly Biden himself (but you never know about that) is apparently coming to realize that 'Bidenomics' as a political slogan has failed, too."
While the White House may have finally realized that "Bidenomics” messaging was hurting, not helping, at this point it’s too little too late. Like Biden’s sudden interest in pretending to care about securing the border, he’s owned “Bidenomics” for so long it’s impossible to divorce himself from an economy that the public isn’t enamored with. And as a result, he has given Donald Trump all the ammunition he needs for the remainder of this election season.
