📈 Trump made the economy great again
Or so Republicans say!
Ticket prices for the Nov. 24 Lions-Colts game at Lucas Oil Stadium are insane. The worst seats are selling for around $240 each, plus fees.
That sucks for me as a lifelong Lions fan who’s been waiting forever to watch Detroit play as a Super Bowl contender. I live in Indianapolis and planned to attend the game. Now, I’m priced out.
My bad luck is a great anecdote in favor of the economy. So many people are flush with disposable income that a low-stakes Lions-Colts game can fill a 67,000-seat stadium at a $1,000 buy-in for a family of four.
This comes as voters just threw out President Biden in large part because they were mad about grocery prices and the supposedly poor economy. But observed consumer behavior, such as buying football tickets, betrays voters’ expressed views that they are severely constrained by inflation.
Just look at entertainment spending:
You can say, well, duh, inflation! But entertainment is not a finite good subject to supply chains. If Americans truly are struggling to pay for eggs, you’d expect to see entertainment spending drop as people cut discretionary purchases to make ends meet. That’s just not happening.
It’s not happening because, objectively, the economy is good! Even though inflation created real and visible pain points, incomes have risen even faster than prices. Inflation-adjusted incomes returned to pre-pandemic levels last year.
Even people who cited the economy while voting for President-elect Trump are implicitly acknowledging the Biden economy is good, actually. Consumer sentiments have diverged based on partisan affiliations, with Republicans feeling better about the economy and Democrats feeling worse.
In other words, Republicans see Trump as having already made the economy great again. Mission accomplished!
Michael Hicks wrote a good column for IndyStar on partisan attitudes toward the economy. This is one topic where both sides easily buy into misinformation to suit their biases.
The next step for Democrats will be returning to their pre-pandemic narrative that the booming economy is leaving too many people behind. In reality, low-wage workers experienced faster income growth than higher income groups between 2019 and 2023. That trend is likely to continue.
It’s true that not everyone benefits equally from a strong economy. But the economy is, in fact, strong. Trump stands to take credit for that now. If he can avoid breaking it with tariffs over the next four years, I’ll be happy to give it to him.
What even is this?
Welcome to my first real Substack newsletter!
I randomly created this Substack during some free time last Sunday and honestly hadn’t thought much about what I was going to do with it. My main goal, as I wrote, is to build infrastructure on this platform for the type of engagement I’ve enjoyed on Twitter/X. I see that happening through features including comments and chats.
A woman emailed me last night to say she had deleted her X account but still wanted to follow me somewhere. That’s basically why I created this! I’m not ready to bail on X yet, but a lot of people are, and I need to think seriously about that.
As for the newsletter, my plan is to send one post a week on Saturday mornings. I won’t just cover the same ground as my IndyStar columns. I see this as a more personal and direct communication, much like the way I use Twitter.
The topics will likely be all over the place. If you have thoughts on what would make this worth your time, I’d love to hear from you.
What I wrote
I published three columns this week for IndyStar:
Pete Buttigieg is the Joe Rogan guest Democrats need in 2028
Indiana Democrats did a lot of things right. It didn’t matter.
What I read
I plan to post a variety of links here in the future. I didn’t do much discretionary reading this week, but I do want to recommend this excellent piece by my IndyStar colleagues Kayla Dwyer and Brittany Carloni: Micah Beckwith ran on making the lieutenant governor office more influential. Can he?
Otherwise, I’m road-tripping with my son this weekend and listening to the audiobook, “The Reformation: A History,” by Diarmaid MacCulloch. My trip to Europe last month has sent me down a rabbit hole on the Protestant Reformation.
That’s all for this week! Thanks so much for being among the first to subscribe.