Economist Paul Krugman: 'Trump-stalgia' is a 'powerful force'— but painfully short on facts

03 May 2024

Back in 1984, President Ronald Reagan's reelection campaign famously posed the question: "Are you better off than you were four years ago?"

Most U.S. voters believed the answer was "yes"; Reagan was reelected by a landslide, picking up 525 electoral votes and defeating his Democratic challenger, former Vice President Walter Mondale, by 18 percent in the popular vote.

Forty years later, former President Donald Trump 2024 campaign is asking U.S. voters the same question — hoping that they will believe the answer is "no" and vote incumbent Democratic President Joe Biden out of office.

Liberal economist Paul Krugman describes this phenomenon as "Trump-stalgia," and he acknowledges that it is a "powerful force" in the 2024 election. But in his May 2 column for the New York Times, Krugman argues that the claims of "Trump-stalgia" are painfully short on facts.

"Lately, I've been seeing people repeat Ronald Reagan's famous question, many of them apparently believing that they're making a slam-dunk case for returning Donald Trump to power," Krugman explains. "Yet if you take the question literally, the answer is almost ludicrously favorable to President Biden. After all, four years ago, thousands of Americans were dying each day of COVID-19."

The New York Times columnist continues, "Soaring deaths aside, four years ago, more than 20 million Americans were unemployed; Trump left office with the worst job record of any president since Herbert Hoover. Also, the country was in the grip of a violent crime wave, with murders soaring. Today, by contrast, we've just experienced the longest stretch of unemployment below 4 percent since the 1960s, and the violent crime wave — Trump didn't cause it, but it did happen on his watch — has been rapidly receding."

Krugman goes on to stress that promoters of "Trump-stalgia" give Trump "a pass for the economic and social damage inflicted by the pandemic" yet won't give Biden "a similar pass for problems that manifested on his watch but surely reflected delayed effects of COVID disruptions."

"Biden helped lead us through a time of turmoil — much of which happened even before he took office — to a pretty good place, with very low unemployment, fairly low inflation and falling crime," Krugman writes. "But many Americans seem unaware of the good news…. So are you better off than you were four years ago?"

Krugman continues, "For most Americans, the answer is clearly yes. But for reasons that still remain unclear, many seem disinclined to believe it."

Paul Krugman's full New York Times column is available at this link (subscription required).

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