WASHINGTON — Last June, in the White House’s anticipated turning point speech in Chicago, President Joe Biden introduced a new slogan aimed at touting economic recovery.
The slogan was “Bidenomics.” And on this day, those words were plastered everywhere. They hung across the lecterns on either side of Mr. Biden, who spoke of improving the economy, and on the walls of Chicago’s historic post office, where Mr. Biden was speaking to hundreds of supporters. .
For the rest of the year, Biden continues to tout “Bidenomics” every time he discusses the economy, trying to link his policy agenda of investing in manufacturing, infrastructure and the middle class to historically low unemployment and strong employment. Ta. Markets and inflation are calming down after he peaked in the summer of 2022.
But as time passed, all talk of “Bidenomics” disappeared.
During a recent campaign stop in Pennsylvania this month, Biden made three stops where he tried to contrast his economic policies with those of former President Donald Trump. was never mentioned. He did not utter the phrase when he addressed the electrical workers and construction trade unions separately last week. Or on Thursday in Syracuse, New York, announcing more than $6 billion in subsidies for two microchip factories.
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The White House concluded that too many Americans do not understand the meaning of “Bidenomics.” Congressional Democratic candidates and party activists have never embraced that label as they strive to overcome the president’s low approval ratings and regain control of the House.
And with inflation proving stubbornly high, the slogan has become synonymous with an economy that many Americans worry is heading in the wrong direction, despite some strong indicators. became.
“‘Bidenomics’ can mean anything to people,” said Celinda Lake, a pollster for the Biden campaign in the 2020 election. I needed words and phrases to convey this.” For voters, “Bidenomics” was seen as Biden’s economy rather than Biden’s economic policy, leading to confusion. ”
What “Bidenomics” was supposed to mean and what happened to it afterwards
The term “Bidenomics” was first coined by conservatives criticizing Biden in columns in the Financial Times and Wall Street Journal ahead of the 2020 election. By adopting the tag “Bidenomics,” the White House hoped to turn a line of attack used by Republicans into a strength. This is similar to how Democrats adopted “Obamacare,” originally a Republican slur, as the name of President Barack Obama’s signature health care law.
From the White House’s perspective, “Bidenomics” is an economic strategy focused on growing the economy “from the middle to the bottom,” including reducing health care costs and forcing billionaires to pay their “fair share” of taxes. It was supposed to encompass the foundation. It would eliminate so-called “junk fees” and leverage the federal government for historic investments in microchip manufacturing, clean energy, infrastructure and innovation.
If Republicans are going to use “Bidenomics” as an attack, why aren’t they trying to define it in Biden’s favor?
“I don’t think they meant it as a compliment, but they started calling my economic policies ‘Bidenomics.’ Well, guess what?” Biden said in a speech last August. , I chanted the words I often say.
However, this calculation ignored reality. When many Americans heard “Bidenomics,” they thought of high inflation, not Biden’s efforts to make the U.S. a hotbed for microchips or the country’s post-pandemic economic recovery. Meanwhile, the economic outlook remains bleak. A New York Times/Siena College poll conducted this month found that only 21% of voters rated the economic situation as “excellent/good,” while 79% said it was “fair/poor.” .
“I think the fundamental root of all of this is that people thought the situation was going to be parallel to Obamacare,” Lake said. “And for a variety of reasons, it was hardly parallel to Obamacare.”
Drew Westen, a professor of psychology and psychiatry at Emory University and a Democratic messaging advisor, questions the idea of naming policies or legislation after a president, which would automatically make nearly half the country He claimed that there would be a power outage. He also said the post-pandemic economic recovery was an “amazing achievement” but not everyone was feeling it.
“It was a bad decision to use that word,” Westen said. “At the time, people viewed the Biden economy as an inflationary economy. That seems to be changing, but I’m not going back to ‘Bidenomics’ yet.”
How Biden’s use of ‘Bidenomics’ disappeared over time
Biden remains committed to the “Invest in America” message and is promoting the same policies. However, nearly a month has passed since Mr. Biden spoke of “Bidenomics” in his public appearance. It was announced during a March 26 speech in Raleigh, North Carolina, about efforts to reduce health care costs.
Previously, Biden had not used the term “Bidenomics” since late January, according to a USA TODAY review of Biden’s public statements on file at the White House. Most notably, Biden removed “BiDenomics” from his State of the Union address to Congress on March 7.
Vice President Kamala Harris, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre and other Biden press secretaries also repealed the term.
Last summer and fall, the message was very different.
In a speech in Chicago on June 28, in which he unveiled his new slogan to the nation, Biden mentioned “Bidenomics” 15 times. He mentioned “Bidenomics” an additional 77 times in speeches through October, including six or seven times in his solo speeches.
“‘Bidenomics’ is just another way of saying ‘Restoring the American Dream,'” Biden said multiple times last year.
“This is Bidennomics in action” was another favorite Biden line that later disappeared.
In a Sept. 14 speech in Largo, Maryland, Biden characterized the presidential election as a “choice between Bidennomics and Maganomics,” saying that Trump and the Republican Party will cut taxes for the wealthiest Americans and big corporations, and cut Social Security. and accused him of wanting to water down Medicare and cut costs. – Savings measures for the middle class.
But Biden touted “BiDenomics” only four more times in November and December, and three times in total this year.
White House: ‘News organizations are stuck in semantics’
From the beginning, most Democratic House and Senate candidates have been cool about embracing “Bidenomics” in their campaigns. Although they defend Biden’s economic policies, no campaign ads using the term “Bidenomics” appeared. Rep. James Clyburn, D.C., a strong Biden ally, told NBC News in November that he doesn’t like the term.
“The people he (Biden) represents are not dealing with economic issues. They are dealing with everyday issues,” Clyburn said at the time. They have to educate their children, feed their families, and develop their communities, and that doesn’t seem like ‘Bidenomics.’ ”
According to an Axios analysis, Congressional Democrats mentioned “Bidenomics” nearly 500 times in street speeches and social media posts last July, while Republicans mentioned “Bidenomics” nearly 500 times in March. 474 times, compared to just 10 times in March.
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In a statement to USA TODAY, the White House downplayed Biden’s transition away from “Bidenomics,” which is the focus of the media rather than ordinary Americans, and that the president still talks about the policies that constitute “Bidenomics.” He claimed that they spoke regularly.
“While news organizations are caught up in semantics, consumer confidence is higher than it was at this point under Presidents Obama, Bush, Clinton, and Reagan. The president’s economic support is rising. And he is widely supported and continues to travel touting his accomplishments that are making a real difference in people’s lives,” said White House Deputy Press Secretary Michael Kikukawa.
“The president will continue to talk about Bidennomics, a policy of growing the economy from the middle to the bottom up,” he said, calling his approach a “sharp contrast” from Republicans.
Beto Shelton, a spokesman for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, said what matters to voters in November is House Democrats and Biden’s “victory for working families,” “not slogans.”
But if Democrats are looking for a different slogan, they might consider advice from Democratic lawmakers.
“If the right proposes this word, don’t use it,” says Westen, author of “The Political Brain: The Role of Emotions in Determining the Destiny of a Nation.”
“You never want to accept and run with the other side’s branding about you or your program, because it is designed to create the associations they want to create in people’s minds. Because there is.”
Contact Joey Garrison at X (formerly Twitter, @joeygarrison).
