Eh, it’s always been a convenient myth for the republican party that Americans genuinely seem to believe they are better on “macro” even though it’s always been probably the reverse (that democrat politicians have to clean up the mess that lower taxes and deregulation generate). For at least 40 years. In some states the reverse is true, like mass/NJ/ny voting blue pres while having a pretty regular flip flop in the governor’s seat and then solidly blue house/senate.
Similarly Dems always have a worse than average spin on wars, the comment being “republicans want a massive military that does nothing, Dems want a tiny military that goes everywhere” when in reality our foreign policy doesn’t really change (except Biden actually pulled out of Afghanistan).
I think a lot of this is that Republicans used to follow what used to be the recommendations of the most prominent main-stream economists. We can judge that as foolish in hindsight, but, “let the economics experts handle the economy” is a fairly reasonable policy.
2 big things changed. Republicans push more and more policies that economists consider dumb and economists have updated their models and recommendations based on new research.
Even those old free market economists were not fans of tariffs and trade wars. It’s pretty hard to find an actual economist (like with a PhD from a respected econ school) who thinks wanton deregulation is a good idea.
At the same time, Democrats still hold on to a few ideas that economists all agree are dumb. There’s tons of evidence that things like rent control and home purchase credits make housing problems worse.
Democrats tend to support better economic policies than Republicans do but they support enough bad ones that it’s easy for Republicans to argue that the old status quo is correct.
Eh, it’s always been a convenient myth for the republican party that Americans genuinely seem to believe they are better on “macro” even though it’s always been probably the reverse (that democrat politicians have to clean up the mess that lower taxes and deregulation generate). For at least 40 years. In some states the reverse is true, like mass/NJ/ny voting blue pres while having a pretty regular flip flop in the governor’s seat and then solidly blue house/senate.
Similarly Dems always have a worse than average spin on wars, the comment being “republicans want a massive military that does nothing, Dems want a tiny military that goes everywhere” when in reality our foreign policy doesn’t really change (except Biden actually pulled out of Afghanistan).
I think a lot of this is that Republicans used to follow what used to be the recommendations of the most prominent main-stream economists. We can judge that as foolish in hindsight, but, “let the economics experts handle the economy” is a fairly reasonable policy.
2 big things changed. Republicans push more and more policies that economists consider dumb and economists have updated their models and recommendations based on new research. Even those old free market economists were not fans of tariffs and trade wars. It’s pretty hard to find an actual economist (like with a PhD from a respected econ school) who thinks wanton deregulation is a good idea.
At the same time, Democrats still hold on to a few ideas that economists all agree are dumb. There’s tons of evidence that things like rent control and home purchase credits make housing problems worse.
Democrats tend to support better economic policies than Republicans do but they support enough bad ones that it’s easy for Republicans to argue that the old status quo is correct.