"It’s The Economy Stupid" Fix It! - Intelligent People Assume Nothing

There’s an old line from a campaign war room back in 1992.

Somebody wrote it on a board so nobody would forget what mattered. “It’s the economy, stupid.” Four words. Everybody knew what they meant.

Thirty-four years later, that line is still true. But people aren’t asking anybody to remember it anymore. They’re asking somebody to fix it.

Walk into any grocery store and you’ll see it. People stand in front of the shelf a little longer than they used to. They pick up a package, look at the price, and set it back down. Nobody says anything. They don’t have to.

The numbers say what the shelves say. Inflation was running 3.7 percent this September. Two years ago it was 2.4. That might not sound like much on paper. But it isn’t paper you’re buying. It’s eggs, and gas, and the electric bill, and every one of them got heavier.

The Pew Research Center asked Americans this month what keeps them up at night. Seventy-three percent said they’re very concerned about the price of food and the things they buy every week. Sixty-nine percent said health care. Sixty-six percent said housing. Those aren’t fringe worries. That’s most of the country.

And it isn’t only prices. Almost half of Americans now say they’re very concerned that people who want to work can’t find a job. Four years ago, less than a third said that. When folks start worrying about the paycheck and the price tag at the same time, something has come loose.

The University of Michigan has been measuring how Americans feel about money for more than seventy years. This month, their reading on current economic conditions hit the lowest point they’ve ever recorded. Not a low. The lowest. Lower-income families took it the hardest, because they have the least room to bend.

So when you hear on the news that people are angry, believe it. This isn’t anger cooked up on a cable show. It’s coming from kitchen tables. It’s coming from people doing the math at the end of the month and coming up short.

I’ve lived long enough to know the difference between noise and anger. Noise is loud and goes away. Anger is quiet and stays. What’s out there right now is the quiet kind. It’s the kind that sits with a person while they drive to work and while they lie awake.

People are tired of being told the economy is fine. They can see it isn’t. A number on a chart doesn’t mean much when your rent went up again and your hours didn’t. You can’t eat a press release.

They’re also tired of the blame game. One side says it’s the other side’s fault. The other side says the same thing back. Meanwhile the bills keep coming, and none of them care whose fault it is.

That’s where the president’s numbers come from. Pew has his approval at 30 percent. NBC has it at 34. That’s about as low as it went at the end of his first term. Those aren’t the numbers of a country that feels heard.

Anger by itself doesn’t fix anything. It can make you sick, or it can make you stuck. It can even make you quit. Plenty of people get so mad they decide none of it matters and stay home.

But there’s another thing anger can do. It can get you up out of the chair. It can walk you down to the polling place. And it can put your hand on the ballot.

That’s what November 3rd is. It’s the correction.

This country was built with a correction built right into it. Every two years, the people who answer to us have to come back and ask for the job again. Every seat in the House. A third of the Senate. Governors, state houses, county offices, school boards. All of them have to face the people they work for.

That’s not a protest. That’s not a march. It’s a job review, and the people doing the review are the ones who’ve been paying the bills.

If you think the folks in charge have done right by you, keep them. That’s your call, and it’s a fair one. If you think they haven’t, send them home. That’s your call too. The ballot doesn’t care which way you lean. It only cares whether you show up.

Here’s what I’d ask of you before you go. Don’t vote on a slogan. Don’t vote on what somebody yelled at you on a screen. Look at your own life. Look at your grocery receipt, your rent, your insurance, your paycheck. Ask yourself one plain question. Is it better or worse than it was?

Then let that answer do the talking.

Early voting is open in a lot of states right now. You don’t have to wait for the day. Go when it suits you. Bring your neighbor. Bring the one who says it doesn’t matter. It matters more for them than anybody.

The people in Washington have heard “It’s the economy, stupid” before. They know the words by heart. They’ve said them on stages and printed them on signs. Knowing the words was never the problem.

The problem is that knowing it isn’t the same as fixing it.

So this time the message is shorter. It’s two more words, and they come straight from the people paying the price.

Fix it!

And if they won’t, November 3rd is when we find somebody who will.

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This post was drafted with AI governed assistance and reviewed and directed by Michael S. Faust Sr. before publication.

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