What Biden and Harris Got Wrong on Inflation

Every national election concludes with an avalanche of thought leadership explaining how the results obviously demonstrate that the author's pet economic issue was critical to the outcome and, of course, that he or she has been right along. If only candidate X had trumpeted economic policy Y and hewed closer to the author's own worldview, so these things always go, she could have prevailed over candidate Z, who clearly tapped into the voters demands for said economic policy/ worldview. It's a biannual tradition, and it's almost always rather silly. Capitolism will not indulge in such fantasies. Even in normal years, it's unwise to assume that a single economic policy or a coherent policy framework--conservative, progressive, libertarian, post-neoliberal, whatever--propelled a national candidate to victory. Voters are complicated, don't think deeply about most policies (especially things like tariffs!), and cast their votes for lots of personal or noneconomic reasons. Drawing strong economic policy lessons from this election is especially unwise, given each candidate's historically unique situation and our historically unique pandemic/post-pandemic landscape.