According to Gov. Josh Shapiro, the Pennsylvania Democrat, the formula Americans are looking for isn’t complicated. Most Americans, Shapiro says, want “four basic things” — and the rest are fringe concerns. Talking to Jen Psaki, and repeating the formula he has leaned on elsewhere, Shapiro says the government’s job is to enable:
Good schools for their kids
Safe Communities
Economic opportunities
Freedoms to be protected
Shapiro adds that “I think [Americans] want to be led by somebody that’s honest and decent,” as that will help enable the four basic elements he cites. Shapiro is promoting Joe Biden‘s candidacy, saying that when it comes to Americans — and these four needs — Biden is “on their side.”
Conversely, Shapiro says that “all Americans hear from Donald Trump is a whole bunch of whining about this country.” The Governor believes, he says, that Trump’s “got to quit whining, quit trying to divide us.”
Shapiro then draws contrasts between what the former president is “whining” about with what Shapiro presents as facts about the current U.S. situation — facts that conflict with Trump’s statements.
Some are not in dispute, as when Shapiro says “we are producing more energy than ever before” and when he says “we have the strongest economy in the world” — the common metrics by which such things are measured back up Shapiro’s claims. Shapiro also says, on the economy, that “we are beating China for the first time in decades,” citing record U.S. employment. (Whether the U.S. is “beating” China is less a factual statement than an opinion — one that some economists agree with, while others dissent.)
America’s producing the most energy we ever have.
Our economy’s growing faster than China for the first time in decades.
More Americans went to work today than ever.
We face our challenges—but we’re the greatest country on Earth. So to Donald Trump: stop shit talking America. pic.twitter.com/DO3iAgk3Td
— Josh Shapiro (@JoshShapiroPA) June 11, 2024
Inflation, however, is dragging down the good news for Democrats on the economy: low unemployment, rising wages and a strong macroeconomy — including a soaring stock market — still don’t feel good enough to Americans who are paying more than they’re accustomed to for cars, milk and hamburgers.
(The fact that inflation has hit harder in other developed countries and stayed high longer is no comfort to a voter looking at prices in an American grocery store.)
Even with inflation a thorn in Biden’s side, Shapiro slams Trump for the former president’s unrelenting “negativity” and urges voters to see the bright side of the American moment. That America is the “greatest country in the world” is something Shapiro says the people of his state recognize, expressing a hope for Democrats who know the swing state of Pennsylvania, won by Biden narrowly in 2020, is again in play in 2024.
The challenge for Democrats — beyond the culture wars that Shapiro says are background, not foreground — is to see prices drop to a comfort level and to combat candidate Trump’s savaging of America with better news of Biden’s economic and safety stewardship.
On the safe communities front, recent data have looked good, as shown below. But the messaging around statistics can get superseded by anecdotal narratives amplified by biased media to create misinformation or disinformation that manipulates voter emotions.
The FBI just announced that crime has plummeted in the first quarter of 2024:
According to the report:
Murder decreased by 26.4%
Rape decreased by 25.7%
Robbery decreased by 17.8%
Aggravated assault decreased by 12.5%
Reported property crime decreased by 15.1%
— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) June 11, 2024