With the 2024 election looming on the horizon, the Democratic Party faces a contradiction. By some important measures, the US economy is booming—third-quarter GDP growth figures were recently adjusted upward to a whopping 5.2 percent—but these numbers aren’t translating into political support for the current administration. A mere 32 percent of respondents approved of President Biden’s handling of the economy in a Gallup poll last month.
The disconnect between the economy as reported in quarterly figures and the economy as experienced by ordinary people is another reminder of the class divisions that increasingly define American life in the 21st century. Tech oligarchs, with support from a subset of well-compensated white-collar professionals, now preside over an economic order in which rising costs and expanding social control are justified as the necessary costs of the green transition. It should be no surprise that those seeing stable jobs and affordable housing evaporate aren’t thrilled by this sort of progress.
