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Henrik's avatar

I do think this point gets brought up a lot but still not enough - nostalgia for pre-COVID still hasn’t subsided (indeed it may never) and a lot of people got basically cooked mentally 2020-22 and have never recovered. The equation “Trump = 2019” is inane logically but emotionally very, very powerful.

That’s also why I think his approvals have nosedived so fast - he’s very publicly and loudly *not* bringing the pre-COVID rosy warm nostalgia memory people (wrongly, as we were headed into recession by the end of that year, but nevertheless) want back and that they believe they elected him to bring back as a single-issue vote

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Mark's avatar

We were heading into recession at the end of 2019? Or just because COVID happened?

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Henrik's avatar

The indicators around manufacturing output and similar were blinking as early as 2018 - a big reason why Powell started cutting rates, along with rising WH pressure heading into an election year, to get ahead of it

That said, a mid-to-late 2020 recession in a no-COVID scenario is probably more of a 2001 (pre-9/11) type contraction, maybe a smidge worse if short of 1990-91, than another 1982 or 2008

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