The phrase has become cult. In 1992, James Carville, advisor to the young Democratic candidate Bill Clinton, theorized what would become much more than a campaign slogan: “It’s the economy, stupid.” A formula that could be summed up as: “Only the economy matters.” While in the spring of 1991, George W. Bush was widely predicted to win in the polls, the recession that hit the American economy in the months that followed and the rise in unemployment were widely used by the opposing camp to beat the Republican.
Subsequently, the health of the American locomotive and the performance of the “job machine” will always be determining factors in the decision of voters across the Atlantic.
Not today. Joe Biden’s economic record should theoretically help the Democratic camp and support Kamala Harris. After the big Covid air pocket, growth has rebounded and the gross domestic product has largely exceeded its pre-pandemic level. The unemployment rate is at its lowest, reindustrialization is underway, largely boosted by the Inflation Reduction Act. Part of the American student debt has been erased, major infrastructure plans, particularly railways, have been relaunched after decades of neglect. And even income inequality has stopped widening.
And yet. Today, the relationship between the United States and the world is the only compass for voters. An “elsewhere” perceived as a danger from which one must protect oneself with walls, commercial and technological barriers. Paradoxically, it is growth that will pay the price.