Trump Nostalgia is Real and It’s Spectacular

Voters are looking back at the Trump administration and that’s not good for President Biden. Trump nostalgia is real. 

Former President Trump’s numbers on key issues with voters have risen 6 percentage points since 2020. A new New York Times/Siena College poll shows that a plurality of voters, 42 percent, now say that the Trump years were “mostly good.” Trump may have been unpopular with half the country when he left office, in light of his denial of the election results and the January 6 riot on Capitol Hill, but he has bounced back. Only a quarter of poll respondents say the same of Biden’s time in the White House. 

Joe Biden calls Trump nostalgia “amazing.” I’m sure he thinks it is. Imagine how real it must be for the New York Times to report on it. Internal poll numbers at Biden’s campaign headquarters must be pretty scary for the old man. 

Biden has spent three-plus years trashing Donald Trump (and his supporters) at every opportunity. Biden ran on being a unifier and someone who could work with everyone. That man never existed but Democrats thought it sounded good at campaign rallies. It must be amazing to realize that voters are not falling for his malarkey.

In Biden’s America, who are you going to believe – your lying eyes or Biden’s campaign propaganda? Look at this tweet and how Jazz appropriately responded:

Many people further fail to realize that Joe Biden cured all known diseases in the past three years and we are all able to fly by simply flapping our arms now. For Pete’s sake. How do these people even look at themselves in the mirror in the morning? https://t.co/UXIyERnCeD

— Jazz Shaw (@JazzShaw) April 16, 2024

They must be mocked. It won’t stop them because the truth is not on Biden’s side but it does make them defend their absurd claims.

Except for the example of Richard Nixon, former presidents usually experience a rise in poll numbers as time passes once they leave office. People tend to forget the bad things and remember positive memories. Plus, the fact is that this election is a unicorn. A former president is running against the current president. Trump has a record in office.

Voter nostalgia is working in Trump’s favor so far. The top issues for voters are the economy, illegal immigration, and law and order. Trump wins all those categories over Biden. Americans know what they were paying for groceries and gas when Trump left office. Even with the pandemic and its hit on the economy and jobs, the economy was slowly beginning a recovery when Biden took office. Instead of staying the course and continuing the recovery with his policies, Biden blew it up. He refused to do anything as Trump did and that attitude has backfired to the detriment of ordinary Americans. 

Biden is a chronic liar. He tells lies that are easily disproved. For example, he claims that inflation is lower now than when he took office. When he took office, inflation was 1.6%. The current Annual Inflation for the 12 months ending March 2024 is 3.48%. Sure, that’s down from the historical high of 9.06% that Biden’s policies created, but Biden’s claim is a lie. Biden is boasting about correcting his own disastrous mistakes. 

Gallup began asking Americans what they thought of past presidents decades ago. The pattern has been that voters think more favorably of past presidents than when they were in office. 

One explanation is political. As presidents leave office, partisan attacks recede. Some presidents, like Jimmy Carter, become well known for philanthropy or other good works. “You kind of move, as an ex-president, from being a political figure to someone who is above the fray,” Jeff Jones, a Gallup senior editor, told me.

Another explanation is historical. As years pass, popular culture and collective memory come to shape Americans’ views of presidents — especially for those too young to remember the actual events. History textbooks, for instance, tend to focus more “on the good things they did than the bad things, the historical contributions that they made as president rather than scandals or poor decisions or poor policies,” Jones said.

There are psychological explanations, too. Human memory is fallible. People often experience their current problems more acutely than they recall their past ones or think better of experiences in retrospect, which psychologists call recency bias. That can lead to a perpetual yearning for the supposed good old days.

All of that tracks, if you ask me. Voters remember the Trump years. They don’t like the inflation, record border crossings, and overseas wars during the Biden years. Voters want to go back to peace and prosperity. 

Biden put his faith in false narratives about the Trump years. He has engaged in lawfare against Trump, something that has never been seen before in a presidential campaign. Biden expects Trump to be convicted of something and be put in jail before the election. I don’t think he will get his wish.

Some voters indicate they may not support Trump if he is convicted of a felony before the November election. Will it be enough to derail his potential victory? That is something that remains to be seen. 

In the meantime, enjoy the Trump nostalgia. It’s spectacular. 

As we pop the popcorn and enjoy the panic that has set in with Democrats over Dementia Joe’s chances of re-election, let’s continue the fight against this hideous administration together. Please go to our VIP program page and consider a plan that will work for you. We need your support to continue what we do here, which is to get up every day and go to battle to save our country. We need all hands on deck. Please join us. Thank you.