In a column for Bloomberg on Monday, journalist Matthew Winkler argued that people who think the 2020 election was stolen are responsible for dismal consumer sentiment.
THE QUOTE
In the essay, titled “Blame Election Deniers for Faltering Consumer Sentiment,” Winkler claimed the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index is tanking “due to Republicans’ disapproval of an economy led by a Democratic President.”
- “Republicans denying the 2020 election are easy prey for mischievous economic messaging,” he wrote, blaming conservative media for contradicting the liberal narrative that the economy is not in recession.
- “To be sure, the highest cost of living in 40 years, as measured by the Consumer Price Index at 9.1%, is punitive to the least affluent voters — the traditional base of Democrats — and Biden now faces the double jeopardy of persistent inflation and increasing chances of recession as the Fed tightens credit by the most since the 1980s,” he conceded before pointing to low unemployment and record corporate profits as causes for economic optimism.
- “None of this is apparent in the Michigan sentiment index, perhaps because Republicans running for office across the country in 2022 are still denying the results of the 2020 election.”
