Maybe we have been making the wrong comparison all along. The conventional wisdom has constantly held Joe Biden up to Woodrow Wilson, for obvious reasons. But what if he should really be compared to Wilson’s immediate predecessor?

That is the argument that J.T. Young is making in the Washington Examiner, and he has several good points to bolster his case. He begins by pointing out that the economy may avoid a recession, but Biden’s poll numbers are garbage despite this. Add in a potential third party challenger, and he might end up copying the one-term fate of William Howard Taft.

If this soft-landing economic trend and this crash-landing political trend both hold, it will be the first time since Taft in 1912 that an incumbent president lost with an economy that did not shrink within a year of his reelection. During Taft’s four years in office, the economy grew each year. What cost Taft reelection amid good economic times was his former boss and former president, Teddy Roosevelt, turning on him and running a third-party campaign that split the Republican Party. The Democrat Woodrow Wilson went on to win the presidency with the lowest popular vote percentage since 1860.

According to Measuring Worth’s historic GDP calculator, in the 112 years since, the only times incumbents have lost the White House have been when America’s economy has shrunk. Overall, incumbents rarely lose. Only Herbert Hoover in 1932, Gerald Ford in 1976, Jimmy Carter in 1980, George H.W. Bush in 1992, and Trump in 2020 have lost reelection. And in each case, real U.S. GDP shrank within a year of their defeat.

In all except Hoover’s, each of these defeats, other factors certainly played a part: Ford had Watergate, Carter had the Iranian hostage situation, Bush had Ross Perot’s split of the Republican Party, and Trump had COVID. But the one common thread running through each was a shrinking economy.

That the economy would play such a large political role is not surprising. It is arguably the most widespread electoral variable. It affects everyone and does so where it matters most: in their wallets. People demand prosperity, and they hold presidents accountable when it fails to occur.

Let’s look at the realities on the ground. Wall Street and the Treasury Department are acting optimistic because the market looks stable. But the truth of the matter is that inflation has permanently altered how people perceive the economy. People have VERY long memories when it comes to their wallets. Parents are not going to forget the baby formula shortages. We all have bad memories of the supply chain problems that led to empty shelves. High interest rates have disincentivized people from buying a home. Gas prices went up, and still have not come down to January 2021 levels. EVERYTHING COSTS MORE, from the food we eat, to the gas we put in our cars, to the clothes we buy. And when you can’t avoid the inflation, and you still have to eat and get to work, YOU NOTICE. The frustration and anger that the largely apolitical American public is feeling about inflation cannot be gaslit away by happy spin coming from the White House.

Hey, Karine Jean-Pierre – no one staring at their grocery receipt is “feeling the accomplishments” of the Biden administration. When your only defense is “things could be worse” when no one is happy with how inflation is eating their paychecks up RIGHT NOW, you are in for a world of hurt. No wonder Biden is insisting that the press needs to start making HIM look better and “report” the economy “the right way.”

Dictator demands loyal press report on his glorious achievements and much prosperity https://t.co/zV5QDSkuUt

— Razor (@hale_razor) December 26, 2023

Asked what his outlook on the economy was for next year as he scurried to Camp David for Christmas, the president insisted it was ‘all good’.

‘Take a look. Start reporting it the right way,’ he told reporters as he left the White House on Christmas morning.

“So let it be written, so let it be done” is not the way to convince people that their dollars will stretch will cover their expenses. But hey, Joe Biden and the Biden family is somehow flush enough with cash to lend out large amounts among family members, and pay for one of the most expensive defense lawyers in Washington D.C. to cover Hunter’s naked ass, so what do they know about financial struggles? In fact, one of the biggest perceptions between the Biden camp and the Trump camp is the sense that Team Biden is saying “Let them eat cake,” and Team Trump is saying “I have cake and I want everyone else to be able to afford cake, too.”

But back to the Taft comparison. The other huge problem for Taft was the third party candidacy of Teddy Roosevelt. The conventional wisdom right now says that a third party candidate, like a Robert F. Kennedy Jr. or a Joe Manchin, would harm Biden more than Trump. Add in some radical candidates like a Cornel West, and the far-left might go for a protest vote, abandoning Biden, while more center-left Democrats may choose a third party Democrat. Biden cannot be re-elected with the Democrat vote sliced and diced among multiple possibilities, and he knows it. The party knows it, and is actively discouraging anyone from trying it. And if it happens, Biden will be in real trouble.

And Young, in his piece, doesn’t even touch on the foreign policy failures of the Biden administration. Biden must be made to wear the loss of Afghanistan, the deaths of our servicemembers, the droning murder of civilians, and the absolute chaos that first sank his poll numbers into negative territory, and he needs to be hammered with it repeatedly, often, and always. Any two of these issues – inflation, a potential third party candidate, and Afghanistan – could lose Biden the election. Having all three of them will sink him. And this doesn’t even address the obvious cognitive decline!

So unless the press bows and kisses the president’s ring, and begins to cook the news to best help their preferred candidate, Joe Biden is in serious trouble. The press saved his campaign in 2020, and he expects them to dance for him again like the trained monkeys they are. The question is, will people forget their wallets when they fill out their ballot? That’s a very big risk for any incumbent to take.

Featured image: collage of Joe Biden (official 2021 presidential portrait by Adam Schultz, cropped, public domain) and William Howard Taft (via Wikimedia Commons from the Library of Congress, cropped, public domain)