Why did Trump win? He somehow persuaded the voting public to ignore the cataclysmic events of 2020 and to use 2019 as a baseline. Inflation and interest rates were worse in 2024 than in 2019, so he could claim that Americans were better off under him than under Biden.
Of course, Trump took over a growing Obama economy with low unemployment and inflation and only made it very slightly better. That was the baseline in 2016. Everyone ignored that, too.
The Democrats need to make a big effort to publicize the actual baseline economic numbers for the second Trump term. If the numbers are worse in 2028 than they are today–a very real possibility, given the problems the tariff and deportation regime will create–the left needs to hang them around J.D. Vance’s neck.