By most objective standards, Biden’s economic record was a success. Due largely to his personal infirmities, however, he was unable to make much of an effort to sell it to the American people. The voters decided that he was a failure even before the campaign began in earnest, and that was that.
Trump, on the other hand, is a born salesman. That is his problem. We know only too well that Trump will try to sell us the Brooklyn Bridge, as he did in the early days of the virus. His happy talk, even when it has some basis in fact, will persuade no one except the base, which doesn’t have the economic clout to keep the economy afloat.