The absurdity of Trump as the normalcy candidate is almost too much to bear—especially because the normalcy that voters are desperately craving is, in many ways, already here, and Biden helped deliver it. Many economists now believe that the pandemic stimulus was key to the U.S. economy performing so much better than those of other advanced countries. The stimulus also might have played an underappreciated role in reducing crime by keeping local governments and the community organizations they support afloat. “The only reason cities did not completely fall apart during the pandemic was because of a huge boost in federal funding,” Patrick Sharkey, a sociologist at Princeton University who studies urban crime, told me. “I’m very convinced that is a central part of the explanation for why violence fell in ’22 and ’23.”
EXCERPT FROM ATLANTIC ARTICLE:
The absurdity of Trump as the normalcy candidate is almost too much to bear—especially because the normalcy that voters are desperately craving is, in many ways, already here, and Biden helped deliver it. Many economists now believe that the pandemic stimulus was key to the U.S. economy performing so much better than those of other advanced countries. The stimulus also might have played an underappreciated role in reducing crime by keeping local governments and the community organizations they support afloat. “The only reason cities did not completely fall apart during the pandemic was because of a huge boost in federal funding,” Patrick Sharkey, a sociologist at Princeton University who studies urban crime, told me. “I’m very convinced that is a central part of the explanation for why violence fell in ’22 and ’23.”
So the claim is that Xiden delivered normalcy.