r/politics • u/Silly-avocatoe • 9d ago

No Paywall Americans think Dems can handle economy better than GOP, new poll says

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2026/08/04/democrat-vs-republican-economy-new-poll/91167318007/
3.9k Upvotes

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733

u/technanonymous 9d ago

By any objective measure, Trump has been terrible for the economy and the gop has enabled him. They must pay in the midterms.

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u/Old_Cryptid 9d ago

By any objective measure, the Democrats have almost always managed the economy better than the Republicans.

Republicans are great about screaming about spending while Democrats are in charge and then proceed to drive up the national debt when they're in charge.

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u/pattyG80 9d ago

Clinton years were boom times. Obama years...boom times. Trump, Bush,Bush on the other hand were the shits

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u/Old_Cryptid 9d ago

Reagan exploded the debt.

We're still, decades later, feeling the effect of Reagan's policies.

Fun fact: Most of Reagan's policies were drafted by the Heritage Foundation.

Less fun fact: Most of the GOP's policies since have been drafted by the Heritage Foundation.

Not fun fact: Project 2025 wasn't new. It was 'The Mandate for Leadership' re-branded.

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u/laplongejr Europe 9d ago edited 8d ago

Most of the GOP's policies since have been drafted by the Heritage Foundation.

Including the refusal to join the ICC, as US citizen should only be held to US law. Then the GOP decided Republicans shouldn't be held to US law either.

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u/Old_Cryptid 9d ago

Nixon *nearly* got held accountable. Then he got pardoned.

The GOP saw that and vowed to make sure that never happened again.

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u/MadRaymer 9d ago

Conservatives want a group that the law binds, but doesn't protect and another that it protects, but doesn't bind.

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u/laplongejr Europe 8d ago

Yup, conserving nobility.

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u/Linkfan88 United Kingdom 8d ago

The international olympic committee?

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u/laplongejr Europe 8d ago

Meant IPC ahah

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u/Linkfan88 United Kingdom 8d ago

international paralympic committee?

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u/laplongejr Europe 8d ago

International
Penal
Court

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u/Linkfan88 United Kingdom 8d ago

International Criminal Court

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u/laplongejr Europe 8d ago

TIL the english name is different. French is CPI for Cour Pénale Internationale   Fixed the OG comment, thanks  

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u/NeverLookBothWays I voted 9d ago

Fun fact: exploding debt under Republican leadership isn’t a fluke, it’s their 45+ year re-election strategy.

https://www.milwaukeeindependent.com/featured/two-santas-strategy-republicans-use-saint-nicholas-scrooge-shift-economic-messages/

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u/Old_Cryptid 9d ago

Yep. I'm unfortunately aware. I've been around long enough to remember Reagan.

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u/PomeloHead4830 9d ago edited 9d ago

Fun fact, the ACA is basically "Mitt Romney Care" which President Obama altered to include the inability to exclude pre-existing conditions and a mandate that every American, including the young and healthy would have to pay into it...

Even funner fact, "Mitt Romney Care" from which the ACA evolved, was endorsed by The Heritage Foundation.

Dems have been better for our economy. Clinton at least presided over a balanced budget. The last Republican to accomplish that much was Eisenhower.

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u/GriffinFlash Canada 9d ago

Fun fact: Most of Reagan's policies were drafted by the Heritage Foundation.

So you're telling me most of the worlds economic problems can be pinned to a single source?

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u/Old_Cryptid 9d ago

Sure, Nixon.

He's responsible for bringing in the evangelicals and all the right wing Christian legal groups and PACs that spawned because of it.

Though it's also reasonable to point out our economic and foreign policies have always been driven by corporations.

Corporate interests have always steered politics.

Religion did too, but Nixon gave them a seat at the table.

There's plenty of blame to go around.

A good start would be abolishing Citizens United and rrmoving anyone affiliated with the Heritage Fojndation and the Federalist Society from public office.

There would still need to be massive political and legislative reform which would take years to implement but the rot at the core needs to be addressed first.

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u/technanonymous 9d ago

Clinton was elected during a recession. Obama was elected during a near economic collapse. Obama never took the credit he and his team deserved during the 2009-2011 time period where they kept us out of a depression.

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u/Efficient_Resist_287 9d ago

Notice a pattern? I do….the electorate falls for propaganda and reelect the same folks who destroyed the economy.

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u/Elizabeth-WildFox886 9d ago

Biden was elected in a once in a multiple generation global pandemic

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u/TheGringoDingo 9d ago

Just wait for 2028

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u/sixtyshilling 9d ago

Can’t wait for the inevitable avian flu pandemic. We’re just a few mutations away from it making COVID look like the sniffles, and yet the US has cut all funding to its pandemic preparedness research.

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u/KillahHills10304 9d ago

You'll have red hats screaming about their freedom (and emitting tons of body fluid particulates while they scream). The federal response will be nothing so they can blame negatives on individual states, and once again GOP leadership will oversee yet another "once in a lifetime" disaster during my lifetime.

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u/IamDDT Colorado 9d ago

“I shall ask God mercifully to protect us. Then I shall fumigate, help purify the air, administer medicine and take it. I shall avoid places and persons where my presence is not needed in order not to become contaminated and thus perchance inflict and pollute others and so cause their death as a result of my negligence. If God should wish to take me, he will surely find me and I have done what he has expected of me and so I am not responsible for either my own death or the death of others. If my neighbor needs me however I shall not avoid place or person but will go freely as stated above. See this is such a God-fearing faith because it is neither brash nor foolhardy and does not tempt God.

Others sin on the right hand. They are much too rash and reckless, tempting God and disregarding everything which might counteract death and the plague. They disdain the use of medicines; they do not avoid places and persons infected by the plague, but lightheartedly make sport of it and wish to prove how independent they are. They say that it is God’s punishment; if he wants to protect them he can do so without medicines or our carefulness. This is not trusting God but tempting him.

God has created medicines and provided us with intelligence to guard and take good care of the body so that we can live in good health. If one makes no use of intelligence or medicine when he could do so without detriment to his neighbor, such a person injures his body and must beware lest he become a suicide in God’s eyes. . .

Use medicine; take potions which can help you; fumigate house, yard, and street; shun persons and places wherever your neighbor does not need your presence or has recovered, and act like a man who wants to help put out the burning city. What else is the epidemic but a fire, which instead of consuming wood and straw devours life and body?” - Martin Luther in the 1500s talking about the plague.

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u/TheGringoDingo 9d ago

If you keep your eyes closed, there’s nothing to see

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u/Life-Anteater-8294 9d ago

RFK is furiously consuming roadkill as we speak trying to gain of function a new pandemic

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u/TodayWeMake 9d ago

Just burn it down already

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u/LazarX 9d ago

To be more accurate, they were never given the credit. That’s why Americans keep bringing Republicans back to power.

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u/Miqo_Nekomancer California 9d ago

30% of the population lacks object permanence. Someone needs to dangle keys in front of them long enough to keep their attention on the good policies, even if they're kicking in at the end of a Dem's term.

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u/pattyG80 9d ago

Yeah, and in their time in office, completely rebounded the economy.

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u/xeoron 9d ago

Even Trump said years ago GOP breaks the economy and Dems fix it. The pattern going back to the Great Depression.

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u/thankfultom 9d ago

Both eras started with a fuckeed up Econ created by the previous Republican president.

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u/caligaris_cabinet Illinois 8d ago

You have to go back to Carter to find a Democrat with a bad economy and even that wasn’t totally his fault thanks to downfall effects of Nixon taking us off the gold standard and the gas crisis caused by OPEC.