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Despite nearly all of the traditional indicators blaring that the U.S. economy is strong, there are still overwhelming numbers of people on both sides of the political spectrum who say the opposite. What gives?
John Burn-Murdoch, a columnist and the chief data reporter for the Financial Times, joins The New Abnormal this week to unpack this question—and share his thoughts on why social media may be at least partly to blame for the “bad vibes” that seem to be dominating the economic conversation across America.
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“I see some people dismiss it and say, “Come on, people aren’t being brainwashed by social media, people don’t think that the economy’s bad because of TikTok,” Burn-Murdoch said.
“And on one hand, I hear that—but on the flip side, we have recent surveys showing that young people certainly now get more of their news from social media than mainstream news organizations. And if we’re going to dismiss that, then we’re implicitly dismissing the mainstream media as well.
“People get their news where they get their news,” he added. “So I think to the extent that there is a sort of negativity bias both in the mainstream media and on social media… that could certainly lead—whether it’s intentional or not—it could lead people to have this feeling that things are going worse than they actually are.”
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Plus! A conversation with the newly appointed president of the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee (DLCC), Heather Williams, about the party’s plan to win down-ballot races in what is likely the most consequential election cycle in recent history.
“Republicans have shown repeatedly that they are willing to secure their own power through any means necessary,” Williams said. “That is not good, right? It just shows how important the states are and why we will only succeed as Democrats and frankly, we will only succeed in moving this country forward if we have both a state and a federal strategy.”
Listen to this full episode of The New Abnormal on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon and Stitcher.
