Fox News host Sean Hannity boldly declared the country worse off now than in the middle of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020.
For about the entirety of the 2024 presidential campaign between former President Donald Trump and, first, President Joe Biden, and then Vice President Kamala Harris, Republicans have invoked the mantra of a party trying to wrest control of the White House from its opposition. In a 1980 debate with Jimmy Carter, challenger Ronald Reagan famously asked Americans, “Are you better off than you were four years ago?”
Parties seeking to retake control of the White House can ostensibly point to several crises or statistical indicators to make a plausible case that the country is worse off in the present. Asking that question this time around, however, is made difficult by the realities of 2020 when Trump was president.
In his opening monologue, Hannity told viewers:
Now, Kamala’s closing message? It’s not about beliefs. It’s not about policies as the last… It’s not about the track record because she can’t run on whether or not this country is better off than we were four years ago, because for a very simple reason. By every measure, we are far worse off.
The border is not secure. It’s become the biggest national security crisis probably in our country’s history, and it’s self-inflicted. Prices on everything you buy in every store you go to are up dramatically. Crime is up dramatically. And our country and the world is not a safer place. Are you better off than you were four years ago? For most Americans, they’re gonna answer – overwhelmingly – “No.”
Other metrics, however, paint a less rosy picture. Four years ago, much of the country was still on lockdown as the pandemic raged. Nearly 1,000 people were dying of Covid each day in October 2020, ahead of a massive daily spike that winter. The unemployment rate last month was 4.1%. Exactly four years prior, it was 7.9%. On Monday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed at just below 43,000. Four years ago, it closed at just over 28,000.
Watch above via Fox News.
