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Notes -
Vibes are very hard to measure, but I do think there's something to the idea that the tariff shenanigans have damaged morale on the right, even if only by causing a rift between Trump supporters who support the tariffs and Trump supporters who see them as entirely self-inflicted suffering. I personally think they'll cause enough economic hardship such that it will actually meaningfully negatively affect Trump support in the long run, but, well, only time will tell.
But this kind of post about vibes just reminded me of a comment I made last year after Harris became the Dem nominee. There was all sorts of talk about how there was some apparent "shift" in the vibes, that Democrats were coming together and becoming energized, and that we were owning the Republicans by calling them "weird," and I thought it all looked like transparent attempts to shift the vibes by declaring the vibes as shifted. I think my skepticism of that turned out to be mostly correct, and I think such skepticism is warranted here. I don't know much about Scott Sumner, but he doesn't seem like a Trump sycophant or even a Trump fan. And only someone who's at least neutral on Trump, if not positive, would have the credibility, in my eyes, to declare "vibes" as shifting away from Trump and towards his enemies, because someone who dislikes Trump would have great incentive to genuinely, honestly, in good faith, believe that the vibes are shifting away from him.
Another issue here is that I don't really see Democrats as being in a good position to capitalize on this apparent vibe shift. People being demoralized on Trump will almost certainly help the Dems, but people can be fickle and vibes can shift back, unless Dems manage to actually lock in the demoralized former Trump fans through some sort of actual positive message.
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