Debating which president is better is irrelevant, though. This “perception” campaign is 100% about press douchebags demonizing people who’ve been screwed before, during, and after Trump. ...

Yet when they’re not sketching swing voters as cartoon dopes, these “economic pessimism” pieces sooner or later blame the ordinary person for failing to appreciate his or her good fortune. Scripps months ago asked, “Is the economy the issue, or the problem with America’s perception?” In it, they noted that 78% of the country felt “the economy” was going in the wrong direction. “But is it?” the piece asked, stroking its rhetorical chin before adding: “After all, most Americans vote not on statistics, but based on how they feel.”

This is an update of the old coverage trope in which everyone from Occupy protesters to Tea Partiers are always described as having “passions,” while policymakers always have reasons. This new thing is about redefining “the economy” as a solved issue, but for the hurt feelings of conspiratorial holdouts. CNN last summer sighed about economic perceptions that “much of the stagnation comes from dug-in partisans,” in a piece about Americans who erroneously “think the economy is getting worse.”