I do enjoy it when actual smart people travel down the same paths I have. Before going into today’s example, a quick review of the story as I told it in late 2021 about the recession of 1991. (Apologies, I no longer have access to the links I used to refresh my memory of those anciengt events):

For those unfamiliar, that was a rather average 8-month recession that lasted from July 1990 to March 1991. (Note that the end of it was more than 18 months before the 1992 presidential election.) Interestingly, the official outlet for such things (i.e. the National Bureau of Economic Research) did not announce the end of that recession until December 22, 1992. (Note that the announcement came several weeks after the 1992 presidential election.) If you were politically aware of things back then, you will remember the Clinton Campaign, aided by the reliably Leftist media including the trusted nightly news anchors of the day and their near monopoly on dictating the narrative, took full advantage of this to hammer home the mantra “THE WORST ECONOMY IN 50 YEARS” for many, many months. Also, for the historically ill-informed out there, that reference timeframe meant something for a key voting demographic that tended to get more conservative at their age. You do the math.

[Emphasis added]

Now, as promised, the actual smart person in this case is Victor Davis Hanson:

Pseudo-Recessions

As the 1992 campaign approached, incumbent president George H.W. Bush was seen as a shoo-in for reelection. …

…in 1990, the U.S. economy had experienced a mild recession that had bottomed out in early 1991.

By the 1992 election, the U.S. was headed to full recovery.

In the last six months of 1992, GDP rebounded at over an astonishing four percent.

The inflation rate in the months before the election was often less than three percent.

Even stubborn unemployment was starting to fall to 7.3%. The eight-month recession officially ended in March 1991, followed by continual positive economic growth.

No matter. The brilliant Clinton campaign still ran on the directive “It’s the economy, stupid” and the slogan “Putting people first.” …

Key to the Clinton campaign rhetoric was the false charge of “the worst job growth since the Great Depression.” By November 1992, Clinton had convinced voters that the prior year’s recession was still in full force. …

By any normal reckoning, Bush should have been a shoo-in: spectacular foreign policy successes and a rebounding economy after a brief recession that had ended 15 months before the November 1992 election.

Instead, the pseudo-recession of 1992 dominated the campaign. …

[Emphasis added]

Of course, many like to point to the existence of third-party candidate Ross Perot for the electoral outcome but, I hate to bust their bubble, it is doubtful that the Perot campaign would have had enough energy to survive without being fed by this same pseudo-recession BS and the fully anti-Bush media of 1992 (i.e., ‘fake news’ in its very infancy).

As for a much-weakened media attempting the same play again in 2026 against a well-ruggedized fighter of a caliber that would likely amaze to old-pro Lee Atwater (see Bush Campaign 1988)…I say: Bring it on.

2026 promises to be interesting and entertaining on this front.