But they blame Biden for inflation, which was also outside his control. That’s a weird double standard you’re promoting there.

It's true that most voters vastly overestimate the degree to which the President has any control - or even influence - over the economy. Voters typically think of a President's "economic record" as being the stuff that happened during their term, even though the President doesn't really cause or control most of it.

But voters (I think) intuit that something like a once-in-a-century pandemic (like Covid) is so obviously not the fault of the President that they don't include it as part of his economic record. Trump obviously didn't cause Covid in a way that's far more obvious than Biden not causing inflation - especially since economists generally believe that economic policies can contribute somewhat to inflationary pressures.

I'm not promoting that double standard - I simply believe that voters will apply that double standard. They'll blame Biden for inflation because they always blame Presidents for economic conditions that happen during their term in ordinary circumstances. They won't blame Trump for the economic effects of Covid because they understand that Trump didn't cause those economic effects. It's not fair, but pointing to January 20-January 20 figures for Trump isn't going to be a very effective message, because the Trump economy was actually pretty decent up through Q4 2019.

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