Dem
51
GOP
49
In a 1980 presidential debate, Ronald Reagan famously asked: "Are you better off than you were 4 years ago?" Apparently, a lot of people thought: "No!" and Reagan won. Donald Trump asked the same question again last week. If Joe Biden is smart, he might ask that rhetorical question a couple of times as well. The results could be interesting.
But maybe you don't remember what things were like on March 25, 2020. Well, we can help. If you look at the bottom of the legend box to the right of the map at the top of this page, you will see: 2020 2016 2012. If you click on any of them, you will go to our page for the current date in the corresponding year. So clicking on the first one will take you to our page for March 25, 2020. Tomorrow that link will point to March 26, 2020, etc. By looking at our headlines and stories, you can bring back fond or not-so-fond memories of that date. That can refresh your memory of what was going on in the country 4 (or 8 or 12) years ago. Once you have gone back 4 years, the "Previous report" and "Next report" buttons allow you to move around in 2020, etc.
But there's more. On the 2020 pages, below the map are the top six headlines from Taegan Goddard's Political Wire for that day, frozen in amber. So between our headlines and Goddard's, you should be able to get a good picture of what was going on 4 years ago.
We're not done yet. The New York Times has archived all past front pages. If you go to www.nyt.com in the top left-hand corner you will see something like this:
You can click on "Today's paper" and change the date in the box on the new page you get to 4 years ago or any other date you want to see. An image of the front page appears on the screen a few inches from the top on the right. It is clickable and downloadable.
So with our page, Goddard's, and the NYT's, you can get a pretty good reminder of what was going on 4 years ago. Here are the top halves of the pages for this week 4 years ago. These are not clickable.
As you can see, COVID-19 totally dominated the news. The economy ground to a halt. Also noteworthy is that 4 years ago today, March 25, 2020, right at the start of the pandemic, then-President Donald Trump said he wanted to reopen the economy by Easter. In 2020, Easter was April 12, so Trump figured the problem with COVID-19 would be over in 3 weeks. In reality, it took over 3 years, 104 million sick Americans, and 1.1 million American deaths from COVID-19 before it mostly subsided. Were you better off then than now? We ask, you answer. (V)