🧩 BND Motif Index · M1773
Good times cover sins
A leader's faults, corruption, bluster, unpopular policies, are said to be shrugged off while the economy is good and to sink him once it sours.
🕵️ Theories🗂️ Pocketbook🗂️ Horserace
- 5claims filed under it
- 2left shows it came up on
- 2center shows it came up on
- 1right show it came up on
⚠️ A story people tell, not a claim that it's true.
A motif is the shape of a story as its tellers tell it, named the way a folklorist names a tale type, so the same story told about other people, by the other side or in another year lands in the same place. Some of the claims below are true, many are false. Arguing against a story is often a story of its own, its answer (Voter fraud is answered by Voter suppression, Lawfare by No one is above the law), and we file it there; where no answer has a motif yet, the arguments against a story sit with its tellings.
🪜 Its family
what it rests on, what rests on it, and the motifs that answer it
🪜 rests on 🧩 It's the economy, stupid
🎙️ Who it came up with
the shows we follow where its claims came up (2 left-leaning, 2 center, 1 right-leaning so far), colored by the show's lean; the bar is how many of its claims each one heard
- left-leaning
- center
- right-leaning
"Came up on" means one of its claims was heard on the show: told, reported or argued against. We don't yet mark which. Show leans are our own grouping of the shows we transcribe.
🧶 Its claims
what's been told in this shape, in our words, by who told it: newest first in each; a claim's dots are the shows it came up on, in their lean's color (point at them for their names)
Told on the left 1
claims heard on left-leaning shows, and no right-leaning one
- 2026-11-05 “Voters are deeply dissatisfied and irritated by corruption, which they tie back to Trump's politics.” 3
Told on the right 1
claims heard on right-leaning shows, and no left-leaning one
- 2026-10-06 “Trump's bravado and posturing no longer benefit him because Americans are struggling with the cost of living.” 1
Told in the center 3
claims heard only on center or crossover shows
- 2026-10-20 “Trump's refusal to empathize with economic pain makes him vulnerable during economic challenges.” 🎙️ on the shows
- 2026-10-19 “High tariffs and corruption are harder for Republicans to defend when the economy is bad and gas prices are high.” 1
- 2026-10-16 “Trump's people, Kimberly Guilfoyle among them, are so flamboyantly corrupt that, with the economy bad, voters have started to notice.” 1
M1773 · first seen 2026-11-09 · last 2026-11-07 · what this is · how the index works