Ariana Grande vs. Donald Trump: Pop Rhetoric Meets Economic Reality

In the closing moments of the 1980 presidential debate, Ronald Reagan famously delivered a line that would come to define his campaign and reshape political rhetoric: “Are you better off than you were four years ago?”

Speaking directly to voters, Reagan distilled the nation’s anxieties about inflation, unemployment, and global instability into a simple personal question. It invited Americans to measure Jimmy Carter’s presidency not by policy detail but by lived experience. The phrase proved devastatingly effective, helping Reagan frame the election as a referendum on Carter’s record and setting a template for political challengers ever since.

The latest deployment of Reagan’s test came from pop singer and political

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