The economy was better 4 years ago because Trump inherited a strong economy from Obama and we hadn't had the pandemic. We actually have a pretty strong economy right now, although prices are still too high - but when people are struggling, they tend to blame the person in power right now, so I get it. It's under/mis-informed but that's the way the American electorate always is and the Harris campaign didn't do nearly enough to correct that.
I agree with you completely that if we end up with Project 2025, we're going to need allies from across the aisle to fight it.