According to Donald Trump, the economy is booming: all the talk of a possible recession is just fake news and Democratic propaganda. America has the best economy in the world and, possibly, the best economy in all of human history.
Also according to Donald Trump, we need an immediate gigantic cut in interest rates and a big reduction in the payroll tax in order to . . . um, stimulate a weak economy? But that can’t be. Trump says our economy, as always on his watch, is “very strong.”
It’s a mystery, but not a very baffling one: facts don’t matter anymore. Politics is now just a matter of who can invent the most potent fantasy. Here is Jennifer Rubin on Trump’s economic record:
President Trump came into office promising some fabulous yet unspecified health-care plan to replace the Affordable Care Act. No plan existed…. Trump said he’d bring back manufacturing. In fact, it slowed and now has slumped…. Trump said he’d get tough on drug companies. He hasn’t. He said his tax cut would be aimed at the middle class, deliver $4,000 a year to the average American family and permanently boost business investment, pushing growth above 3 percent. Nope, nope and nope…. The biggest economic lie was Trump’s declaration that trade wars are quickly and easily won, American consumers and farmers wouldn’t be hurt and we somehow would get richer by making Americans pay more at stores. Actually, they are paying a lot.
Rubin is in her element these days. She’s always been very compelling in an attack-dog-attorney kind of way, but it never worked that well back when she was hating on President Obama. There just wasn’t enough there, and it forced her to stretch and exaggerate too much. Now there’s no such problem. Hating on Trump is easy, and there’s really never any need for anything but the bare truth. It’s all clover for someone with a lawyerly mind.
