James Carville, the colorful Democratic political strategist who helped mastermind Bill Clinton’s 1992 win, famously said, “It’s the economy, stupid!”
The notion that American presidents are reelected or thrown out of office based on the nation’s economic performance has since become conventional wisdom. Yet, that maxim doesn’t seem to apply this year because of all the political drama, Sturm und Drang, that surrounds President Trump.
Impeachment is the latest drama, but there have been many others—Charlottesville, the Mueller investigation, the crisis at the border, the Kavanaugh Supreme Court nomination, the government shutdown, Khashoggi, Syria, Ukrainian aid, et al.
Some of these crises, like the Kavanaugh Supreme Court nomination, are beyond Trump’s control and must be laid squarely at the feet of his political opponents, who are determined to stop the GOP’s policy agenda, either by hook or by crook.
To the diehard partisans of the left, it doesn’t matter who is president. They would fight to the political death against any Republican President, be he Trump, Bush, Romney, or Mother Theresa.
But it’s also true that Trump has been his own worst enemy; and that his utterly undisciplined, shoot-from-the-hip nature has seriously exacerbated his political problems and created crises that need not have occurred.
Charlottesville, for instance, was a completely self-inflicted wound that could have been avoided entirely had Trump simply chosen his words more carefully and been more disciplined when responding to reporters’ questions.
This is why, despite relative peace and prosperity, Trump has been unable to achieve a 50-percent job-approval rating.
So it was good to see the president use his State of the Union Address to deliver a clear, coherent, and compelling message of American renewal led by a strong and resilient U.S. economy that is very much the envy of the world.
Trump called it “the great American comeback… The years of economic decay,” he declared, are over.
From the instant I took office, I moved rapidly to revive the U.S. economy—slashing a record number of job-killing regulations, enacting historic and record-setting tax cuts, and fighting for fair and reciprocal trade agreements.
Our agenda is relentlessly pro-worker, pro-family, pro-growth, and, most of all, pro-American…
Since my election, we have created seven million new jobs—five million more than government experts projected during the previous administration. The unemployment rate is the lowest in over half a century…
The unemployment rate for African-Americans, Hispanic Americans and Asian-Americans has reached the lowest levels in history… The unemployment rate for women reached the lowest level in almost 70 years…
Real median household income is now at the highest level ever recorded…
U.S. stock markets have soared 70 percent, adding more than $12 trillion to our nation’s wealth, transcending anything anyone believed was possible. This is a record. It is something that every country in the world looks up to and admires.
Consumer confidence has reached new highs. Millions of Americans with 401(k)s and pensions are doing far better than they have ever done before, with increases of 60, 70, 80, 90 and 100 percent…
Critics will carp that Trump inherited a growing economy, and this is in part true. But it’s also true that wages were stagnant and the economy was slowing. Trump has reversed that, and the U.S. economy has performed far better than the critics predicted when Trump took office.
Indeed, three years ago we were warned that the sky would fall. Today, by contrast, it seems as if the sky’s the limit.
“In just three short years,” Trump boasted, “we have shattered the mentality of American decline. We have rejected the downsizing of America’s destiny… and we are never, ever going back.”
The 2020 election doesn’t seem to be about the economy, but maybe it should be. America could be doing a lot worse than it is now, and the choice in policy direction—more or less government, higher or lower taxes, a bigger or smaller private sector—could not be more stark, and certainly not more economically consequential.
Feature photo credit: Getty Images via the New York Post.