To be clear, we have no objection to the Donald’s relentless and frequently unhinged attacks on the ruling elites of Washington, Wall Street, the mainstream media and the Fortune 500. Indeed, his one abiding virtue is that he had all the right enemies—the very people who’s policies and ideologies threaten the future of America as we have known it.
But while Trump had the right enemies, he was hopelessly wrong on the substance of policy. Indeed, when it comes to the GOP’s core mission amidst the on-going tussle of democratic governance— standing up for free markets, fiscal rectitude, sound money, personal liberty and small government—the Donald is not remotely a conservative, let alone even a half-assed Republican.
Yet the situation is now so far gone that the election of a real Republican leader in 2024 is the only hope remaining. Literally, the very future of constitutional democracy and capitalist prosperity in America cannot endure another four years of the Donald in the White House. Nor, worse still, another woebegone Democrat like Joe Biden, elected by default owing to not being Donald Trump.
So the essence of the moment is this: Lock him out of both the nomination and the Oval Office. The future of the Republic depends upon it.
We detail the Donald’s miserable record as a big spender, easy money-man, hard-core protectionist, immigrant-basher, militarist and all-around statist below, but we need to puncture divisively the myth of the Great MAGA Economy right up front.
That’s because a lot of well-meaning Republicans are willing to overlook all of his egregious egotism and petty bombast and his endless departures from conservative economic principles because he purportedly delivered the Greatest Economy Ever.
In a word, he didn’t. Not remotely. On the bread and butter matters of growth and jobs, in fact, his record is among the worst of modern presidents, not the best.
To be sure, the very idea that America’s infinitely complex, deeply cyclical and globalized $26 trillion economy can be assessed by statistical outcomes realized during the arbitrary 48 calendar months of a presidential term is deeply faulty. Because economic cycles and trends begin and end on calendars wholly unrelated to presidential terms, the overwhelming bulk of economic policy claims by all presidents amount to partisan talking points, not credible economic analysis.
For instance, years of bad Fed policy brought the US economy into a thundering tailspin in 2008. So any statistical measure of results for George W. Bush’s tenure have a dismal end-point, which was largely not his doing.
In fact, the overwhelming bulk of economic outcomes during these four-year intervals reflect the combined action of tens of millions of workers, entrepreneurs, managers, investors, consumers, savers and speculators operating on the free market, even as compromised as it has become owing to government intervention and central bank manipulation.
Indeed, when it comes to the big picture, “presidential policy” is way, way over rated. And in the particular period of 2017 thru 2020 the Donald inherited trends and a ripening business cycle that were overwhelmingly not his doing.
Nevertheless, the facts leave little room for doubt. Real economic growth averaged just 1.52% per annum during Trump’s 48-months in the Oval Office. Literally, you can’t find anything that weak in the data since the Korean War!
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