The Patriot Post® · In Case You Missed It: The Good Economic News
Lost amid the nonstop coverage of riots, racism, and reform in recent weeks was news of (yawn) the most spectacular economic recovery in history. Perhaps you missed it back on June 5. The Left certainly hopes you did.
It happened, though, and it continues to happen. And despite all the other noise you’ll hear between now and November, this recovery is the key to Donald Trump’s reelection — assuming the recovery continues.
“It’s a stupendous number,” tweeted Trump two weeks ago, when May’s jobs numbers were released. “It’s a stunner by any stretch of the imagination!” The Fed chairman weighed in a few days later, calling the administration’s response to the economic calamity wrought by COVID-19 “large, forceful and very quick … In a class by itself.”
“Over here!” cried the Democrats in response. “Police brutality, ‘peaceful’ protests, and Black Lives Matter!”
It’s understandable, of course, that the party of Slow Joe Biden would want to distract the American people from this subject or steer its discussion into irrelevant directions. The economy has always been Trump’s strong suit, and the Democrats have a pretty good (and foreboding) sense of how things will shake out between now and Election Day. “We are about to see the best economic data we’ve seen in the history of this country,” said Jason Furman, one of the Obama administration’s top economists.
As Politico reported, “Furman’s argument is not that different from the one made by White House economic advisers and Trump, who have predicted an explosive third quarter, and senior adviser Jared Kushner, who said in late April that ‘the hope is that by July the country’s really rocking again.’”
“The hope,” that is, for anyone but Democrats seeking elected office.
None of this is lost on the Republican National Committee, whose website yesterday sounded the trumpets: “Thanks to President Trump, the American Economy Is Already Resurging.” Behind that headline is an exhaustive (in a good way) list of economic data and story after story about the president’s three-year economic record, his administration’s response to the coronavirus crisis, and personal accounts of how that response has benefited everyday Americans.
The RNC’s touting of The Trump Recovery is one thing, but solid polling about it is another. And, as Gallup reports, we now have both. “Slightly more Americans today than two months ago rate their personal financial situation positively. A May 28-June 4 Gallup poll finds 53% of U.S. adults describing their personal finances as either ‘excellent’ or ‘good,’ compared with 49% in early April, when most of the country was under stay-at-home orders, and the effects of these on the economy were more uncertain.”
“It’s the economy, stupid,” said old-school Demo strategist James Carville way back in 1992, the year he helped a relatively unknown Arkansas governor named Bill Clinton whip a sitting president whose job-approval numbers were at 88% just a year earlier.
Carville’s four-word quip may have been something short of Churchillian, but it’s aged extremely well.
If Republicans are smart, they’ll pound Corporal Cue Ball’s message incessantly in the weeks and months ahead — because the Democrats and their media brethren will most assuredly be employing the ol’ Jedi Mind Trick: These aren’t the economic numbers you’re looking for.