SO WE CAN KEEP THE RECORD STRAIGHT

Look, the truth is that the United States economy has been engineered to serve the goals of the 1% for at least the last forty-five years. It’s what we call the Neoliberal Era. We all knew it would lead to disaster of some kind. Nobody imagined it would lead to this. We could have empowered a movement intent on challenging the Neoliberal status quo and maybe work toward a restoration of social democracy if not a meaningful post-neoliberal revolution. Instead, we empowered the movement intent on blaming the problems of Neoliberals on brown people, feminists, and queer people.

Regardless, MAGA almost universally claims that they voted for OrangeDon 2.0 because of the disastrous economy under Biden. They voted for bigotry in order to get the price of eggs and bacon down. Because democracy takes second fiddle to a hearty breakfast!

Okay. Well, let’s hold the MAGA’s to account. This post is not intended for today. It is intended for the height of the 2028 Presidential Campaign…presumably there will be one…when the Orange Don or, more likely, his heir apparent is running for re-election on their fantastic economic record.

In 2017, the incoming President inherited a growing economy. We tend to say that he inherited this economy from the previous president, but the truth is that presidents have very little to do with the economy. Regardless, that economy continued to grow at more or less the same rate until the COVID Pandemic forced us to prioritize human health and life over profit margins…much to the chagrin of many on the right.

Consequently, the President Elect and his supporters often edit out the Pandemic Recession when they talk about his previous economic record. It goes without saying that this is not a courtesy they extend to Biden supporters when discussing the inflationary spike. They also forget that the very successful measures that kept Americans afloat and even reduced childhood poverty during the Pandemic were long-time Democratic policies. But whatever. For the MAGA faithful, the economy under the Coifed Messiah was humming along like never before. They know this because he said so…and he wouldn’t lie…um…to them.

Eh. It was okay. We were starting to feel the relief from the long, slogging recovery we made from the Great Recession. Looking at GDP growth and other economic indicators between Obama and the MAGA MESSiah, it’s impossible to say where one ended and the other started.

Indeed, the best that could be said for the Orange Don is that he didn’t screw up what he inherited. And that’s something!

That the MAGA movement will try to gaslight the nation again in 2028 by lauding the amazing, never-before-seen economy under the Felon in Chief, I thought it would be a good idea to take a snapshot of the economy that he is inheriting so we have an easy way to compare it to the 2028 economy, and easy factcheck.

Look at this like a prophylactic time capsule (yuck!)

Anyway. Here’s GDP Growth:

Of course, inflation was a huge campaign issue. The Republican candidate swore upside down and backwards that he would bring inflation down. Well…maybe. It would be a neat trick because inflation is already pretty close to target.

Of course, it wasn’t inflation in and of itself. Americans were especially upset about food prices…the price of bacon! That food inflation was largely under control in the last year of Biden’s term never hit home with many Americans because, slower inflation does not mean that prices are coming down. It just means they are not going up as fast. Little Hands swore that he would Make American Groceries Affordable Again. He has since backed off of his promises…after people voted for him, of course.

Americans made some significant wage gains under Biden. Unfortunately, much of those gains were eaten up by inflation. Can the President Elect do better? If the past is preview…

Unemployment is always a key. If there’s one thing that Americans hate more than inflation, it’s being unemployed. Except for the Pandemic, unemployment has hovered around four percent.

Then there’s the universal promise of bringing manufacturing back home. Looks like we’ve plateaued at around at just under 600,000 new orders. Can the Orange Don break the ceiling? We’ll see.

Housing was a huge problem for the Biden and then the Harris campaign. Harris had a proposal. Her opponent’s proposal was to deport brown people and put their empty houses on the market. Of course, those same brown people are the ones who build the houses…

Then there’s oil prices. Remember, we’re going to drill, baby, drill!

Then, of course, we have the stock market, the Narcissist in Chief’s favorite measure. As measures of the economy go, it’s among the least important. Yet here we are.

Then there’s trade. The Art of the Spiel specialist claims that he’s all about the business deal and nobody can get a better deal than him…except when it comes to steaks, and universities, and casinos, and Bibles…well what I’m saying is, his pet pony is trade. For MAGA, this means having a trade surplus because our surplus is a win, and a deficit is a loss. The former president never quite got to a trade surplus, but his deficit was lower than Biden’s–but higher than Obama’s (Shhh)

We can’t forget that we have to pay for stuff. The incoming administration has put its faith in Co-President Muskaswammy to balance the budget. Of course, we know that balancing the budget is really a challenge when people like Muskaswammy don’t want to pay more into the budget. That means cuts. Not to worry, President Muskaswammy is going DOGE and assure us that they can balance the budget simply by cutting waste. That being said, what a working person considers wasteful and what a billionaire social media troll considers wasteful may be two different things. Regardless, the deficit has been increasing, much of it driven by the 2017 Budget, but also Biden’s spending priorities. Will Muskaswammy save us from our own reckless spending?

The reality is that for the standards of the Neoliberal Era and considering the fact that we went through an inflationary spike that lasted a couple of years, the United States economy has looked pretty good. Indeed, it’s the envy of the advanced world. President Theyletmedoit has promised that he can do better. In 2017, he inherited a solidly growing economy and did not screw it up. He also didn’t improve on it. He made some minor changes and slapped a new name on it, (NAFTA/USCMA). The truth is that the economy that Biden inherited was destabilized by the pandemic but was largely the same economy that his predecessor inherited. This was not good news to Americans who had to weather the inflationary spike only to find themselves in the same precarious position they were in before the pandemic.

The truth is that since the Great Recession, with the exception of the Recession/Recovery and the Pandemic/Inflation, the economy has not changed. A rough graphic of this is the Weekly Economic Index which combines ten different measures in an attempt to snapshot the economy as a whole. If there is a problem that helped get the Pussy Grabber re-elected, it is this fact. Every president runs on economic change. The economy is oppressive to the vast majority of us, so we want change…but it doesn’t change.

Why doesn’t it change? Well, in short, because the economy as it is benefits the 1%. Do you think President Muskaswammy has any intention of DOGEing that fact?

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