I am always mystified at the notion that life was so much better under the presidency of Donald Trump. Didn’t experience that, or, I didn’t feel the vibe.
Was the economy better? Depends what statistics you read, and even more so on your own personal economic situation.
(It’s often said people vote their pocket books in presidential elections. But there is thought now that a culture war has superseded that. I’ll try to give my take on that perhaps in a future post.)
In general it’s my perception the economy went into the tank under the presidency of George W. Bush who let the banks go wild with dangerous loans and then used taxpayer money to bail them out. He also monstrously piled on to the national debt by borrowing money to pay for failed and unnecessary wars in the Middle East.
Wars need to be funded by taxes. The Vietnam War was also fought on borrowed money, resulting in major economic woes in the 1970s, stagflation included.
Things slowly but steadily picked up under Barack Obama. And, economics wise, things continued to pick up under Trump. I don’t discount that his tax cuts for the rich may have induced business to make investments. But the economy was already in an up cycle.
Then Covid hit. Trump spearheaded the rapid development of a vaccine. Good. But as he saw the pandemic ruining the economy he became a Covid denier. That didn’t help. He was at the helm when the federal government and state and local governments, not quite knowing what to do, closed public schools and many businesses and enacted crazy regulations that in some instances closed churches and let bars remain open.
Despite his campaign rhetoric in 2016, Trump went fairly light on military operations. I’ll give him credit for that.
I do think he needs to take blame, along with President Biden, for our virtual surrender in Afghanistan. Trump essentially sued for peace, and Biden closed the deal, but bumbled the withdrawal, leaving millions or billions of dollars of equipment behind and failing to ensure security for soldiers and civilians during the withdrawal process.
But forget about foreign policy and economics, what about the image of Trump?
Trump is uncivil, totally lacks decorum, and worst of all worships dictators and has no use for democracy. Without supplying any evidence he declared election fraud and urged a rebellion, culminating in a violent physical attack on our capitol. He also backed cries to hang his own vice president who did his legal duty, refusing to block Biden’s legitimate election.
You have a man who incites violence and makes fun of the disabled, infamously mocking a reporter with a disability. He also implied that gun-toting NRA members could take care of his presidential race opponent Hillary Clinton. He continually makes racist remarks.
But like his supporters often said in Trump’s original run for the presidency, and still do: “he says things we can’t”.
What is it they want to say? The same lies and vitriol as Trump?
Actually they’re free to do that, with limited exceptions, but why do they want to?
Tony Walther's Weblog 