Looks like Donald Trump is out of luck
Republicans like to believe (and convincingly pretend) that they’re good for the economy. This is partly due to them inheriting the recoveries that start under Democratic presidents, as Donald Trump did in 2017, but this time he doesn’t have the same luck. While he tried to take credit for the success of the stock market after he was elected in November, this move probably helped him get saddled with the blame of a collapsing economy – with the fallout largely due to his pointless trade war with Canada.
He tried taking credit for some inflation falling, even though it happened under President Biden’s budget and inflation has actually gone up over the last month, considerably worse than it was in January. Unfortunately, a lot of this is just talk that his die-hard supporters will anxiously try to push, and pretty hard to sell to a persuadable voter not familiar with all the details. Now, he’s gotten some really bad news: the Federal Reserve has decided to keep interest rates the same as they were, and is already adjusting for inflation to become worse.
It’s not the rosy outcast that Republicans were hoping for in 2025. It would also seem that the news has already leaked to Donald Trump, who appeared on Fox News on Wednesday night, in what you would expect was an effort to assuage peoples’ fears – and presumably what host Laura Ingraham was hoping to do.
He did not – even going so far as to say a recession was possible, which is a pretty good way to make a bad week on Wall Street worse, between that, his large indifference to actually doing anything about prices, and his vague promises of wealth to anyone puzzled by his need for a trade war, we’re watching as he’s letting his approval ratings crater well before 100 days of this insanity are over.
James Sullivan is the assistant editor of Brain World Magazine and an advocate of science-based policy making