A strong economy should be something desired by leaders in both parties.
However, a new report suggests that Democratic strategists are worried that a recovering economy could boost President Trump's re-election odds.
In March, the U.S. economy nosedived as the country shutdown to slow the spread of COVID-19.
The stock market tanked and millions of Americans were put out of work.
Now that many states (mostly red) are reopening, the economy is recovering quicker than even the experts predicted.
It appears that the predictions of a "V-shaped recovery" were true!
But instead of being happy that Americans are recovering from the economic fallout, Democratic strategists are warning that this will boost Trump's likelihood of winning re-election.
More details below:
As many Republican states begin to safely reopen, the economy is already recovering faster than anticipated.
On Monday, the stock market soared with the S&P matching its pre-COVID levels. The DOW is close behind.
Though unemployment remains sky high, more and more people are returning to work as businesses are allowed to safely reopen.
According to Politico, a top Obama adviser warned that we're about to see "best economic data we’ve seen in the history of this country." This should be good news, but it's a situation Democrats are dreading:
In early April, Jason Furman, a top economist in the Obama administration and now a professor at Harvard, was speaking via Zoom to a large bipartisan group of top officials from both parties. The economy had just been shut down, unemployment was spiking and some policymakers were predicting an era worse than the Great Depression. The economic carnage seemed likely to doom President Donald Trump’s chances at reelection.
Furman, tapped to give the opening presentation, looked into his screen of poorly lit boxes of frightened wonks and made a startling claim.
“We are about to see the best economic data we’ve seen in the history of this country,” he said.
The former Cabinet secretaries and Federal Reserve chairs in the Zoom boxes were confused, though some of the Republicans may have been newly relieved and some of the Democrats suddenly concerned.
“Everyone looked puzzled and thought I had misspoken,” Furman said in an interview. Instead of forecasting a prolonged Depression-level economic catastrophe, Furman laid out a detailed case for why the months preceding the November election could offer Trump the chance to brag — truthfully — about the most explosive monthly employment numbers and gross domestic product growth ever.
Since the Zoom call, Furman has been making the same case to anyone who will listen, especially the close-knit network of Democratic wonks who have traversed the Clinton and Obama administrations together, including top members of the Biden campaign.
Furman’s counterintuitive pitch has caused some Democrats, especially Obama alumni, around Washington to panic. “This is my big worry,” said a former Obama White House official who is still close to the former president. Asked about the level of concern among top party officials, he said, “It’s high — high, high, high, high.”
And top policy officials on the Biden campaign are preparing for a fall economic debate that might look very different than the one predicted at the start of the pandemic in March. “They are very much aware of this,” said an informal adviser.
Furman’s case begins with the premise that the 2020 pandemic-triggered economic collapse is categorically different than the Great Depression or the Great Recession, which both had slow, grinding recoveries.
Instead, he believes, the way to think about the current economic drop-off, at least in the first two phases, is more like what happens to a thriving economy during and after a natural disaster: a quick and steep decline in economic activity followed by a quick and steep rebound.
[...]Between now and Election Day, there will be five monthly jobs reports, which are released on the first Friday of every month. The June report, covering May, is likely to show another increase in unemployment. But after that, Furman predicts, if reopening continues apace, the next four reports could be blockbusters. “You could easily have 1 to 2 million jobs created a month in those four reports before November,” he said.
He added, “And then toward the end of October, we will get GDP growth for the third quarter, at an annualized rate, and it could be double-digit positive economic growth. So these will be the best jobs and growth numbers ever.”
While the media is continuously trying to demonize Trump's response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the reality is that he made bold and decisive decisions that saved American lives and livelihoods.
The Western Journal confirms that the beginnings of an economic recovery is looking likely before November:
As literally anyone who’s followed the news for the past three years knows, the country during the Trump presidency have seen an economy booming, with record low unemployment that benefited all Americans, including the minority populations Democrats have taken advantage of for decades.
(It’s difficult to imagine what sort of damage the coronavirus might have caused to the U.S. if it hit an economy that was on its knees after three years of a Hillary Clinton presidency.)
Of course, the coronavirus crisis has set that economy back on its heels, but it’s done the same all over the world. Democrats trying to blame Trump for a black swan event like that are even more full of hot air than usual, and any sensible person would know it.
Not every Democrat quoted in the article remained nameless.
Kenneth Baer, a former Obama administration official who was associate director of communications with the Office of Management and Budget during Obama’s first term and is now CEO of the public relations firm Crosscut Strategies, acknowledged an economic recovery will redound to Trump’s benefit.
Even if he sounded grudging about it.
“In absolute terms, the economy will look historically terrible come November,” Baer told Politico. “But relative to the depths of April, it will be on an upswing — 12 percent unemployment, for example, is better than 20, but historically terrible. On Election Day, we Democrats need voters to ask themselves, ‘Are you better off than you were four years ago?’ Republicans need voters to ask themselves, ‘Are you better off than you were four months ago?’”
True enough. And all Americans should ask themselves if the country as a whole would have been better off under the statist, economy-killing, overregulated Obama regime that Hillary Clinton would have continued in the White House if she’d won the presidency in 2016.
They also need to ask themselves if the country needs Biden in the White House to revive that regime.
Meanwhile, Furman, the economist whose prediction of an economic rebound kicked off the Politico report, told the outlet that — barring an unexpected resurgence of coronavirus infections that close state economies again — he foresees a summer of recovery that will only benefit Trump.
As Politico put it: “Between now and Election Day, there will be five monthly jobs reports, which are released on the first Friday of every month. The June report, covering May, is likely to show another increase in unemployment. But after that, Furman predicts, if reopening continues apace, the next four reports could be blockbusters. ‘You could easily have 1 to 2 million jobs created a month in those four reports before November,’ he said.
“He added, ‘And then toward the end of October, we will get GDP growth for the third quarter, at an annualized rate, and it could be double-digit positive economic growth. So these will be the best jobs and growth numbers ever.’”
It’s important to point out that Politico is a normally liberal-leaning outfit — this isn’t a report from Breitbart News or a Tucker Carlson monologue on Fox News. One look at the Twitter thread of responses to the article shows how liberal its readership is. (Hint: Most didn’t like it one bit. But didn’t really argue the premise.)
That gives the message here even greater impact.
Voices on the left — from the Democratic National Committee to the biased mainstream media to the hideously uninformed late-night comics — will do anything to avoid saying that what’s bad news for the country is good news for the Democratic opposition to Trump. (HBO’s Bill Maher is one of the more honest exceptions to the rule — it doesn’t do him much credit.)
But they know the economy is Trump’s hole card — because the success of his tax-cutting, regulation-reducing administration in rebuilding American jobs has been so obvious even the mainstream media couldn’t cover it up.
Now a liberal news outlet has summed it up in one headline. An economic recovery every American should want to see is exactly the “general election scenario that Democrats are dreading.”
That says it all.
Economic news that benefits ALL Americans should be something that everyone cheers on.
However, it seems more and more apparent that Democrats would rather see Americans suffer than re-elect President Trump.
What, may we ask, is so bad about a President who wants to put America first?!
Yes, this means ALL Americans.
The sooner that Democrats can get over their loss in 2016, the sooner we can heal, unify, and prosper together as one nation under God.
Join the conversation!
Please share your thoughts about this article below. We value your opinions, and would love to see you add to the discussion!