{"id":192,"date":"2026-05-31T11:13:39","date_gmt":"2026-05-31T11:13:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/relocationacrossamerica.com\/?p=192"},"modified":"2026-05-31T11:13:39","modified_gmt":"2026-05-31T11:13:39","slug":"how-trump-squandered-the-economic-recovery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/relocationacrossamerica.com\/?p=192","title":{"rendered":"How Trump squandered the economic recovery"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

When Donald Trump was 13, his father caught him with a hidden cache of switchblades. Fred Trump, according to Tony Schwartz, who ghostwrote the president\u2019s book \u201cThe Art of the Deal,\u201d was \u201ca very brutal guy\u201d \u2014\u00a0a martinet of a father who shipped his son off to military school. A poor student and apparently <\/span>not much of a leader<\/span>, Donald Trump still managed to fail up into a prestigious position that came with the most coveted honor: <\/span>leading the parade<\/span> down Fifth Avenue in a flamboyant cadet uniform.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Read more Tennessee\u2019s attempt to whitewash \u201cRoots\u201d was stopped \u2014 for now<\/a><\/p>\n

That pattern has continued throughout his life.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Trump may not be the smartest president in America\u2019s history, but he is certainly the luckiest. That\u2019s not to say that he doesn\u2019t have his troubles. In fact, he\u2019s constantly mired in scandal, shame and disgrace, and has been his entire life. Still, like a political Houdini, he manages to wriggle out of every jam, usually leaving a pile of wreckage in his wake. That single characteristic may be the key to his popularity. To some people, it makes Trump an almost mystical figure \u2014 a person who never has to pay any consequences. In fact, he\u2019s always rewarded in the end with even more fame, fortune and power.<\/span><\/p>\n

In 2016, he managed to sneak into the White House without winning the popular vote, taking over at a time when the economy had finally recovered from the shock of the 2008 financial crisis and the Great Recession. Since he was new to politics and had no knowledge of history, he didn\u2019t know how to implement whatever vague policy ideas he had developed back in the 1980s. The people surrounding him put the brakes on his craziest notions, so he mainly concentrated on undoing whatever former president Barack Obama had done wherever possible and allowing the GOP to enact their perennial tax cuts.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s pugnacious style remained unpopular with the majority of the public, but he did get credit for the healthy economy that accompanied his first term \u2014\u00a0even though he did little to affect it. He probably would have squeaked out a victory in 2020 if he had demonstrated he was capable of guiding the nation through his first crisis, the global Covid-19 pandemic. He did not. His performance was abysmal, and at the end of the day he managed to exacerbate America\u2019s divisions at the worst possible time. He lost the election, and we all know what happened next.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

But once again, Trump\u2019s luck played out. All over the world, incumbents were tumbling in the wake of the pandemic, and he was among the first of them. But there was never any doubt he would attempt a Napoleonic comeback, and he was fortunate enough that the anti-incumbent fever was still in full effect when he ran again in 2024 as a challenger. The economy was still recovering from the pandemic shock and, as usual, the president in office was held liable, which blew back on the Biden administration. People remembered the good economy during Trump\u2019s first term, and with all his braggadocio, he managed to convince a plurality of voters that they should take another chance on him.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

He returned to office in January 2025 with a political movement behind him, a party that was completely submissive to his will, a smartly recovering economy and a world that was open to new ideas and looking for leadership.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Again, his luck had held out. He returned to office in January 2025 with a political movement behind him, a party that was completely submissive to his will, a smartly recovering economy and a world that was open to new ideas and looking for leadership. As is the historical custom, Democrats had done the heavy economic lifting in the post-pandemic period and guided the country to a soft landing so impressive that The Economist ran a cover story before the election that called the American economy \u201c<\/span>The Envy of the World<\/span>.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Read more White House intervened to get a $620 million deal for a company tied to Donald Trump Jr.<\/a><\/p>\n

Trump had the wind at his back \u2014\u00a0and a perfect opportunity to remake his legacy as the incompetent, divisive, sore loser of 2020 to a leader with a thriving economy and a new political coalition that included the fastest-growing segments of the population: young people and Latinos. He could have had it all.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

That did not happen, and it\u2019s because of Trump\u2019s lifelong propensity to take a gift horse and punch it in the mouth. He can\u2019t help himself.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

As Vox\u2019s Eric Levitz recently <\/span>pointed out<\/span>, \u201cTrump could have presided over a pristine economy, if he\u2019d simply refrained from increasing import prices, reducing labor-force growth, and launching a war of choice near the aorta of the global energy market. One could call this the \u2018<\/span>We had a good thing<\/span>\u2019 account of Trump-era economic performance, after Mike Ehrmantraut\u2019s <\/span>much-memed<\/span> scolding of the self-sabotaging drug lord Walter White in a late season of the AMC series \u2018Breaking Bad.\u2019\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s tariffs have wreaked <\/span>havoc on the economy<\/span> in ways beyond just the increased costs borne by businesses and consumers. The uncertainty caused by his mercurial system of threats and rewards has created massive uncertainty for the economy and stalled the recovery. Luckily, the Supreme Court did him a favor by reversing the original \u201cLiberation Day\u201d tariffs, giving businesses some breathing room and allowing them to recover some of the money from the government. So naturally he\u2019s <\/span>appealing the judicial order<\/span> that\u2019s been allowing companies to recover and boost the economy, and he decided to make things even worse by starting a war for no good reason that has strangled the world\u2019s oil supply. Even if the war ends soon, his \u201cexcursion\u201d will <\/span>hobble the economy<\/span> for months.<\/span><\/p>\n

Trump has always been very incompetent and very lucky, and his luck may hold out once again. He is likely to survive the disaster he is making of the country by the skin of his teeth, and will probably leave office with a massive fortune derived from his presidency. There will likely be no accountability for the vast corruption and abuse of power for him personally; his friends and allies have seen to that. <\/span>
\n<\/span>
\n<\/span>Up until now, America has been an equally lucky nation, blessed with vast resources and resilient people who came to this country with lots of energy and ambition. But it\u2019s entirely possible that our fortune has run out and we won\u2019t be lucky enough to survive Donald Trump. After all, his good luck almost always leaves nothing but carnage for the people he leaves behind.<\/span><\/p>\n

Read more Trump says he could replace Freedom 250 artists himself<\/a><\/p>\n<\/section>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In January 2025, the president was set up for success. Instead, he blew it<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":191,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[4,5,341,105,342],"class_list":["post-192","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interesting","tag-commentary","tag-donald-trump","tag-economy","tag-iran-war","tag-tariffs"],"yoast_head":"\nHow Trump squandered the economic recovery - Relocation Across America<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/relocationacrossamerica.com\/?p=192\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"How Trump squandered the economic recovery - Relocation Across America\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"In January 2025, the president was set up for success. 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