I read Steve Rissman's article "2020 Anybody but Trump". Be wary when a wealthy Trump-publican tells you you are better off. But I am getting ahead of myself.
Presidents all inherit fluid economies and social change. Think of this as a rising tide or a falling tide. Their policies can help the tide rise faster or ebb the flow of a tide falling. Every President seems to have a crisis that has to be dealt with. Clinton had Clinton, Bush had 9/11, Obama had the housing crisis, Trump had Covid (literally), Biden has inflation. Really none of these Presidents directly caused these problems but it did happen on their watch. Do all President highlight the positive and downplay the negative. Sure they do.
The author is correct that Trump created 12,000 jobs when he opened the Keystone pipeline and Biden killed those jobs. Biden's Infrastructure bill will create 1 million jobs over 10 years.
Let's jump to the authors comments about tariffs. I can't figure out if Trump-publicans believe that China paid the tariff like the author wrote or they just want to believe it. It simply is not true. A tariff is a tax on consumers. Here is a simple example: Walmart orders and buys a ball cap from China. Trump has tariffs on ball caps. China makes the ball cap and Walmarts pays China. China ships the ball cap and when Walmarts picks up the ball cap Walmart pays the tariff and passes the extra cost on to you! A Forbes article made three points about Trump's tariffs: It cost t. payers 3.2 billon a month in extra costs; and the policy cost 245,000 jobs; Trump simply did not understand how the economy worked. Trump actually thought, as does the author, that China paid the tariff. Maybe this is why Trump took so many of his companies bankrupt. When Trump left office the deficit with China was higher than when he came into office. Trump's tariffs according to the Tax Foundation amounted to the largest consumer tax increase in history.
During the housing crisis under Obama unemployment hit 10%. By the time his term ended it was 4.7%. At one point during the Trump administration unemployment did get down to 3.5% but the author failed to tell you that when Trump so mismanaged Covid unemployment went to 14.8% and when he left office its was 6.3%. Under Biden it is down again to 3.6%
By the end of Trump's term he had lost 2.8 million jobs, our economic growth rate was down minus 3.4%, 154,000 manufacturing jobs were lost. Our trade deficit's were up 40% and we lost 8,000 coal mining jobs. The author just skipped over the two years of Trumps Covid economy. The author did not tell you that while Trump did hit at one point 3.5 % unemployment Trump also racked up the highest deficits in our history only to be slightly outdone by Obama.
Inflation is Biden's problem. Did he cause it? Not really the tide was going out and its a world wide problem but it is still his problem.
So back to the premise "Anybody But Trump". I watched the January 6th hearings for one reason. I wanted to hear what Trump's own people had to say about his actions during that timeframe. I did not want their testimony filtered by what social media said or some Talking Head on cable news. The testimony was stunning. Witness after Republican witness testified that Trump did try to over throw the election and incited and planned a coup to overthrow our government. Bill Barr testified he told Trump after review that the Justice Department found all his "Stop the Steal" claims baseless. Trump has griffed hundreds of millions of dollars from his followers on his "Stop the Steal".
Trump is not fit to run anything. He is a clear and present danger to our economy and our democracy.
Beware when a wealthy Trump-publican tells you you are better off. The author is correct ANYBODY BUT TRUMP.
Reese Reynolds