Biden Derangement Syndrome

Many errands this week, so a short post today Click on a White House “fact sheet” about the economy and you will see the pop-up above. Yes, Trump’s lackeys are still peddling claims that things are great, that we have the hottest economy in the world, like nobody has ever seen before. But even they know better. A clear indicator that Trump sycophants realize that they are caught in reality’s snare is how they respond to any question about current economic difficulties. Their first sentence almost always contains the word “Biden”, as they make the false claim that things were worse under Joe Biden, or that Biden somehow caused all of our current problems (including high gas prices and depleted munitions), or that Biden left an economy in shambles. Call it a bad case of Biden derangement syndrome, a desperate and utterly transparent attempt to shift the blame for the gratuitous mess that Trump and his minions have made. Yes, America — along with most of the world — did experience surging inflation in 2021-2022, during the Biden administration. But inflation then proceeded to fall significantly, a case of “immaculate disinflation” – a drop in inflation without a recession. By the end of Biden’s term, the U.S. economy was not only in good shape, but it was doing better than every other advanced country. Here was the cover of The Economist on Oct. 19, 2024: Yet, since Trump re-assumed the presidency, most measures of economic performance have deteriorated significantly.Economic growth has slowed despite the AI boom: Inflation has accelerated: Interest rates have surged: Furthermore, inequality has surged in the current K-shaped economy. Wages haven’t kept up with inflation, but corporate profits have soared: Granted, things could be worse. We aren’t currently in a recession. Inflation is above the Fed’s target, but not nearly as high as it was in 2022, let alone 1980. Unemployment remains relatively low. But that’s cold comfort given that today’s economic difficulties were all self-inflicted by Trump. Moreover, today’s economy is a far cry from the paradise that Trump promised in order to beat Kamala Harris. Remember how he was going to cut energy prices in half and bring down grocery prices on day one? The dissonance between his constant boasting and the reality of an economy in which households saying that they are worse off than a year ago outnumber those saying they’re better off almost two to one is surely a major factor in Trump’s surreally poor approval rating on the economy. Just like Trump’s farcical plan to lower beef prices to consumers by importing (possibly unsafe) foreign mystery meat, or Bessent’s attempt to gaslight the bond markets (as one wag accurately put it, Bessent’s plan is like using your credit card to pay down your mortgage), blaming Biden for the Trump economy smells of desperation. My advice: they should save themselves the bother. That ship has sailed and it’s heading straight for the November elections. MUSICAL CODA Could we please have more of whatever Joe Biden did? "Like using your credit card to pay down your mortgage" really is about where the Trump administration's reasoning is functioning. Or as a friend of mine put it, if Trump were driving and got a flat tire, he'd jack up the car and rotate the tires to see if that fixed the problem.