Here's a paradox for you. Within an information driven society, the GOP and Trump ran on the premise that all the government information we have been given is simply wrong. The media, of course, is biased, but perhaps more significantly, the government itself is biased. Catherine Rampell of the Washington Post, for example, writes that "Back in October, a Marketplace-Edison Research Poll found that two-thirds of Donald Trump voters didn’t trust government-reported economic data, thanks partly to their candidate’s insistence that the numbers are bogus." The GOP is inheriting a good economy, by most measures, but a good deal of their success in recent elections has been driven by the disposables, those who have been (or fear being) cast aside by the emerging economy. The poll Rampell cites, in retrospect, could have been a good predictor of the election results, with Americans "increasingly worried about losing their jobs, the ability to pay their mortgage or rent and saving for retirement. Thirty percent of Americans are very fearful that they will lose their job in the next six months, up from 10 percent a year ago."
It might seem counter-intuitive that, as the economy improved, the fear mounted, but the differences are largely partisan, with "almost half of Donald Trump supporters (48 percent) completely distrusting the economic data reported by the federal government, compared to only 5 percent of Hillary Clinton supporters." Altogether, this means that fully "one quarter of Americans completely distrust the economic data reported by the federal government, including statistics like the unemployment rate, the number of jobs added and the amount of consumer spending." As the economy improved, the fear mounted in part because of the near apocalyptic terms the GOP used to describe the economy coupled with assertions that the numbers were being falsely reported. For the Carrier workers of America, about to lose their job to a Mexican plant, it would be easy enough to believe that the government numbers painted an overly rosy picture of the economy. Although it seemed clear enough that Trump often didn't have a significant command of the facts, to many voters, he seemed nevertheless more genuine, because he spoke his mind. The voters asked the candidates to "tell us what you really think," and Trump's misogyny, his racism, his xenophobia -- generally speaking, his willingness to speak aloud for his inner bigot -- were seen, not as disqualifiers, but as tokens of his authenticity, unlike Clinton who hid behind, what Twain, quoting Disraeli, called "lies, damn lies, and statistics."
There was something "movement like" in the support for the impending anti-government government. The long enduring GOP war of attrition waged against the US government is about to come to fruition. Although still a minority by some 3 million votes, the revolutionaries have seized power, and given Trump's cabinet appointments, there is little doubt in my mind that they will begin to enact their agenda. They will do what they have said they will do, and dismantle not only the Obama legacy (e.g. ACA), but will reach further back and dismantle the Great Society era programs (e.g. Medicare and especially Medicaid along with the tattered remnants of welfare) along with the New Deal era programs (e.g. social security and unemployment benefits). They will do what they have said they will do, and begin to dismantle government regulatory agencies, almost all of which are designed to protect against the excesses of capitalism. It has forever been a core belief of the GOP that the business of America is business, and those who control the Fortune 500 should also control the government and rule the country in the way they rule their companies. For the Carrier workers of America, about to lose their job to a Mexican plant, I doubt they will be pleased when the impending government reaches even further back and begins to dismantle the Wilson era Department of Labor. Initially, at least, for the "more than two-thirds of Americans — 68 percent — are either dissatisfied or angry with elected officials in Washington, D.C.," all of this may seem like great good fun, until the impact is felt, and then of course, it will be too late. The damage will have been done. The American people will suffer, and frankly, those of us who are old enough, will deserve our suffering.
Nevertheless, in the meantime, the anti-government revolutionaries have seized power and they are now the government. Although the economy has been steadily improving for some time, and as Rampell notes, "Consumers likewise seem euphoric, with multiple measures of consumer confidence recently reaching business-cycle highs," an economic indicator that I have long considered key, in part because it drives demand, which in turn drives employment, which in turn drives wages. The consumer confidence reflects "a sharp spike in optimism among Republicans in the weeks since the election," which will allow Trump, with his outsized ego to claim that the mere thought of a Trump government improved the economy, but as many of us have been pointing out, even before his election "confidence had been trending upward." As consumers consume more, business will invest to meet the demand, and consequently "the most recent jobs report shows the unemployment rate down to 4.6 percent," which is tantamount to full employment, which means employers must compete for employees, and consequently, "adjusted for inflation, median weekly earnings for wage and salary workers were at an all-time high in the third quarter." As an added bonus, "Gas prices remain low, as does overall inflation. Meanwhile, stocks have reached all-time highs, with the Dow Jones industrial average on the cusp of 20,000. Gross domestic product growth for the third quarter was revised upward last week, to 3.5 percent."
So, yes, the anti-government revolutionaries have been handed a government that seems, by most lies, damn lies, and statistics, to be functioning as it should. Rampell notes "Curiously, though, Trump’s priorities seem predicated on the premise that the U.S. economy is still circling the drain." I don't find it all that curious, in part because Trump has been successful in denying the facts when they don't suit him, in part because the GOP believes (to some degree sincerely) that the current economy is a house of cards built on shifting sands. The current good fortune is illusory, not so much because we are victims of government spin, but rather because we are victims of largess that cannot be sustained. They believe, not without some justification, that our government behaves like profligate, debt-ridden consumer who gets a new credit card in the mail. For a while it is "free" money, giddy-up, but the day of reckoning will come and we will have gone from bad to worse. There is a rift, however, between the core GOP belief that government profligacy cannot be sustained and what Trump has promised to do. He has promised, for example, "a major stimulus package early in his administration, including massive personal and corporate income-tax cuts and a public-private $1 trillion infrastructure plan." The tax cuts are familiar "supply side" economics, or supply side economics without the monetary restraint. The tax cuts themselves, one might argue, do concentrate the supply of capital that could potentially be invested, but the tax cuts themselves do little to improve consumer demand. An extra one hundred to two hundred dollars, even an extra one or two thousand dollars, in my pocket after April 15th will get spent, but it won't fundamentally change my life. If I am fearful of losing my job, the extra money won't change my fundamental anxiety, or the causes of that anxiety. It may pay off a couple of bills, or buy that big screen TV, but it won't pay off the credit cards, much less the mortgage. The investment in infrastructure is needed and will temporarily help the "disposables" that put Trump over the top in the rust belt. It may even garner some GOP support if it is structured in the way military contracts are structured, in the sorts of "public-private" partnerships that will serve the financial interest of the larger construction companies. The combination will, as Rampell put it, "further goose the economy, at least in the near term," and so "you can bet, then, that early in his presidency, Trump will be touting all sorts of government-sourced economic data as evidence of his tremendous success." Our government will have less revenue, but spend more, not unlike the American consumer, and the deficit will grow by leaps and bounds. Isn't that anathema to a GOP congress that has refused, on principle, to raise the debt ceiling?
It will be, even more so, a house of cards built on shifting sands. And Trump is the hot air blowing over the desert. As Rampell puts it, "Fed Chair Janet Yellen recently acknowledged that the delicate art of forecasting is especially challenging, given the 'cloud of uncertainty' surrounding Trump’s fiscal policies." It is not at all certain what Trump will actually do, and he may both cut taxes then print and pump money to "goose" the economy, but the historical record tends to suggest that it may contribute to this short term popularity, but "with so many economic metrics already so strong, there’s likely only one direction the economy can head in the medium term: down." Then too, there are other factors -- e.g. a trade war with China. As Americans, we have grown accustomed to exploiting China for cheap goods, predicated on two factors, low wages and lax environmental standards. If we "cut off" china, those cheap goods that line the shelves of Walmart and Target are likely to either disappear or become much more expensive. Unless we are willing to accept "chinese" conditions of low wage employment and virtually uninhabitable cities, which the GOP seems to actively endorse with its opposition to raises in (or the abolition of) the minimum wage as well as the environmental regulation of the EPA. We could, in relatively short order, become China! Imagine, as Marc Lallanilla of Live Science reports, "thousands of dead, bloated pigs floating down the river that supplies Shanghai with its drinking water. Air pollution in Beijing so impenetrable the U.S. Embassy's air quality measuring station can only call it 'beyond index.' Industrial towns where rates of cancer are so high they're known as 'cancer villages.'" What's a bit of lead in the drinking water of Flint, when we can have that? And, like China, we wouldn't want to regulate away the boon, so too we should adopt "the Chinese government's stony silence about anything that might imperil the country's economic development — including environmental regulation." Come now. But even our exploitation of China may be coming to an end, as "China's increasingly restive population of 1.3 billion people [are] now starting to demand government action to combat the deadly plagues of pollution and disease that are stalking the 21st century's economic powerhouse." It was good while it lasted.
So what will happen when the bon temps roll away? Rampell suggests there are three likely possibilities, and I tend to agree. First and foremost,"the administration will start searching for scapegoats other than Trump’s own party and its choices. Immigrants, minorities, Fed officials: Watch out." There is absolutely no reason -- for emphasis, absolutely NO reason -- to believe that the Trump administration and the GOP will not do precisely that. The alt right are, in effect, with their blatant attacks on immigrants and immigration are already preemptively targeting Mexican (meaning spanish speaking) immigrants. If history is any indication, the mainstream right might feel a bit qualmish about it, but it's likely that they will go along to get along. The second, "assuming Trump will have already signed a major fiscal stimulus package during an expansion [of the economy], there won’t be much powder left in the keg when Keynesian stimulus is actually needed," which means the "fiscal tools available to mitigate the recession will be unusually limited," which in turn means, of course, that the next recession may well fizzle into a depression. If that happens, her third point may well be moot, because the damage will be obvious. If we just have a run of the mill recession, not a full on depression, then "the numbers will become suspect once again, and Trump may even try to mess with the official government numbers to suit his narrative. This — and not a recession, blame-gaming or impotent policy response — would cause the most enduring damage to our democracy." And why? Because democracies thrive in within a delicate balance of trust and skepticism, for the most part trust in our government to tell us the "truth," and to a lesser degree trust in our media to call out the government when it attempts to spin the "truth," as it will inevitably do. If we have neither trust in government, nor trust in the media to keep the government "honest," then democracy will almost surely fail. We will hear one voice and one voice only, the voice of the demagogue, universally without trust and oppressive of those he distrusts. It was good while it lasted.
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