Programming Notes: For tomorrow's Thursday Night Bulwark I'll have A.B. and Mona on to talk about the upcoming Iowa Caucuses. Join us at 8pm in the East.
1. The Coming Economic Crash?
Perhaps you saw Donald Trump on a Christian-nationalist TV show1 talking about his hopes for the timing of an economic crash: “When there’s a crash, I hope it’s going to be during this next 12 months because I don’t want to be Herbert Hoover,” the defeated former president said.
Don’t focus on Trump’s wishcasting. Focus on his baseline assumption.
If Trump believes that the economy will crash, then he is beginning from the premise that the economy is good.
If we were living in American Carnage, if everything were terrible, if Real Americans were being punished and destroyed by Joe Biden’s economy, then it could not “crash.” We’d be at lowest-low.
Likewise, if the economy was only so-so, then there wouldn’t be room for a “crash.” Maybe a slowdown. Maybe a correction. But not a “crash.”
An economy can only “crash” from a place of high performance. And Donald Trump is saying that a crash is coming.
Which is the same thing as Donald Trump admitting that Joe Biden’s economy is quite good.
Raise your hand if you think Trump voters experience any cognitive dissonance on this point.
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