Trump’s Strategic Vision of Chaos: Inventing a Nonexistent Crisis So He Can “Solve” It
As I pointed out before the election last September, whoever won was going to have the economic wind at his or her back, which is a lucky thing for any president. I quoted economist Jared Bernstein writing in the Washington Post that “poverty fell sharply, middle-class incomes rose steeply, and more people had health coverage” in 2015, which meant that many of those who had been left behind by the recovery were starting to see the benefits. But there is often an emotional hangover after a deep economic crisis that takes some time to dissipate; even when things have improved people still feel anxious for some time afterwards.
One suspects Trump understood from the beginning that the economy was rebounding. But in order to take advantage of his reputation as a wealthy businessman he needed to pump up those feelings of anxiety so that he could take credit for the upturn once in office. The dystopian hellscape that he describes today will quickly give way to Morning in America for his followers. And he doesn’t have to do anything.
This is lucky for him, since Trump doesn’t have a clue about what a president has to do in a real crisis, and doesn’t have the temperament or skills to do it anyway. As Jonathan Cohn wrote in this piece for Huffington Post on Tuesday, as much as Trump and his minions insist that his has been a historically successful first month, it’s actually been nothing more than endless gaffes, scandals and flashy edicts that are far less substantial than the sweeping and complicated legislation President Obama ushered through Congress in the same period.
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