Democrats have been predicting doom and gloom ever since Trump returned to office, yet the economic calamity they assured us would come has yet to materialize. But rather than give Trump credit, the narrative being pushed now is that his wins are just dumb luck.
That’s certainly the message of a Politico piece headlined “Trump Keeps Gambling With the Economy — And Getting Away With It.”
“President Donald Trump has spent his second term turning risky economic gambles into a way of life,” the article kicks off. “He has implemented sweeping global tariffs that have dramatically increased the cost of doing business across the world. He has sharply decreased the number of people immigrating to the U.S. He has pushed for the Federal Reserve to lower interest rates under any circumstance, even though inflation has not entirely cooled. And now, he’s launched an attack on Iran, a scenario that has long been the clearest and most direct threat to one of Trump’s favored political barometers: gas prices.”
The implicit verdict is clear: these were all reckless moves, and Trump has no business still standing. Except the economy is still standing. Quite well, actually.
So-called experts warned repeatedly that Trump’s tariff regime would send prices spiraling. That didn’t happen. Inflation went down. Democrats entered 2025 predicting that aggressive immigration enforcement would “deliver a catastrophic blow to the U.S. Economy.” That blow never landed. What about the prediction that Trump’s mass deportations would devastate the economy? Not only did that not happen (albeit there was TACO’ing over the scale of deportations), it reversed the trend of rising housing costs, making them more affordable. At some point, a pattern of failed predictions stops being an argument about Trump’s recklessness and starts being an argument about the quality of the predictions.
The article quickly pivots to gas prices, which are up following the attack on Iran – though Energy Secretary Chris Wright called this a ‘fear premium‘ that will fall in ‘weeks, not months’ [though we generally place little stock in bureaucrat promises].
“And now, he’s launched an attack on Iran, a scenario that has long been the clearest and most direct threat to one of Trump’s favored political barometers: gas prices,” the article warns. “The conflict has led to a jump in oil prices, though not quite to worst-case levels, and markets have been jittery about the prospect of more expensive energy and higher U.S. federal debt, stemming from the cost of the U.S.-Israel war with Iran.”
Politico is unwilling to credit the Trump administration for successfully managing the economy after the Biden administration went full leeroy jenkins on inflationary stimmies and red tape; instead, we’re supposed to be convinced that Trump is just lucky that disaster hasn’t struck, or as Politico put it, “getting away with it.”
In fact, Politico suggests that the economy is doing well in spite of Trump…
“In so many ways, that is the story of Trump’s economic stewardship up to this point. His disruptive policies have left some dents, including serious damage to his approval rating, but by the biggest readings of its health, the U.S. economy – measured by overall growth, the job market, the stock market, even inflation – largely keeps absorbing what he throws at it.“
…
But mostly, the U.S. economy is just a consumer-driven powerhouse that seems hard to crush.
The closest they came to crediting Trump for anything was this painful concession:
The president himself is part of the reason for the resilience: GOP tax cuts are expected to provide a huge power-up to economic expansion this year by boosting refunds for individuals and offering immediate deductions for businesses making certain investments. And the administration’s deregulatory efforts have repeatedly driven stocks to new highs, which has helped increase the wealth of households invested in the market.
…
Trump’s own effect, too, is hard to disentangle. He has demonstrated a willingness to be responsive to the desires of corporate America and to the anxieties of financial markets, but he’s also flouted both of those things far more than he did in his first term.
But all of that is just a gamble that paid off, as opposed to signs that Trump’s policies are working. The cognitive dissonance here is astounding, yet unsurprising.
