THE GASLIGHTING OF AMERICA
the total distortion of economic accomplishments
The misinformation spread about Donald Trump’s economic performance drives us bananas. Most politicians — and don’t kid yourself, Donald Trump IS most certainly a politician — stretch the truth to a certain degree, but this guy takes it to an artform.
Obviously, political dishonesty did not start with Donald Trump. In politics, deceit is called “spin,” which makes it seem more harmless than it really is. In reality, spin is not harmless. It’s propaganda. Spin is not excusable just because it’s come to be expected in American politics. It’s just another lie.
The false narrative about Donald Trump’s economic record drives us nuts for two reasons:
1) It’s just flat wrong for people with power and a platform — whether it be the White House briefing room or a cable news channel — to bald-face lie to the American public and not be held accountable for it, and
2) We have to start operating from a place of truth! Please, America. Let’s please at least agree on that.
To hear Donald Trump and Fox News tell it, during the Trump administration the U.S. economy was stronger than ever before. Best! Economy! Ever! In their fairytale, Donald Trump, the genius financial mastermind, inherited a wrecked economy in recession. Even though “Satan” himself, President Barack Obama, had run the economy into the ground, Donald John Trump miraculously turned it around! Bigly!
This is just not true. We're sorry, Republicans, but it’s just not. Although the United States was in the Great Recession when Obama began his presidency, we pulled out of it by June 2009, five months after he took the oath of office.
On the other hand, the U.S. plowed right into a recession in February 2020, three years after Donald Trump took office. This recession — the worst since the Great Depression — ended 128 months of economic expansion, the longest run in U.S. history. The truth is this: The economy that Donald Trump inherited had been on a slow but steady mend for years, and that upward trajectory simply continued during the early years of his administration.
< We're leaving 2020 out of this discussion because, thanks to the pandemic — which is another indictment of Donald Trump but a separate conversation — the entire year is an outlier. This is really nice of us because, as you can imagine, including 2020 would make things look far worse for DJT. >
None of this is our opinion. Everything we say here is backed-up by facts released by the United States government. A government, by the way, that Donald Trump just ran for four years.
We're certain he will claim that what we are saying is Fake News! But if he does, he’ll just be admitting that he is a terrible executive because, if these numbers that came straight from the United States government are inaccurate, that happened on his watch. He loses either way.
The U.S. Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is the total value of all the finished goods and services produced in the United States within a specific timeframe. The U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) — the federal agency that provides official macroeconomic and industry statistics — reports that America’s GDP grew from $14.45 trillion in 2009, the year President Obama took office, to $21.43 trillion in 2019.
GDP is an interesting number to look at, but the GDP growth rate (i.e., the Percent Change from the Preceding Period in Real Gross Domestic Product) is maybe a better indicator of the nation’s overall economic health because it measures how fast the economy is growing.
During the Trump presidency, the annual GDP growth rate was 2.3 percent, 3 percent, and 2.2 percent. < the growth rate in 2020 was -3.5 percent but, again, we're leaving 2020 out >
By this measure, looking year over year, economic growth in Donald Trump’s first three years (an average of 2.5 percent) looked a lot like it did during President Obama’s last three years (an average of 2.4 percent).
To put Donald’s economic performance into better perspective, let’s look at additional presidencies. The annual growth rate during…
John F. Kennedy’s shortened presidency reached 6.1 percent and 4.4 percent.
Lyndon B. Johnson’s presidency reached 5.8 percent, 6.5 percent, 6.6 percent, and 4.9 percent.
Richard Nixon’s presidency reached 3.1 percent, 3.3 percent, 5.3 percent, and 5.6 percent.
Gerald Ford’s short presidency reached 5.4 percent.
Jimmy Carter’s presidency reached 4.6 percent, 5.5 percent, and 3.2 percent.
During the Reagan administration, the annual growth rate broke 3 percent in six of the eight years of his presidency. Four of those years broke 4 percent and one year even reached 7.2 percent.
Two years of President George H.W. Bush’s presidency broke 3 percent.
President Clinton’s administration broke 3 percent in six of his eight years as president. Five of those years actually broke 4 percent.
Two years of President George W. Bush’s presidency broke 3 percent.