It shouldn\u2019t shock anyone if Donald Trump wins a second term in 2020.<\/p>\n
\u201cNow Hiring\u201d signs in local shop windows are potentially more persuasive than abstract phrases like \u201cConstitutional Crisis.\u201d Jobs and wages affect everyone everywhere, and Washington court battles and executive-congressional clashes can be easily dismissed as distant thunder.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m not endorsing that scenario. Far from it. But in the wake of the newest Labor Department stats \u2013 a 3.6 percent jobless rate (the lowest in nearly 50 years) and a 3.2 percent boost in the GDP during the first quarter of 2019 \u2014 we need to acknowledge the reality that presidents typically get re-hired when voters believe the economy is on the upswing.<\/p>\n
Granted, this particular president \u2014 and I use that honorific advisedly \u2014 is a serial liar whose Russian-style authoritarian instincts are damaging our democratic institutions in all the ways that many of us foresaw in 2016. But his defenders may be right when they insist that a strong economy will ultimately trump everything else. Mick Mulvaney, the acting chief of staff, says: \u201cPeople will vote for somebody they don\u2019t like if they think it is good for them.\u201d Former GOP congressman and Trump fan Jason Chaffetz tells Fox News that \u201cwhen people feel good at home, they\u2019re going to stick with the person who has the White House.\u201d<\/p>\n
Maybe that\u2019s just wishful thinking on their part, considering that despite the bullish economy, Trump is saddled with a 42 percent approval rating. But prominent Democrats are nevertheless worried that their party doesn\u2019t have an overarching economic message. They know how important that is. Their mantra in 1992, the last time they defeated a Republican presidential incumbent, was \u201cIt\u2019s the Economy, Stupid.\u201d Bill Clinton toppled George H.W. Bush in part because, midway through the election season, the jobless rate spiked to 7.8 percent.<\/p>\n
At least Democrats aren\u2019t claiming that the jobless stats are fake, something candidate Trump routinely used to do. Whenever President Obama\u2019s Labor Department reported job gains for the economy that was slowly recovering from the Great Recession, Trump would lie that the government had \u201ccooked the books\u201d (October 2015), or released \u201cphony jobs numbers\u201d (January 2016), or perpetrated \u201cone of the biggest hoaxes in modern politics\u201d (August 2016). But now that he\u2019s the guy in the White House, he suddenly believes that the bullish numbers are accurate.<\/p>\n
What Democrats are trying to do is talk around the stats. The basic Democratic argument \u2013 from Joe Biden, Elizabeth Warren, Amy Klobuchar, Elizabeth Warren, and others \u2014 is that, yes, the top-line economic stats look good, but that most Americans still feel pinched in their everyday lives. Klobuchar tells ABC News: \u201cA lot of people aren\u2019t sharing this prosperity, because of the costs \u2014 the cost of college, the costs of health care, the fact that the president had promised to bring down the prices of their prescription drugs.\u201d<\/p>\n
All those things are true; for instance, the number of Americans without health coverage has increased by seven million since Trump took office. The problem is that the Democrats are stuck with a \u201cYes, but\u201d argument, and that\u2019s not ideal. A new Washington Post-ABC poll asked: \u201cDoes Trump\u2019s handling of the economy make you more likely or less likely to support him in 2020?\u201d Forty-two percent said \u201cmore likely.\u201d Only 32 percent said less. (Could some of Trump\u2019s voters dump him if they fear that his tariff war with China will undercut the economy by hiking consumer prices? Don\u2019t bet on it. If Trump personally tiki-torched their houses, they\u2019d praise the smell of smoke.)<\/p>\n
For Democrats, the most optimistic scenario is that the \u201cYes, but\u201d argument will suffice, that a good economy will not save a lawless president saddled with unprecedented baggage. In the words of Democratic commentator and ex-policy strategist Ed Kilgore, \u201cTrump\u2019s going to have to campaign on his full record, his full agenda, and the full set of impressions he has made during his first term\u2026 And even if things look good [economically], the future will look dim to those who fear what Trump will do in a second term.\u201d<\/p>\n
I\u2019ll put it this way: Are bullish jobless stats more important than the relentless assault on America\u2019s soul?<\/p>\n
Dick Polman is the national political columnist at WHYY in Philadelphia and a \u201cWriter in Residence\u201d at the University of Pennsylvania. Email him at dickpolman7@gmail.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n