I & I Editorial BoardI&I Editorial
How do Democrats sell their policies when the economy is doing well and unemployment is at 50-year lows? By avoiding the subject. At least, that’s what Democrats did during the two nights of debating.
The very first question asked in the first debate, by Savannah Guthrie, was about whether the Democrats’ far-left agenda would risk the economic growth we’ve been enjoying.
“Seventy-one percent of Americans say the economy is doing well, including 60% of Democrats,” she said. “What do you say to those who worry this kind of significant change could be risky to the economy?”
Sen. Elizabeth Warren, the first to answer, pretended not hear the question. Instead, she went on a rant about how the economy is “doing great for a thinner and thinner slice at the top.” But if that were true, why are six in ten of her fellow Democrats happy with the way things are going? No one bothered to ask her that.
A word cloud of the debates shows that “economy” barely got mentioned over the two nights. Democrats talked almost as much about guns as they did jobs.
And when Democrats did talk about the economy, it was in grim, Dickensian terms.
Cory Booker said, “I see every single day that this economy is not working for average Americans” and claimed that “dignity is being stripped from labor, and we have people that work full-time jobs and still can’t make a living wage.”
For Kamala Harris, “this economy is not working for working people.” She dismissed the low unemployment number as meaningless because: “Well, yeah, people in America are working. They’re working two and three jobs.”
Amy Klobuchar complained that “Donald Trump just sits in the White House and gloats about what’s going on, when you have so many people that are having trouble affording college and having trouble affording their premiums.”
There was no talk of extending or expanding the current boom. No celebration of the gains in employment among blacks and Hispanics, the decline in poverty, the rising wages, the fact that incomes at the low end are climbing.
Democrats instead debated about how much free stuff they would give people, including health care to illegal immigrants.
The economic discussion, when it occurred, focused mostly on redistribution and class envy.
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio spoke for pretty much every one of the 20 Democrats on stage those two nights when he said: “There’s plenty of money in this country. It’s just in the wrong hands.”
The only Democrat who did mention growth at all was the one who’d actually run a business, who at one point said that “we need to have a long-term strategy to make sure this country is competitive, and we are creating jobs everywhere in this country.”
Of course, not everyone is sharing in the current boom. But there’s no denying that its benefits are widespread, certainly more widespread than anything that occurred during Barack “Middle-Class Economics” Obama’s two terms in office.
Not long ago, USA Today toted up all the ways the middle class is prospering under Trump. On the list:
- “Median U.S. household income … rose 1.8% to an all-time high of $61,372 in 2017.”
- “Employers added an average 223,000 jobs a month last year, up from 179,000 in 2017. And unemployment sank to a near 50-year low.”
- “Average U.S. wages climbed 3.3% in 2018, after being stuck at 2.5% to 2.7% (growth) for several years.”
- “Industries that employ middle-class workers in particular are benefiting. Manufacturers have added about 450,000 jobs since Trump took office, the largest two-year total in decades.”
- “The number of factory jobs ‘reshored,’ or shifted to the U.S. from overseas … hit a record 170,000 in 2017.” (Emphases added.)
Ignoring the solid gains that families are making right now won’t make them go away. And constantly portraying the economy in the grimmest light only makes Democrats look out of touch.
— Written by John Merline
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Using these vague “policy violations,” Google is now threatening to demonetize us. It’s part of Big Tech’s effort to silence conservative voices.
If you cant run in the economy, run on social issues. If you can run on either, run on patriotism.
And if you can’t run on patriotism, run on emotion, and if you can’t run on emotion, run on {synonym for ‘chiropteran feces’} crazy.
We may be about to see what those who couldn’t run on that last will try to run on. Fire up the corn popper.
So many people who cannot afford Lamborghinis. They may have to purchase Cadillacs instead. Inhuman cruelty!
The economics of the left are all based on expropriating wealth created by the brains, efforts, leadership and skills of wealth creators and giving it to themselves, their crony capitalist donors, and using it to buy the votes of dependent constituencies mainly on their welfare plantation. They are uninterested in wealth creation and are interested only in wealth expropriation. They are clueless about wealth creation and consequently pursue policies that lower all the boats. Theirs is a looter mentality. For whatever reason, in this electoral process to the greatest extent since the 1930s they feel free to ignore the actual facts and just emote, make meaningless impossible promises, and actually reveal how Marxist, how economically ignorant they are. I suppose in a sense this transparency is a good thing since voters will know what they are getting. Ideally, the most sincere looter of the bunch, Sanders, will eventually be their nominee so that America has as clear a choice as we can between peace and prosperity with the Capitalist Trump and the slow descent into Venezuela/Argentina status under the left.
Very well stated. I think they reason they feel free to ignore facts and emote is they, the Dems, press, culture, all of it almost, are united. The average citizen gets their “news” from the culture. You and I dig into the details. Average Joe or Joanna don’t. So the Dems ignore facts, and are rarely called on it by their allies. The Left counts on ignorance and apathy and emotion. My mom in law is visiting at the moment, and it’s painful for me to see how she sees politics. Nothing really but surface for her. Trump is crude, and that simply grosses her out. David Muir is cute and has a cool haircut, and she trusts him for her news. Ted Cruz looks shifty, so she votes for Beto. Does my mom in law even know what the economic situation is? Not really, and only to the extent that David Muir informs her. If he doesn’t talk about it, it doesn’t matter. It’s depressing to think about the millions of folks like my mom in law, but the Dems and the media count on them. I give credit to the internet that conservatism has risen as much as it has. There was that period of 40 years or so where the Dems had Congress, before the Repubs got it back. That coincided with the rise of talk radio, and then came the internet. It’s driving the Left crazy with their loss of power. It driving the MSM crazy with the loss of their power. And the more the Right has risen, the crazier the Entertainment Culture has become. As their influence wanes, the craziness of the Left increases.
Socialism, so greedy dimwits can have nice stuff, too. (I think I’m going to put that on a T-shirt.)
Yes, indeed. 60% of Marxist-democrats say the economy is doing well and Warren (and pretty much all the rest) delves into the ‘It can’t be doing well because Trump is president.’ diatribe. Sadly, half of the country’s citizens (and quite a few non-citizens, most likely) will vote for whichever Marxist clown the DNC and its fixers provide. Just imagine what would happen if the lame street media actually reported fact-based news and not Trump-bashing opinion tripe.
Wow. Under Trump people can find two to three jobs? Under Obama no one could find one.
The expression ‘The Elephant in the Room’ seems especially apropos.
To listen to the democrat deviates rave is truly surrealistic. They stand there and shriek how bad things economically are in the U.S. when truly, by the numbers, things are absolutely wonderful, getting better and portending to do well going into the future. They look you square in the face and tell you to vote for them so that they can take away the prosperity that you have and have been longing for for 8 long years as Barky haughtily told you to suck it up because HE provided you with the new norm and that you should be grateful that he has magnanimously and so skillfully done. Unbelievably, the old goat he hired to carry his bag and shine his shoes is now running to replace Barky on a platform to bring back his lousy food stamp blizzard along with all of his other abject failings.
Clinton ran on a platform stating that things were not terrible but under him things would be much better. Today’s dorks are running on one which absolutely guarantees America’s ruination. Whatever their true goal is is a mystery but they simply cannot be seriously intending to do anything remotely like they are preaching if they manage to win.
I watched every moment of both debates, and it looked like the candidates were actually trying to help President Trump get re-elected. They all pandered to illegals, promising free healthcare and making crossing the border illegally as serious as getting a parking ticket. Then they spent the next few days giving interviews and calling their support for illegals over American citizens a “right-wing talking point.” As a voter, am I not supposed to believe my own eyes or ears? I’ve been a Democrat all my life, but this is a bridge too far for me. Now I understand what Reagan meant when he said the Democratic Party left him. I feel exactly the same way.
I guess a lot of untruth is been said about what is really happening in America just because Donald Trump is President
Fact: Labor Force Participation was higher under Carter than it is under Trump.