It can’t be denied that Kamala Harris is a midwit, a jabbering cackler and an unaccomplished office holder, all of which should be pointed out aggressively between now and Nov. 5. But the Trump campaign has to make even more noise about the economy. James Carville was right when he famously said “it’s the economy, stupid,” and there’s much about this one that isn’t healthy. 

Carville, a Bill Clinton strategist, insisted that the 1992 campaign to unseat President George H.W. Bush was about the country’s economy. As Nov. 3 approached, “Americans were in a sour mood about the direction of the economy and their family finances,” remembers economist Steve Moore, and “Clinton rode that voter anger and angst to his historic victory.”

Of course he needed help and got it from the press, which, after relentlessly reporting bad economic news during the year, refused to tell the public that the short recession that began in July 1990 was over by March 1991, and that neither inflation nor unemployment were high.

It was their in-kind contribution to Clinton, whom they saw as the heir to the American Camelot that had been put on hold after John F. Kennedy was assassinated.

History seems to repeating itself in the summer of 2024, with the media committed to doing their part for Harris (we’re will into our third week of Kamalot) while stopping Donald Trump. So this time they are going to hide the bad economic news to protect their candidate.

This is where Trump’s camp and the Republican Party can help themselves, as well as this country. They need to incessantly and tirelessly:

• Talk about the market sell-off. Call it the Kamala Krash.
• Mention the threat of recession over the next 12 months, the chances of which have grown from 15% to 25%, according to Goldman Sachs.
• Point out the rising unemployment rate, which was extended by last week’s lousy jobs report; note the Rasmussen unemployment survey, which questioned more than 8,900 American adults throughout July, says the jobless rate is actually 8.4% – almost twice as high as the federal figure of 4.3%; and raise awareness of the disappearance through revised estimates of hundreds of thousands of jobs the administration said it created. 
• Remind voters of that “transitory” Bidenflation, which has left families struggling to buy groceries, fuel their cars and pay all their other bills.
• Pound away on Joe Biden’s claim last week that he “cured the economy,” and on Harris telling a White House gathering last year “we are very proud of Bidenomics.”
• Bring up the highest credit card delinquency rates in a dozen years and mortgage rates, which have soared since Biden took office and reached the highest peaks in a generation.
• Warn the country about Harris’ Marxist roots, which will influence what would be a disastrous economic policy.
• Remind everyone about the CBS News poll which finds that 44% of voters say expect to be financially worse off if Harris wins, compared with 45% who say they will be better off if Trump wins.

We fully expect the media to cover for Harris, just as it does with every Democratic candidate. They know that if they ignore the economy as much as possible and downplay its low points when it isn’t possible, they can carry Harris all the way to the White House. That can be avoided, though, if Trump and the GOP repeatedly show how this administration has wrecked what under Trump had been a thriving economy.

— Written by the I&I Editorial Board