Donald Trump keeps talking about a recession.
As noted here on Thursday evening, the word “recession” is suddenly on everyone’s lips, and that’s in no small part due to the president’s tweets and comments to the media.
He is not doing his reelection chances any favors by talking and tweeting about an economic downturn and preemptively assigning blame for a calamity that hasn’t happened yet, but he’s inclined to do it anyway, which just stokes more consternation among the electorate.
Read more: Larry Kudlow Teases ‘Tax Cuts 2.0’, Coming Somewhat Soon To A Campaign Trail Near You
“The Economy is strong and good, whereas the rest of the world is not doing so well”, Trump reminded America on Friday morning, both statements which, by virtue of being almost self-evident given the lingering effects of the tax cuts at home and the drag from the trade war abroad, need not be repeated.
Then, he reiterated his contention that the media and Democrats are engaged in a conspiracy to undermine the economy.
“Despite this the Fake News Media, together with their Partner, the Democrat Party, are working overtime to convince people that we are in, or will soon be going into, a Recession”, Trump sighed, before again contending that everyone is willing to risk life and financial limb if it means dethroning America’s first king.
“They are willing to lose their wealth, or a big part of it, just for the possibility of winning the Election”, the president claimed.
Thankfully, he’s on the job. “But it won’t work because I always find a way to win, especially for the people!”, Trump shouted.
He then called the MAGA wave “The greatest political movement in the history of our Country”.
Trump has now ensured that the word “recession” will feature in the headlines of dozens of media stories on Friday and he’ll angrily cite those stories as proof of a conspiracy in a self-feeding insanity loop.
The irony is, the president clearly understands that the media feeds on his tweets. He habitually claims The New York Times “and many others” will be “out of business” once he’s out of office. Yet somehow, he cannot connect the dots between that and the following chart which shows the number of stories featuring the word “recession” spiking to the highest since the eurozone debt crisis.
(Bloomberg)
I believe the reality may be a bit more perverse than the logic presented here. I believe this is the first administration ever that is willing to gamble with US (and global) recession and subordinate that recession to their political goals in their overall calculus. They are certainly pre-assigning recession blame. They are doing this not to Teflon-coat president in case of recession; they are doing this because they believe a global recession is necessary to tip China into “defeat” in a Trump context, and they intend to cause that recession through trade effects. The political calculation needed (in Trump’s so-called mind) is simply that reelection will be more closely tied to Trump “winning” than to voter pocket books and it will depend on his skill in waging a disinformation campaign. E.g., if he loses 5 million votes because 5 million voters lose their jobs, and gains 8 million votes because he is the Chosen One who beat China, it’s a win, right? I believe Trump is supremely confident in his ability to wage the necessary communications war and he knows the Fed will be forced to support his agenda only in the case that he delivers them an actual recession to which they must respond.
China is, in fact, facing elevated risk of losing the degree of economic control they are accustomed to (responding to an unanticipated trade war, debt levels constraining policy choices, etc) so it’s easy to imagine Navarro et.al. waving economic pseudo-facts in his face about how China is “on the edge”, “we’re winning”, “give ’em one more nudge”, etc.
The Fed gets yet another new twist in economic analysis: in calculating the probability of recession, I’ll bet they’ve never factored in a probability of political causation.
Ask yourself: which of the following statements seems more significant to Donald Trump:
“I beat China”
“the US entered its 19th recession in the last 100 years”
Hopefully, I’m just another raving conspiracy theorist on the internet… 😉
TL:DR Lose-Lose