The Progressive Populist Today Blog: Editorial: Are You Better Off Than Trump?

Friday, March 29, 2024

Editorial: Are You Better Off Than Trump?

Donald Trump’s promoters are now asking “Are you better off today than you were four years ago,” when Trump was in office. Seriously?

By almost any objective standard, the US is in much better shape today than it was when Joe Biden took office in January 2021.

Trump inherited a healthy economy from Barack Obama, who led the recovery from the recession George W. Bush left him in 2009. Trump took a 4.5% unemployment rate and rode it for three years until the COVID-19 pandemic hit the US in early 2020. Nonfarm employment fell by 1.4 million jobs in March 2020 and a staggering 20.5 million jobs in April, a loss of 22 million jobs that largely erased the gains from a decade of job growth, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities noted in March. Unemployment was 6.3% in January 2021, the gross domestic product had dropped 3.5% during 2020, grocery shelves were empty as supply chain problems made everything from toilet paper to computer chips hard to find.

The British medical journal The Lancet in February 2021 blamed Trump for an error-filled response to the coronavirus pandemic that analysts said contributed to 40% more deaths compared to other wealthy countries.

Trump undermined science at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, he pulled the US out of the World Health Organization, and cast doubt on the public use of masks, among other things..

“Instead of galvanising the US populace to fight the pandemic, President Trump publicly dismissed its threat (despite privately acknowledging it), discouraged action as infection spread, and eschewed international cooperation.”

“His refusal to develop a national strategy worsened shortages of personal protective equipment and diagnostic tests,” it added. “President Trump politicised mask-wearing and school reopenings and convened indoor events attended by thousands, where masks were discouraged and physical distancing was impossible.”

During his first year, Biden got COVID vaccinations distributed throughout the country, which slowed the spread of the virus and helped people get back to work and school. He also helped clear up the supply chain problems and got Americans back to work.

All those jobs lost during Trump’s last year have been recovered under Biden, plus 423,00 manufacturing jobs that have been created since passage of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act in 2021.

Inflation spiked from a 1.4% annualized rate when Biden took office to more than 6%, but it has settled back to 3.2%, much of which is caused by corporate profiteering, which Republicans have shown little interest in checking. And real wages (adjusted for inflation) are up, with particular gains at the low end of the income scale.

Despite Republican claims that crime has run out of control under Biden, a recent FBI report noted that crime actually declined significantly in 2023, continuing a post-pandemic trend.

The fourth-quarter 2023 numbers showed a 13% decline in murder in 2023 from 2022, a 6% decline in reported violent crime and a 4% decline in reported property crime, based on data from around 13,000 law enforcement agencies, policing about 82% of the US population.

NBC News noted that the drop in crime does not appear to be understood by most Americans. A Gallup poll in December found that 77% of Americans believe crime rates are worsening.

And this all happened after Trump failed in his attempt to reject the election results and resisted the transferof power. Trump and his allies tried to persuade Republican state officials in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, New Mexico, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin to reject Biden’s victories in those states, he was recorded on a phone call trying to bully Georgia state officials into finding 11,780 more ballots to put him ahead of Biden in that key state, and Trump incited an insurrection at the Capital in an apparent attempt to interrupt the certification of the election on Jan. 6. More than 2,000 “tourists,” pushed past police lines to enter the Capitol, in what the Republican National Commisttee later called “legitimate political discourse.” Much vandalism and looting followed, 174 police officers were injured and damages exceeded $2.7 million. In the past three years, 1,200 of the “tourists” have been charged with federal crimes relating to the attack. As of December 2023, 745 defendants have been found guilty and sentenced. Trump has said they are hostages, whom he would pardon if he makes it back into the White House, after a year in which he has been found liable in New York State courts for sexual assault and civil fraud.

A New York appeals court on March 25 reduced the amount of bail Trump must post to proceed with his appeal of the $454 million civil fraud judgment imposed on Trump and his business associates, including his sons, for lying about the Trump Organization’s assets to qualify for lower interest rates on loans. The court gave Trump 10 days to put up $175 million, to prevent New York Attorney General Leticia James from seizing his assets during his appeal. Trump also posted $91.6 million bond in the defamation case he lost to E. Jean Carroll.

Some of our progressive friends were dismayed that James wasn’t allowed to seize Trump Tower as her first prize, but she can wait. Unlike the thousands of contractors who were forced to take Trump to court to pay them for their work, only to be forced to settle for cents on the dollar as the unscrupulous developer starved them out, James and the state of New York can carry the case until Trump’s appeals are judged groundless.

Trump, who displayed contempt for New York state Judge Arthur Engoron throughout the trial, has claimed he has almost $500 million in cash, but he accused James and Engoron of seeking “to take the cash away so I can’t use it on the campaign.” Apparently, he has not heard the old adage, “If you can’t pay the fine, don’t do the crime.” And, with Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg prepared to start prosecuting Trump in his hush money criminal trial on April 15, Trump may be testing the corrolary, “If you can’t do the time, don’t do the crime.”

Trump faces trial in April on 34 felony charges that he falsified his company’s business records to cover up payments his lawyer made before the 2016 election to porn actress Stormy Daniels and Playboy model Karen McDougal, to keep them quiet about extramarital encounters with Trump years earlier, as well as a Trump Tower doorman who claimed Trump fathered a child out of wedlock. Trump is known to have cheated on all three of his wives, which is not illegal, but falsifying business records to cover it up is illegal in New York, and covering it up for election purposes is a federal crime, for which Trump’s former attorney, Michael Cohen, went to prison in 2018. Trump let Cohen take the fall, but Trump’s Department of Justice chose not to prosecute the new president. Federal prosecutors said in court filings Trump directed Cohen to make the payments, though they referred to him in court filings as “Individual 1,” not by name.

The New York grand jury indicted Trump April 4, 2023, 15 months after Trump returned to Mar-A-Lago, in Florida.

If convicted on the New York charges, Trump could be sentenced to four years in prison, but that would keep him until the federal insurrection and espionage cases and the Georgia election racketeering cases are decided, which could put Trump in prison for the rest of his life, if justice is served well done. — JMC