Today is the day when the broad mass of American voters — as opposed to the tiny subset contacted by pollsters — begins to have a say in the presidential race. We will soon know if the Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders boomlets are real or a mirage. Whether or not either man wins his party’s nomination, both have tapped into something significant — hence their rise against all expectations.
What accounts for their surprising strength? I think the answer can be found in this US News & World Report article which is not about Trump and Sanders at all. It’s about economic performance under various presidents.
It points out that, since 1952, the Obama administration has seen the lowest average GDP growth per quarter of any presidency: Just 1.78 percent. The next lowest administration was the one that preceded it: George W. Bush presided over average GDP growth per quarter of 1.8 percent. That is far below the standard of John F. Kennedy (5.5 percent), Lyndon Johnson (5.07 percent), Bill Clinton (3.82 percent), and Ronald Reagan (3.64 percent). Not since 2001 — fifteen years ago — have we seen a president who presided over growth of more than 3 percent a quarter.
Average job gains per month have also been anemic under Obama: an average of 93,800 jobs a month added, compared to 241,960 under Clinton. The George W. Bush administration was even worse: only 21,350 jobs added a month. George W. Bush and Barack Obama aren’t at the bottom when it comes to another category, however: They are first and second in the amount of debt they added during their terms in office (over $6 trillion for Bush, nearly $6 trillion for Obama — but Obama still has a year to go and should break Bush’s record).
There is, of course, an awful lot going on beyond what the bare numbers tell us. George W. Bush came into office at a time when the Internet bubble was bursting and within less than a year he had to deal with 9/11 and the global war on terrorism. Obama came into office right after the housing market bubble burst, while the financial sector was in meltdown. You can give both men credit for dealing with the crises they inherited and stabilizing the economy. But the stark reality is that the U.S. economy has been underperforming for a decade and a half, and those two presidents bear some of the blame with their policies, which have left a legacy of high taxes, high spending, and high regulatory burdens.
Recent economic under-performance has exacerbated the long-term problem of stagnating middle-class wages. The average American household is still earning about the same ($52,000) as it was in 1988. Added to economic insecurity is physical insecurity: Voters are afraid of terrorism, and they don’t think the government is keeping them safe.
A large number of voters are frustrated that their lives aren’t getting better, and they are looking for scapegoats. Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump are happy to oblige. Sanders blames the “billionaire class” that he claims has hijacked the political system, the big banks in particular, which like a long life of rabble-rousers he blames for all of the economy’s ills. Trump blames immigrants — Mexicans, in particular — followed by Muslims, free traders, and anyone professing “political correctness” (presumably code words for the liberal elites). Neither set of claims is factually accurate, but both have populist appeal.
The problem is that while both Trump and Sanders have identified grievances, they have not proposed any remotely plausible plan to address them. Breaking up the big banks, federalizing all health care, and jacking up tax rates on the “rich,” as Sanders proposes, won’t boost economic growth rates; it will cause them to tank. Barring Muslims, enacting 45 percent tariffs on Chinese goods, tearing up NAFTA, and expelling 11 million illegal immigrants, as Trump proposes, will do nothing either for economic growth or security. It is a recipe for a global recession and massive insecurity: Tariff hikes will lead to a ruinous trade war, while Trump’s anti-Muslim measures will cost the U.S. moderate Muslim allies that it desperately needs to combat terror.
Trump and Sanders are classic demagogues in that they exploit people’s grievances and channel them into an “us vs. them” narrative — poor vs. rich in Sanders’ case, whites against minorities in Trump’s. Throughout most of our history, American voters have been too sensible to fall for these destructive if alluring nostrums. Let us hope that is still the case today.
