No, Matt Yglesias, Trump is *not* “probably gonna be re-elected”
No, Matt Yglesias, Trump is *not* “probably gonna be re-elected”
While I generally agree with the political and social observations of Matt Yglesias and Ezra Klein, their takes that involve the economy frequently drive me crazy.
So it was this morning when I encountered these two tweets from Yglesias:
This is just incredibly shallow analysis and, well, wrong!
Presidential and midterm elections are completely different beasts. Midterms are decided by partisan turnout — people who strongly agree or disagree with the policies that have been enacted as the President’s agenda. Presidential elections are primarily (although certainly not exclusively) driven by the strength of the economy.
So let’s take a look at Yglesias’ three examples. The below three graphs show real GDP and job growth during the first terms of Reagan, Clinton, and Obama:
All three were either in or just coming out of recessions during the first two years of their terms. When the midterm elections took place, both real GDP and employment were actually lower than just before Reagan and Obama, respectively, took office. In Clinton’s case both were modestly higher. But by the end of their fourth year, when they gained re-election, economic expansions were well in place for all three.
And this showed up in their first term approval numbers, shown below:
Reagan:
All three Presidents were quite unpopular (though not so unpopular as Trump) when the midterms took place. But all three were above 50% by the time they ran for re-election.
Contrast this with George H.W. Bush, who lost his re-election bid, as the economy was coming out of the 1991 recession:
Trump has *awful* approval ratings in the face of an economy that is doing quite well. In fact he has *never* had approval ratings over 50%. While expansions do not die of old age, I would be quite surprised if this one had not faltered by November 2020. His only chance for re-election, in my opinion, is if the Democrats manage to nominate somebody with at least as much baggage as he.
Nobody should be taking any elections for granted, but I see absolutely no basis in fact for Yglesias’ assertion that Trump will probably be re-elected.
Right wing talk radio has reported Trump went to CPAC at 50% approval.
Let’s see:
Nixon= reelected
Carter= 1 term
Reagan=reelected
Bush=1 term
Clinton=reelected
Bush=reelected
Obama = reelected
So 5 out of the last 7 have been reelected; the last 3 in a row.
Barring major scandal, I would guess Trump would win again. The people who voted for him in the last election have not, in general, been disappointed (he set the bar pretty low).
And who is going to run against? Oprah? Pocahontas? Hillary 3.0? Biden?
I would say the biggest obstacle in a Trump second term is that he decides not to run again and passes the torch to Pence.
i believe the average wage earner is seeing $137 more in their paycheck now than before the “Trump tax cuts”
for most people who voted for him the first time, that’s probably enough for them to do it again…
Trump is easy to spell and easier to remember than Reagan!
Keep pushing the nothing burger investigation indicting odd people for lying to trumped up investigators.
NDD
Never count your chickens before they hatch.
There was “absolutely no basis in fact for…[Trump to be elected in the first place]” either.
I was shocked that he got the GOP nomination. I was still more shocked that he took the election.
As a result I’ve had to reevaluate my understanding of the nation’s public — they are far more racist, far more gullible, far more misogynistic, and far more accepting and even desirous of “tough talk” even to the extent of believing proven liars.
Besides, if Trump wants to run for a 2nd term (still an open question .. he may pass the baton to Pence as Sammy suggested) all he has to do is start a war and he’ll win in a landslide.
And then there’s always the “Reichstag fire” gambit.
NDD
Keep your eye on the ball ***during*** the game…this year’s mid-terms outcomes will have a lot to do with the 2020 election, unlike most other mid-terms.. “It ain’t over ’til the fat lady sings.”.
And.. Sammy’s right about “who’s he going to run against?”
No Dem has come to the fore yet. No Dem carries the torch yet. There’s Harris, but she’s a female and still too new in the national field (imo). Bernie alienates the centrists on both sides, not to mention right to center GOP voters.
Besides that who speaks for the Dems besides Pelosi? Shumer disappoints the Dem base already.
And don’t forget the money men — those on the right have most of it, and their propaganda appeals to the gut, not the rational human..
LT, I truly believe you are on to something profound here: “…their propaganda appeals to the gut, not the rational human.”
It was AGAINST the liberal version of rationality and arrogance that many voted, enough to swing a presidential election.
It was the also because of the democrat lies that there was a swing election. Democrat leaders appear to have learned little from those elections. The lying continues. Crumbs, deplorables and If you like your health insurance you can keep… come immediately to mind.
The general populace have a bad taste from these and many other examples. Accordingly any democrat candidate must be extra careful of what they say publicly.
While I agree that the economy has had effects in the past, I think they mean nothing now.
Let’s face facts, we have a president confirmed racist whose main platform plank was his racism.
The sides are chosen up, the economy will not matter.
EM, the economy always matters on size of each side.
CoRev,
I disagree. I haet these polls(and all sorts of polls) because you simply do not know if people are telling the truth.
” Obama is the first president since 1960 who hasn’t seen his approval rating rise along with gains in consumer sentiment. In a new HuffPost/YouGov poll, just one-third of Americans said that Obama made things better for the economy after the financial crisis. Another 37 percent said he made things worse, while 18 percent said he didn’t have much impact, and 12 percent weren’t sure.
Americans’ views of Obama’s effect on their personal financial situation is even more bleak. Just 18 percent thought that Obama has made things better for their own financial situation since he took office, with the rest largely split between believing that he made things worse and that he didn’t do much.
There’s a modest gap in views between the wealthiest households and everyone else. Those in households making $100,000 or more are 8 percentage points more likely than those making less than $50,000 to give Obama credit for improving the economy, and 9 points more likely to say he helped their own financial situations.
Assessments of Obama’s economic legacy, though, have a lot more to do with partisanship than they do with income. Two-thirds of Democrats, but just 6 percent of Republicans, think Obama made things better after the financial crisis; 39 percent of Democrats, and just 2 percent of Republicans, give him credit for helping them personally.
To demonstrate just how much that partisanship plays a role in views of the economy, the HuffPost/YouGov poll split respondents into two groups. Half were asked about the performance of the economy since the year 2008. Half were asked how things had changed since Obama was elected.
Republicans in the second group — the ones responding directly to questions about Obama — were considerably more likely to say things had gotten worse. They were 19 points more likely to say their personal financial situation had gotten worse, and 20 points more likely to say that the economy as a whole had declined, if they were asked to compare things to “when President Obama was first elected” rather than “the year 2008.”
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/obama-economic-legacy_us_57325736e4b016f3789778f
And that’s not to say it is one sided,I recently saw a poll where 35% or so of Dems thought the market had gone down since Trump took office.
Even if it is the economy, we are so partisan that very few people even know what the economy is doing, and their views are based on their partisanship.
If you watched Fox News talking about the economy over the last decade, it was a disaster. Now, under Trump, it is booming, even though the trajectory in all areas is a carry over from Obama.
These lines are drawn. It will not end for a long, long time.
EM, I stand by my statement. Economy affects size and activism of the sides.
I also think Trump will rely on past democratic lies and arrogance to activate his followers in the middle. Both party bases are already activated, as always the fight will be for the middle, and that’s where the economy will be important.
The mid-term elections are the current battle ground. Dem leaders are still following the same strategies that lost the last national election. Dem candidates are going to move more to the middle policy side to win.
if the Democrats field a marginal candidate, Kasich could run as an independent and win..
RJS,
There is absolutely zero chance of an independent candidate winning a presidential election.
CoRev,
This is not going to to work, I’d rather have hot nails driven into my eyes that have a conversation with you about politics.
Meanwhile, the idea that you can put “Trump” and “past democratic lies” in the same sentence is hilarious, while being frightening.
If we look at why the last two Presidents’ lost reelection we find:
1) Bush Sr., poor economy, reneging on no new taxes pledge.
2) Carter, very poor economy, poor foreign policy (Iran hostage)
Then we have 3) LBJ – Vietnam war, 4) Hoover, very poor economy 5) Taft -?
It seems like a poor economy is an important factor. (However FDR is a notable exception, being reelected multiple times during the Great Depression).
This bodes well for Trump as the economic boom he has sparked should have enough momentum to last another 3 years until the next election. At least he won’t have “poor economy” to overcome.
EM,
Racism is a huge part but I think it’s also heavily weighted with the whole “individualism” schtick of “individual freedom”.. which coincides with racism but extends it.
Reagan resurrected it from Wallace after LBJ’s civil rights took that “freedom” away and it stuck with the anti-federalism racist crowd.
Regards the economy… if it doesn’t go south Trump will get the credit. If it goes south the right will blame the Fed and the Dem’s welfare state.
The white supremacists are scared to death of the coming demographic changes already underway which will put whites in the minority. They’re looking for the great white hope to change that outcome. Trump fills the bill for now.
Yes, the lines are drawn and hardening. The extreme partisanship of the last 8 years in congress made that clear already at least by 5 years ago. Trumps just another symptom of it
EM, you were doing so well in trying to have an adult conversation, and then fell back into your “trolling” comfort zone.
EM,
The racists did their “pull out all stops” thing once already… It didn’t end well, but then SCOTUS put the lid back on by making segregation the law of the land and give the racists the power of Jim Crow. Then SCOTUS reversed it with Brown in the public ed realm again and set off the next wave of “you’re taking away my freedoms” that set the stage for liberal admin’s to make a national visible stand (twice) to put down the insurrectionist governors… making the racists rabid with resentment of all things federal… which carries over to today.in both racists and the ever present and growing “individualism” crowd in various shades of Libertarianism.
I don’t know how to end this downward spiral, but I’m convinced it won’t end well. The system relies on an informed reasonably objective electorate. Take that away and the system can’t stand.
Racism and individualism are pitted against a cooperative society. They are mutually exclusive. Compromise is not a solution
A full break-down is inevitable.. I just don’t know when.
The key to Trump’s “success” appears to be that nobody listens to him anymore.
https://www.vox.com/2018/2/23/17044770/trump-cpac-2018-speech
“President Donald Trump has told nearly six times more lies in the first 10 months of his presidency than former President Barack Obama did in his entire 8-year term, according to data collected and published Thursday in the New York Times.
The “Trump’s Lies vs. Obama’s” piece, featured in the opinion section of the publication, was a sequel of sorts to a list the NYT published over the summer titled “Trump’s Lies.” After the initial article’s publication, supporters pushed back against the newspaper with one common response: “if you made a similar list for previous presidents, it would be just as bad.”
And so newspaper set out to compare Trump and his predecessor.
The NYT says it applied the same standard to both presidents and counted “only demonstrably and substantially false statements.” It didn’t count repeated mentions of the same falsehood.
The graph, shown below, shows the end result of the data collected: Trump has told 103 separate untruths in the first 10 months of his presidency. Obama told 18 lies during his eight years in office.
The NYT mentioned it was not able to make an comparison to former President George W. Bush because various fact-checking groups were not operating continuously when he took office in 2001. The NYT‘s study relied heavily on the work of fact-checking groups including Politifact, The Washington Post’s Fact Checker, Talking Points Memo, FactCheck.org, and Snopes.”
http://fortune.com/2017/12/14/trump-lies-new-york-times/
Well, I won’t contribute much to the mayhem here, but I would suggest both sides listen to what the other side BELIEVES. Then try to figure out how to win when about half the people think it’s their side that is lying.
It seems to me both sides lie. That’s how politics works. You tell the people (whose votes you need) what they want to believe.
But there are other factors. (racism is always out there, but it is made more vigorous from time to time by the way people feel about the quality of their lives generally.) One thing that worries me is that with the inability of either party to deliver relief from perceived loss of quality of life, the people are losing faith in democracy and willing to accept a proto-dictator, however unsavory, on the chance that he can accomplish what democracy appears to be failing to accomplish.
I am very pessimistic. I don’t like any of the options,or players, on the table on either side. And while I can agree with most posters here on one point or another, I can’t take any of them seriously as being right on most of what else they believe, let alone have a general understanding of the problem.
And I have seen the “fact checkers” swallow whole the lies of the “non partisan experts” on Social Security…. the one subject I think I know something about, even “the truth.”
Typical coberly pablum.