Photograph Source: Tia Dufour, White House – Public Domain

In Donald Trump’s make-believe world prices are falling, the economy is booming, he is bringing peace all around the world, and gas costs less than $2.00 a gallon. But in the real-world inflation is increasing, the economy is stalling, wars are continuing, and gas costs more than $3.00 a gallon.

Ordinarily, we shouldn’t be bothered too much by the dreams of a 79-year-old suffering from dementia, but we have little choice but to bothered when that person is the president of the United States. Trump’s unreality is interfering with the reality for the rest of us in a very big way.

One way his hallucinations matter in a big way is his failure to come to grips with the fact that China is now the world’s dominate economy. By the end of this decade, the I.M.F. projects it to be nearly 50 percent larger than the U.S. economy.

There is not much that the U.S. can do about this large and growing disparity. It can and should make sure that we have secure supply-chains for essential items, as the Biden administration tried to do. We also should take steps to promote economic growth here, not just to compete with China, but also to improve living standards for low and middle-income households. But we also need to come to grips with a world where the United States is still a very important actor, but no longer the world’s dominant economic power.

To my view, that would........

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