Trump’s America Features Bad Vibes and Bad Numbers. Horrendously Bad.

The president insisted that Biden’s economy was “failing” in 2024, when it was anything but. Then he came into office and showed everybody what failing really is.

When the memory-holing of Joe Biden’s successes gets too stupid, I consult the October 19, 2024, issue of The Economist. That’s the cover that declared Biden’s post-pandemic economic turnaround “the envy of the world.” The American economy, the richly-detailed article went on, was “bigger and better than ever”—ever—and “has left the rest of the rich world in the dust.”

That was a cool eighteen months ago. But then came this innocent question: “Will politics bring it back to Earth?” America’s pervy politics did not disappoint. Back to earth the economy plummeted—and then lower still, into the current Trumpian basement. As of late April, Americans feel worse off economically than we have in the last 25 years.

Remember when 16 Nobel Prize-winning economists, including Joseph Stiglitz, signed a letter warning that........

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