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If Trump crashes the economy, the Republicans will lose heavily in the midterm elections in 2026 and will also lose heavily in the general elections in 2028. This isn't Venezuela. The Republicans only have 2-4 years to show that they know what they are doing with the economy. If they actually seriously damage the economy, they will lose power hard and Trumpism as a brand will sustain serious damage even among those who currently support it. Hanania seems to overestimate the degree to which voters being stupid and uninformed could sustain unsuccessful politicians in power. Sure, the overwhelming majority of American voters on both the left and the right are stupid and uninformed. And sure, voters in all democracies seem to have a remarkable level of tolerance for clearly failed government policies and politicians. However, one thing that voters usually do not forgive is economic problems. You do not have to be smart or pay much attention to politics to notice a major economic downturn. If the economy blows up, Trumpism will be done as a political force for the next several years unless the Democrats manifest a level of dysfunction and miscalibrated messaging that eclipses even their recent pathetic performances. Are the Democrats capable of fumbling the ball so hard? Yes, they are. I have never before in my life seen the Democrats be as disorganized, pathetic, incapable of communicating with the average person, captured by insane ideological purity spirals, detached from reality, and happy to sit in their mansions and make money instead of actually going out and winning elections as they have been these last few years.
I don't see how Trump's tariffs are going to make things economically better for the average American. It's literally a tax hike. Yes, there are also some tax cuts supposedly in the works, but I'll believe them if and when I see them. Part of what made America great back in the 1950s wasn't just that you could go easily get a job as a factory worker, it was also that your job as a factory worker would be enough for you to afford housing. Bringing back manufacturing jobs, even if it happens, will not magically create the demand for the sorts of relatively low-skilled positions that existed decades ago. Modern manufacturing is a lot more technological than it used to be. And tariff increases will not magically make landlords and home owners offer their properties to renters or buyers for cheap. What good would it be if you can suddenly get a factory job, but all the housing is still expensive? Trump's administration barely even talks about the housing crisis. When it comes to economics, they seem to be laser-focused on tariffs and on some small cosmetic efficiency improvements such as what DOGE is doing. But realistically, DOGE isn't going to substantially cut the federal budget. I don't believe that the Republicans have either the courage or the political will or the desire to touch any real big spending, such as the military budget. And even the military budget is less than a fifth of the federal budget. Meanwhile, they're laying off a bunch of government workers, thus causing many of those people to enter the private workforce and add more competition to everyone else who is trying to get a job in the private sector. Which could theoretically be beneficial if the resulting federal savings get passed back to the taxpayer... but again, I'll believe that if and when I see it, and in any case, even if the savings did get passed back to the taxpayer, it would take some time for the results to manifest themselves.
I very strongly doubt much of anything could make one of the two parties lose "heavily" at this point, especially the Republicans. Trump and the legion of Trump defenders and Trump cultists have plenty of excuses to blame the outgroup. Off the top of my head, if a recession were to occur then the following excuses could include:
Roughly half of the country will be in echochambers hearing nothing but these excuses. There might be a swing, and Republicans could easily lose, but it will be by a tiny swing of like 2% of the population, involving a handful of seats in the House, and <5 seats in the Senate.
Is that not true?
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1083150/total-us-debt-across-all-sectors/
Total -public, corporate, private - debt in 2000 was 28 trillion. Now it's 93 trillion.
Debt is a normal financial instrument that has plenty of legitimate uses. Since 2000 the US economy has almost tripled in size, so an increase in debt is both expected and normal.
The main danger of debt right now is too much US federal debt, which Republicans and Democrats are both roughly equally at fault for not reigning in. Trump is poised to blow out the deficit even harder than ever before.
..people selling each other overpriced services they don't really need counts as GDP too.
Has the real economy tripled in size? I don't think so. US electronics industry is .. pretty much shambles now. Car industry isn't doing that great either, or at least, certainly hasn't tripled. Neither has agriculture.
Everything is worth what it's purchaser is willing to pay for it.
A lot of what we'd see in both GDP and debt numbers is just inflation. But there's also been genuine growth, especially in tech.
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Numbers not accounted for inflation don't mean much. Why is corporate debt a problem?
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Since 2000 the Democrats and Republicans have been in power for the same amount of time.
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You’re right that the numbers who actually change their voting behavior off of this may seem unimpressive but “roughly half the country” means a very different thing in the modern American two party system than it does in typical day to day human life. 2008 was the most recent politically relevant election that was considered to be a true landslide and the popular vote result was 53% to 46%.
If I’m taking a poll of 20 coworkers to see where we want to go to lunch and 11 of them want pizza and 9 of them want tacos I would consider that a very close decision. But in modern American politics a vote that close is a blowout. A small percent of Trump voters switching sides next time or just not voting changes things dramatically. And this type of insane and economically destructive brain rot if it isn’t stopped immediately is the exact type of thing that will make that happen.
I absolutely despise the ethos of the modern left and have from the very moment I became aware of it when I was literally a middle schooler. But I’m not supporting a cult of personality whose leader is hellbent on crashing the global economy just because. If this keeps up and whoever gets the GOP nod in 2028 isn’t clearly intent on changing course I don’t think I can stomach it any longer. I don’t know how many people like me are out there but if even s small percentage of the vote defecting can make a big difference.
I don't really disagree with anything you've written here, although I have some quibbles around the edges. In 1984, Reagan won with a margin of over 18%. Close elections aren't an immutable fact of the US electoral system, they're just a modern result of (most likely) partisan echo chambers.
I agree even small victories can bring outsized vibe shifts. The most recent election was a good example, with Trump barely winning but everyone treating it like he won by a 40% margin.
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What do you, Antipopulist, believe? What policies do you want to see?
I only see you crawl out of the woodwork when you want to dunk on stupid Republicans. You don't even engage in the faintest cheerleading of Democrats, which is strange. You only talk about Republicans, and only negatively.
I, like Hanania, was dunking on Dems plenty when they were in the driver's seat in terms of wokeness and immigration. I can appreciate how effectively Trump dismantled wokeness in the first month of his admin. But I oppose buffoonish as a rule, and while the delusions were previously coming from the left, now they're mostly coming from the right.
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