Nothing about the Orwellian normalization of Trump/MAGA fascism is more perplexing than the willingness of the Biden Administration and Democrats to accept the blame and full electoral liability for inflation. When MAGA eunuchs like Byron Donald or Marco Rubio aren’t reframing the most recent example of Trump’s cognitive decline, they are surely railing about $10 cartons of eggs the “Biden economy’s record inflation” now foists on cash strapped families.
But regardless of how often the GOP presents the premise as a given, or even how reconciled Democrats seem to be to allowing them to get away with it, just a cursory examination of the facts tells a different story. The truth is the inflation pain suffered by American families since 2020 is a direct result of the Trump Administration’s toxic mix of abject incompetence and an economic agenda devoted only to short-term political gains, pursued with no concern about the certain long-term damage they would cost.
Trump came into office in 2017 with nothing more than a messianic claim that only he could transform the American apocalypse he sold on the stump. It was clear neither Trump nor his campaign apparatus expected to actually win, so with a shocking victory came a haphazard governing plan. As the Republican nominee, whenever Trump did stray from culture war nihilism and warnings about a rigged election at his increasingly unhinged campaign rallies, he promised tax cuts and deregulation, the twin pillars of GOP Reaganomics obsession.
Fox/AM and MAGA fictions aside, Barack Obama had left Trump a robust economy. Perhaps the first and most reliable measure of this was an unemployment rate of 4.5 percent, virtually full participation. Any economist worth their calculator will tell you that initiating a massive tax cut when it is wholly unnecessary not only blows up the deficit, but creates inflationary pressure as ginned up demand exceeds supply.
Nevertheless, Trump and Republicans, fully absorbed in their own falsehoods that they needed to “rescue” America from the “epic disaster of the Obama years,” moved in tandem to pass as large a tax cut package as they could. By the time it took effect in January of 2018, the monstrosity was near $2 trillion.
Forget that it catered exclusively to corporations and the wealthy, with average Americans saving less than $400 per year. Forget that it blew a massive hole in the efforts to cut the national debt, which the Obama Administration had made a priority after the Great Recession it inherited required sizable government outlays. And forget that the GOP refused to accept the fact that tax cuts actually add to a deficit if they are not offset by spending reductions, fully beholden to the myth of increased tax revenue as a budget balancing panacea. The entire exercise was unnecessary and undertaken for no other reason than Trump wanted to crow about the “economic miracle” he magically created after only one year in office. Voters were less impressed and provided Democrats a solid House majority in the 2018 election, refusing to reward Trump and Republicans for their economic malpractice.
Trump loves tariffs mainly because of the arbitrary and near total control they provide him with. He loves to shake nations down, close allies in particular. With unhinged protectionist czar Peter Navarro – who viewed trade deficits as synonymous with foreign intrigue- chirping in his ear about who was playing the US for a fool that particular day, the President could pick a country, pick a domestic industry, and then Tweet out how US coffers would now be filled with tariff receipts and such-and-such sector could now thank him for rescuing them from ruin. Whatever collateral damage resulted was never a concern. If the carnage became too extensive, as with Midwest dairy farmers demolished by European reciprocity that wrecked their export opportunities, emergency subsidies were deployed. MAGA socialism to the rescue.
In 2016 Republicans still fronted themselves as “the party of Reagan.” Of course, the Gipper’s brand was wedded to free trade and “letting the markets decide.” However, Mitch McConnell and his House leadership counterpart, Paul Ryan, felt little discomfort tossing aside decades of principle to bend over for Trump’s impulse tariff regime.
As a direct tax on consumers there is no doubt tariffs spur inflation. But Trump tariffs were far worse because their arbitrary nature caused chaos throughout the supply chain, severing longstanding relationships at his whim, clouding the international marketplace with unpredictability. Covid would bring those chickens home to roost.
Even if the Trump Administration had employed a thoughtful strategy to weather the pandemic, a sudden plummet in global production and demand were certain to set the stage for significant inflation once consumers began buying again; that’s just basic economics. As it was, Trump responded by mixing surreal incompetence with divisive incitement of his followers to, not just ignore prudent public health guidance, but violently oppose it. In addition to hundreds of thousands of unnecessary deaths, the debacle greatly intensified the price shocks supply/demand imbalances created. In fact, one could effectively argue that, even if the pandemic never occurred, Trump’s tariff recklessness generated a wave of inflation that would have come ashore sooner or later. The Covid folly jacked up its size… instead of Florida surf, Biden inherited the Hawaiian North Shore.
Why the Biden Administration and Democrats in both chambers of Congress have from the start allowed the GOP to make inflation their exclusive domain is a great mystery. Perhaps the spinners decided there was no way the falsehood could be confronted without it being perceived by voters as sour grapes. Indeed, there is a long tradition of owning the numbers that “happen on your watch,” even though Trump and Republicans certainly refused to abide by it.
It is also true that Biden was never in a hurry to dismantle many of the tariffs Trump imposed, so blaming them for inflation would surely invite scrutiny and charges of hypocrisy. Again, something the shameless Trump has never worried about. Yet and still, rolling over and allowing both Fox/AM and corporate media to define the issue as a given, thus enshrining it as the beginning, middle and end of MAGA attacks on the Biden economy, makes no sense at all, and in the end could doom us to a dark age of another Trump election victory.
It’s not too late for the Harris campaign to mitigate some of the harm inflicted by this false narrative. On October 1st there will be a Vice-Presidential debate. In between doubling down on lies about immigrants terrorizing the homeland, and exploring new depths of servility to Trump, JD Vance will surely fixate on inflation. Tim Walz should be prepared to set the record straight. Our future as a going democratic concern may very well depend on him effectively doing so. BC