How?
By continuing to NOT know what the heck he’s doing with and American economy and a Trade War that WE will pay for and China will NOT back down on….
And having everybody standing around watching he screw things up in his own inept way…..
One underrated concern: Trump’s tendency to double down on stupid and destructive ideas, despite — perhaps because of? — overwhelming evidence of their stupidity and destructiveness.
Trump’s worst policies, economic or otherwise, tend to follow a pattern. First, he posits something like: Sure, the experts say that has predictably high costs and bad consequences. But ignore them! Believe me, it’s a great idea, and it’ll be completely costless.
To wit: Tax cuts will pay for themselves, without injury to deficits. China will pay all the tariffs, without harm to U.S. importers, manufacturers, retailers, farmers. Mexico will pay for the wall, without costs to U.S. taxpayers or international relations.
Free lunches, all around.
Then when it becomes clear those lunches weren’t free — in fact, they were quite pricey — the pitch changes. Okay, Trump and his cronies admit, maybe we’re suffering some pain now. But that pain will be worth it, because eventually it will pay off.
Someday the tax cuts will pay for themselves. Someday the trade war will pay off. Someday Mexico will pay for the wall.
In fact, to get us closer to someday, we just need more tax cuts, more tariffs, more fights with neighbors to the south. Because, hey, you know what they say: If a bad idea doesn’t work out, just make that bad idea even bigger.
Learning from mistakes and reversing course are never options; wishing away the foreseeable fallout always is. That wishing-away is also a team effort, and one that predates Trump. Republicans have for years been lying that tax cuts will eventually pay for themselves, if we’re only patient.
Ask Kansas how that worked out.
Even so, Team Trump has lately elevated this goal-post-moving to an art form. Consider how White House aides first publicly dismissed any indication that recession risks were rising, insisting that Democrats and the media were fabricating such fears. Then White House acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney acknowledged to GOP donors this week: Okay, okay, we might have a recession, but it’ll be “moderate and short.”
Sounds an awful lot like, “Recessions are short and easy to win.”
Other Republican officials have been aiding and abetting Trump’s pigheadedness, too, in some cases hoping to turn it to their advantage.