OH NO: Republicans said “the fundamentals of the economy are strong” again.
And they’re trying to take away your poppers.
After four straight weeks of a flailing stock market following the tariff crashout, Vice President JD Vance said on Fox News: “the fundamentals of the economy are strong.”
Not good.
The last time America heard that infamous phrase was from the lips of the late American hero Senator John McCain, right after the 2008 Lehman Brothers collapse that plunged the economy into the Great Recession for years.
I cannot imagine anyone in the United States using those evil words unironically, so their appearance shortly before the Ides of March feels like a deliberate auspice, or perhaps a cry for help from Mr. Vance. Either way, my asshole is clenched—and unfortunately, Presidents Donald Trump and Elon Musk’s Food and Drug Administration has reportedly cracked down on poppers (a move attributed to Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s long-held lunatic conviction that AIDS is caused by sphincter-loosening amyl nitrite rather than HIV).
Polling showed voters preferred Mr. Trump’s handling of the economy, because they remembered 2019 as being a fairly good year compared to the COVID and post-COVID eras. This seems easy enough to understand. The pandemic made a lot of things very weird. Because we are the richest nation in the world, however, we had the softest possible time imaginable while millions of people were dying globally. The social safety net had never been more robust, and taxpayers were getting checks signed by a president who knew making sure they survived the crisis comfortably was the only way he could win their votes. Unfortunately for the country, Mr. Trump no longer needs voters and thus has no interest in enriching American households—only his own. Sad!
I want to be very clear: I do not believe the Presidents Trump and Musk should put the world economy in recession so that billionaires can buy up distressed assets and cement their advantages. I think that would not only be morally improper but also lead to some unimagined effects.
At the least, the Millennial generation, which was hit hard by the global financial collapse, likely cannot move back in with their parents. Not only did that fray their relationships badly the first time, but now their folks have become elderly, want to be retired, and do not want their middle-aged children back underfoot.
The last time a Republican president destroyed the American economy, we at least had the benefit of a functioning federal government to make sure people got their unemployment checks, stimulus, or other benefits and services. We had some wars people could fight, so the military was an escape hatch for people whose towns were in poverty. A year of college was approximately 58 percent cheaper and the federal government was not actively attempting to destroy higher education, so students could try and wait out the job shortage by taking more classes.
These blunting factors seem inapplicable this time. I worry, too, that with the recent deification of the United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson’s accused killer Luigi Mangione, that without something to cushion the wreckage that the runaway Trump train will do to the average American, some people will do desperate and stupid things. America does not need to crash. I pray the presidents come to their senses and put a stop to this as soon as Monday.