The Trump presidency can be exhausting. What with tweets, unsavory lawyers, and porn models and actresses, not to mention allegations from the #Resistance, it can be hard to see that the administration is actually getting a lot done.
Beneath the surface, obscured by the glaring neon of the president’s exchanges with news media and with other forces determined to degrade our political culture further, is a steady record of conservative accomplishments. These are boosting the economy and paring government back a little closer to its proper size. They are also giving heartburn to anyone on the Left capable of peeling their eyes away from fantasies about a Trumpian conspiracy with Russia.
The headline achievements are still the appointment of a conservative justice to the Supreme Court and the passage of a tax reform bill that is plowing corporate money into investment that previously went to tax avoidance. But Trump is also wrestling trade concessions from China with protectionist rhetoric that we, we admit, opposed, and prizing open that vast market to an unprecedented extent for American automakers.
Meanwhile, on deregulation, Trump has achieved far more than most people realize, doing better than his campaign promise to eliminate two regulations for every new one regulation created. How much better depends on how you measure it, and ranges up to 20-to-1. The important thing is not the number, though, but the burden he is lifting from the economy without major sacrifices of health or safety.
Last year was reportedly the first on record to end with fewer federal regulations on the books than there were at the beginning of January. The repeal of Obama’s Clean Power Plan alone liberated $7.2 billion in annual costs for energy consumers. Add to this the benefits from permitting oil and gas pipelines, the rescission of Title II Internet regulation, and the reconsideration of the Waters of the United States Rule, and suddenly you’re talking about real money invested in the economy. It also helps that the Trump administration has iced a President Barack Obama-era regulation that would have multiplied employers’ paperwork twenty-fold by requiring wages to be reported according to race and gender.
Other, less tangible deregulatory actions include the EPA’s decisions to act only on clear science, and to stop “sue and settle” practices with which it used to collude with environmental activist groups to bypass proper regulatory processes. This lifts immense uncertainty from businesses that otherwise could have faced severe new regulatory strictures at any time.
Some left-liberals bemoan that Trump is governing as a secret conservative under their noses. And with the economic effects looking so good, they should be worried.
While the stock market is down from the all-time highs it reached in January, the S&P 500 is still 17 percent higher than it was at any point during the Obama administration. Unemployment, at 4.1 percent, is lower than it has been during 90 percent of the post-World War II era. The employment-to-population ratio has climbed back above 60 percent for the first time since 2009, Obama’s first year in office, and among the career-aged (24- to 54-year-olds), it is approaching 80 percent for the first time since 2007.
The market’s rise isn’t built on empty speculation, either. Companies reporting annual earnings this spring have mostly produced pleasant surprises, with the vast majority beating analysts’ estimates. Ordinary people are seeing bigger paychecks and businesses are investing more in their operations.
This isn’t an accident or an inherited tailwind from Obama. Trump has helped the economy by getting out of its way and not hobbling it the way his predecessor did.
So why does the public disapprove of Trump’s handling of the economy? It’s probably because they disapprove of Trump himself. Tellingly, Trump’s total job disapproval number, 56 percent, is within the margin of error of his economic performance disapproval, 58 percent.
The problem isn’t that most people aren’t experiencing economic growth. It’s that they are also experiencing Trump’s presidency through the lens of his weird, uncouth behavior, the chaos in his White House, and his lack of trustworthiness.
Perhaps some of his supporters and some Republicans chuckle about his cringe-making personal behavior, seeing it as useful camouflage for his effective policies. But that would be misguided.
Conservative policies are popular, so hiding them is bad politics. The 2017 tax cuts have failed to become more popular because the president is constantly derailing the excellent message he and his party could and should be getting to voters before the midterm elections. Absent a clear message from the party and president in power, the public has largely accepted the lie Democrats are telling that the tax bill is a tax hike on most people, a lie faithfully repeated by their lickspittle news media allies.
Good leadership requires more than enacting good policy. It involves changing hearts and minds, and entire conversations. It’s about bringing the country along with your decisions. President Ronald Reagan didn’t merely practice conservatism, but also spread it.
Republicans today have little chance to evangelize for their cause because every question they get is about a pornographic actress or a crude and brutal tweet. If Trump can’t find a way to tone it down, neither he nor his ideas will get credit, no matter how excellent the results he achieves. The benefits of his and the GOP’s government will be felt under a Democratic Congress, and voters will carry that message to November 2020.
