How's He Doing?

The presidential election is still almost 4 months away and while we have polls they may or may not be predictive.

 

The current President has always been a lousy human being who is shallow and self centered, but that is not new, we knew who he was.  Last time he lucked out by running against someone who was disliked nearly as much as him.

 

People voted for him despite that to some extent because he promised to change certain things and restore some imagined time when you could farm, work in a factory or mine and live the life of Riley.

 

Of course he can't change economic trends really, they just continue.  Whatever success he had was small, if he was really trying, and the things he did like imposing tariffs, rolling back environmental regulations, reducing taxes on the rich, and renegotiating trade agreements didn't really have much impact on average Americans.  Yes unemployment continued to decline but the jobs weren't significantly better and the good jobs still went to college educated people with skills.

 

There are plenty of gig jobs being created but while they are honest work they don't pay or provide the benefits the old manufacturing jobs did.

 

Still he had juiced the stock market to some extent and one of the things that happens is that when the economy is reported as good people feel they might get their turn next.

 

I think the idea of trickle down works best with expectations.

 

You might sill be working a low paying service job and live in an area where opioid addictions is rampant and opportunities are slim, but if the economy is so good prosperity must be coming. 

 

It probably wasn't, at least not until we adjusted to the new realities and embraced the industries of the future. Of course that wouldn't change the issue of automation where unskilled labor is done by robots.

 

The perceptions may have been enough until we met the virus.

 

That wasn't his fault, just the management of it.  He displayed all his worst traits daily on TV for awhile because he was getting good ratings.

 

It wasn't good for him because not all publicity is good publicity, especially once everybody know your name.

 

We got to know him and to know him is not to love him.

 

Can he reverse the polls?  Time will tell.