This is the news that President Trump doesn’t want anyone to notice right now. This is what has his rapidly thinning hair on fire.
The Bureau of Economic Analysis released second quarter gross domestic product data today. The number shows how much the economy has grown in a given quarter. And in the second quarter, the BEA says, the American economy grew at an annualized rate of…wait for it…negative 32.9%.
…this is why he is talking about postponing or cancelling the elections in November. It isn’t because of the COVID hazards. It isn’t because of any other reason that people might toss around in an attempt to obscure his motivations.
It’s the Economy, Stupid
Caudito Trump knows that the economic success of the average American is what they will be voting on in November, those people who aren’t interested in politics, health or climate change anyway. Everyone else (the average wage-earner) is going to vote on their own economic status, and right now the average person’s economic status is not good.
They’ve been out of work since March. They have rent due. They are running out of food. They are terrified of catching the plague that is sweeping the nation. Too terrified to send their kids to school, with good reason. The economy is melting down all around us and the Party of Trump is busy trying to talk about budget overruns and how we can’t afford to keep paying people to stay at home as if they have any choice in the matter now.
The Democrats are rolling out election strategies in states they haven’t even bothered to contest in decades. They are campaigning all across the nation in ways that haven’t been seen before, their candidate running double-digit polling projections. Remembering 2016, the Democrats will not lay back and expect votes from average working people. They are going to go out and ask these people to support them, and they probably will.
President Trump has to know that this is not good news for him. He is smart enough to see that writing on the wall. That is why he is talking about postponing the election. Plain and simple. Nevermind that he can’t do it. He will try every trick that he can utilize to see that the election, when it occurs, is contested. This is why he is talking about the insecurity of mail-in ballots. This is why he will roll out the specter of brown people voting against him. Non-citizens voting. He will try to tamper with the counts, stop counts from happening, stop the mail service from delivering ballots.
None of this matters aside from the parlour game that it has been and will be. Oh, he’ll do any number of things to try to stay in office, but unless he can make the count go his way, he ceases to be president on January 20, 2021 anyway.
Why is this? Because the system is more than the election. Barring a winner in a contested presidential election, on January 20, 2021 the president of the United States will be Nancy Pelosi. He can’t stop this from happening. A majority holding for the Trumpists in the Senate can’t stop it. His term of office ends on that day, and the presidency will pass to the successor to the office.
Then the real work begins, for the first time in I don’t know how many years. New Year’s Eve can’t come soon enough to suit me this year.
Featured image: Screenshot from fred.stlouisfed.org – twitter.com
