Let's keep some stats in mind as to what was going on at the end of Trump's term:
-Gas is currently at $2.39 per gallon (was under or just over $2 per gallon during most of Trump's term)
-Interest rates are 2.25% for a 30 year mortgage
-The stock market closed at 30829.40 despite the fact that we have been fighting COVID for 11 months
-The GDP Growth for the third quarter was over 33%
-The economy is recovering well
-No new wars or conflicts the past four years
-North Korea has behaved themselves. Only recently were they testing missiles again.
-ISIS has faded into borderline non-existence
-Four peace treaties signed in the Middle East
-The housing market is the strongest it's been before the crash of 2007-2008
-Homes have gone up in value at an unbelieveable rate. It is a seller's market
-Unemployment sits at 6.7% despite COVID (was under 3% for much of Trump's term
Let's see where we are at on January 21, 2025.
I saw this copy/pasted on Facebook today and have been tearing it up in my head, all day. There are a few things here that just rub me wrong and this is all a way to prop Trump up for successes that either 1) are cyclical, 2) aren't his responsibility at all, or 3) aren't even successes.
Firstly, Trump doesn't get a asterisk for "despite COVID". COVID existing isn't Trump's fault, the same way that getting in a car accident might not be your fault. But it's your fault if you recklessly cancel your insurance. Trump cut us off at the knees to fight COVID by disbanding the safeguards we had in place. And similarly, even if you get in an accident, it's your fault if you further damage your car by driving it after it's been wrecked, without properly addressing the damage.
Presidents all face hardships. Wars, disease, market corrections, natural disasters, etc. And the impetus of what occurs might not be your fault, but the response is. He had no national response at all, and if fact, just lied to people about the severity which made it way worse. There are multiple countries who have all but eliminated COVID and their economies are back. Trump doesn't get to say that things were great before, because he's responsible for the after.
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That rant aside, the next thing is that half of these things are not even positive and these are mostly complex systems that don't make sense to tie to a president. Super low gas prices AREN'T A GOOD THING. It might be good for you to fill up your tank, but there's a larger issue at stake that's causing low prices and probably has to do with a shocking decrease in demand vs overproduction because of an overseas conflict between Middle East states and (I believe) Russia where they're trying to crash prices to drive the other out of business. You want prices on commodities to be stable and predictable, rather than low. High prices aren't great either, but this shows a great lack of understanding about how the price of gas works.
The same is true with interest rates. Monetary policy is set by the Fed and low interest rates are a response to a lagging economy. It's not like Trump did something good to cause borrowing rates to be low. Or even that low rates are good.
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Next thing:
This entire list is based on the falsehood that we're in pretty good economic shape, which is just absolutely false. Unemployment claims were 900,000 this week. This is the weakest economy to be inherited by a president ever. Things like the stock market and housing prices are some indicators, but these are no longer instruments of regular working people. Lots of people don't own stocks or homes that are suffering, so high housing prices only serve to keep them slaves to renting. There is a YIN to every YANG on this list. It's great that you can sell your house at a high price -- but it also means someone else might be priced out of buying it.
Even growth -- yeah, no shit there's growth. We have had economic collapse. There's nowhere to go but up. I'm not saying that none of this matters, but it's intellectually lazy to look at a list of stats that don't have anything to do with a President like some kind of checklist to be compared against administrations.
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On the wars front, yeah -- that's pretty much Trump. He oversees the military, so that's definitely a feather in his cap. He was fortunate enough not to have a crisis land on his doorstep, like 9/11, but he gets credit just the same.
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