Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain
This week I wrote about how President Donald Trump is excellent at the art of misdirection. He is at it again today.
It’s the economy, stupid
Since taking office, Trump has touted the economy as his crowning achievement. Never mind that the economy’s success was due more to the work of his predecessor. Even as his polls numbers have cratered in other areas, Americans seemed to think he was the better person to handle the economy. That has been changing lately as you can’t separate the pandemic from the economy. The former being a main reason for problems in the latter.
Today, Trump, after a series of polls show him trailing former Vice President Joe Biden nationally and in a number of battleground states, including the all-important Florida, has gotten a true punch to the gut. The Bureau of Economic Analysis has reported a drop of almost 33% in the American GDP for the second quarter of 2020. That is the worst drop since the government started keeping records. This is not good news.
So, as per usual, Trump tweeted something even crazier; the idea that the election should be postponed.
Keep in mind, the president has no authority to do such a thing. Congress sets the election schedule and while the Senate of sycophants might go along but the House of Representatives would never. He would have to do something extraordinary like declare martial law.
Trump’s goal today is to keep us from talking about the economy. Opening the country up again has not boosted the economy the way proponents of the policy said it would. It has sped up the spread of Covid-19 and hurt the economy.
We need to stop being distracted by shiny objects and focus on what really is important.