I honestly don’t know what to say about the Washington Post’s editorial on the State of the Union speech:
The broadest measures — gross domestic product growth, wages and labor force participation — all point in varying degrees in the right direction, with the most sensitive indicator, unemployment, at a 50-year low of 3.5 percent. The laws of politics decree that incumbent presidents take the blame for negative economic conditions and the credit for positive ones. In that sense, Mr. Trump’s posture, in an election year, is entirely conventional. But the true State of the Union after three years of this otherwise unconventional presidency cannot be measured so straightforwardly.
They go on to admit the economy is growing more rapidly than the one Trump inherited, question the degree to which that has anything to do with Trump policy, criticize Trump’s trade wars, and muse over the sustainability of the present growth.
Here’s their conclusion:
Mr. Trump overtly asserts his total innocence in all respects, even as he implicitly tempts Americans with a subtly different proposition: to accept his behavior, and his conscious efforts to divide the country, as somehow necessary trade-offs for prosperity. This is as false as it is Faustian; trust and consensus are essential ingredients of a modern, efficient economy, not to mention indispensable to a thriving, durable Union.
What would be the basis of such a consensus? Democrats have rejected Trump’s presidency since November 2016 and the first impeachment bill was submitted in the House in June 2017. They have insisted on Trump’s perfidy since the very start.
If there was one message that came through loud and clear last night it was that there will be no such consensus, at least not among politicians, as long as Trump is president.
“there will be no such consensus, at least not among politicians, as long as Trump is president.”
Somewhere, James Comey and Peter Strzok are smiling.