Donald Trump’s greatest strength is his indefatigability. The grumblings within his administration grow louder. Inflation is stubborn, the price of oil too high, the Democrats ahead in the polls for all the key Senate election races. Yet the President is out and about, doing what he perhaps does best, which is campaigning.
“Pretend I’m running, please. If we don’t win, they’ll end up impeaching me,” Trump told a rally in Oklahoma yesterday. His aim is to turn the midterms into another presidential-style contest, and he’s right that the name Trump continues to be the key factor in American politics, something far more potent than the Republican party brand. As ever, though, the Donald divides opinions – and according to some surveys, his net approval rating is -23.
There is good news on the US economy for those who want to see it
Trump’s big offer for the midterms is the “Trump Dividend” – the cash prize of $5,000 for every American adult if his party were to retain control of both houses of Congress in November. Media commentators are outraged by this blatant electoral bribe. It’s a mockery of the democratic process! It will cost $1.3 trillion and America is already $40 trillion in debt! It’s madness! All true. But that doesn’t mean it’s not an effective ploy. If you were an uncommitted voter who thought all politics was corrupt anyway, why wouldn’t you vote for the party that is offering you five grand?
“Republicans can do it and Democrats can’t,” Trump said. “We’re taking in massive amounts of money through tariffs and record-setting economic success. Democrat policies won’t allow this to happen.” The media fact-checkers will furiously point out that tariff revenue is not what Trump alleges. But almost nobody cares about media fact-checking.
Trump’s bigger problem is trying to convince Americans that they are living in a new gilded age as the citizenry continues to struggle with the rising cost of living. But there is good news on the US economy for those who want to see it.
Today the Labor Department will release the latest employment figures – and no doubt Trump will soon be Truth Socialing about how great the jobs market is doing, thanks to him. For all the fears about AI, and the prevailing sense of stagnation in the post-Covid world, US employment continues to defy expectations. The stock market may be one enormous tech bubble that has to pop one day. But for now it powers on, driving incredible amounts of wealth for those lucky enough to benefit.
Trump gathered America’s tech overlords for a summit in Washington earlier this week, partly to make sure they started using his preferred term for the technology of the future – SI rather than AI, super rather than artificial. Nomenclature is important to Trump, and he urgently wants voters to start feeling more enthusiastic about data centers and the limitless possibilities of learning machines.
Standing next to the President, Elon Musk offered his rosy view: we’re entering an age of abundance, he suggested. “When you have robots, and you have superintelligence, it means that everyone in the world can have better medical care than anyone here, including me… And wouldn’t that be wonderful?”
Wouldn’t it just? Trump, the great salesman, must urgently pitch this optimism in the next month. Because, as he openly admits, if the public don’t buy it and the Republicans fail on November 3, he’s almost certainly going to be impeached.
This article originally appeared in Freddy Gray’s Americano newsletter, which you can subscribe to here.
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