The delusions of October 2024

This cover page (please excuse the blurriness) is from the magazine's special-report edition published just 17 days before the 2024 general election, titled "The American economy: The envy of the world." In my memory, there has never been a more heartbreaking story.

Saturday, I quoted Paul Krugman: "Even I didn’t expect him to destroy [U.S.] credibility accumulated over 80 years in less than three months."

I might have had the same expectation before he underwent the equivalent of Charlemagne's crowning in 800 A.D. — in Trump's case, as the "Holy American Emperor," except there's nothing even remotely holy about the career criminal, lifelong swindler and should-have-been-a-jailbird by now; plus there has been, since 20 January, nothing traditionally American about America, and as a self-proclaimed emperor he's clothed like Hans Christian Andersen's.

Our mistake, mine and Krugman's, would have lain in expecting anything from Trump except: Whatever he does, it'll be colossally dumb, likely unconstitutional and almost certainly criminal. Beyond those delineated lines, anything, anything at all is up for grabs — and should your expections include even the most abecedarian rationality on Trump's part, you'll be particularly wrong.

Additionally, or rather especially, heartbreaking is The Economist's special-report subsection titled "What can stop the American economy now?" It follows other sections about:

Then comes the what can stop us? story, which begins: "The biggest thing standing in the way of sustained outperformance is homemade: the self-inflicted wounds [of viciously partisan politics]." From there ...

America’s drift towards more extreme politics, as exemplified by Donald Trump, poses ... dangers to its economy. The ugliest is a surge of anti-immigrant rhetoric fanned by the former president, who has vowed mass deportations if elected again. Foreigners attracted to the promise of America have helped make the country what it is, and not just in Silicon Valley or on Wall Street. The return of migrants in large numbers after the covid pandemic, many with limited education, replenished an ultra-tight labour market—a major reason that growth has remained robust at the same time as inflation has receded.

Mr Trump has, for the first time in nearly a century, also made tariffs an integral part of America’s economic statecraft. If he returns to the White House, he is determined to slap a 10% tariff on all imports, a decisive turn away from the free trade that, though unpopular today, has helped the economy flourish. It is true that America is not the manufacturing power it once was, but manufacturing is not as significant as politicians make it out to be. An economy with an unemployment rate of 4% and a per-person gdp of $85,000 does not have to be made great again; it is great.... (Emphasis mine.)

The Economist concludes by making that most egregious mistake: It ventures the following expectation about a future that might possibly include Donald Trump at its core:

Optimism should be the default assumption about America’s economy.

Is that not heartbreaking? An optimistic future was indeed one we could have watched play itself out; it was so close, so easily within our grasp. But it was placed in the hands of a mere 2,284,968 American voters who had listened to Trump's clearly outlined plans for how he would destroy the American economy, among other things — and then voted You bet! Sounds great!