Ever since Donald Trump descended the escalator in 2015 to announce his run for the presidency, every arm of the Left's prodigious propaganda machinery (the media, Hollywood, academia, the Democratic Party) has howled that Trump posed an unprecedented threat to the safety and stability of the United States -- and the world. No aspect of life would be left unscathed by Trump: the economy, the military, foreign policy, law, and order. You name it, Trump would wreak havoc on it.
Vanity Fair claimed that Trump would "destroy the (U.S.) economy out of spite." Not to be outdone, the Washington Post opined that "President Trump could destroy the world economy."
And when they weren't roaring about Trump's malevolent intentions, the propagandists were crying wolf about his mental state, and invoking the 25th Amendment. Just before the November 2020 election, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) announced that she planned to sponsor legislation that would convene a panel of psychiatrists charged with "reviewing whether President Trump is mentally fit to remain in office," to start the constitutional process of removing him from office.
So much projection; so little time. Let's look just at the economy.
Back in 2012, when Barack Obama was president, he mocked the notion of $2.00 a gallon gas prices as "phony election-year promises that never come about." Obama was proven wrong when the average price of a gallon of gas dipped below $2.00 in 2020 when Trump was president. On Trump's last day in office, the average price of a gallon of gas in the U.S. was $2.38.
On Joe Biden's first day in office, he signed an executive order that has become emblematic of his presidency, stopping the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline, a conduit that would have transported more than 800,000 barrels of oil a day from Canada into the U.S. He has since canceled or halted leases for the production of oil in Alaska and the Gulf of Mexico, as well as Montana, North Dakota and South Dakota. These decisions, along with other Biden policies and regulations, have contributed to spiraling energy prices. This past summer, the average price of gasoline hit $5.00 a gallon. In some parts of California, a gallon of gas has cost $8 a gallon this year.
This, in turn, has dramatically increased the prices of everything else, including the production and transportation of goods.
Wages were rising under the Trump administration, while unemployment continued to decrease. Inflation was low.
In stark contrast, inflation has increased every month since Biden took office, and is now the highest it has been in 40 years, creating what some economists have calculated is an 8.5% reduction in Americans' "real wages."
The "green" energy policies that Biden and his handlers do a happy dance for are harming the global economy as well. Electricity and gas prices are through the roof. Not only are individuals and families affected; but across Europe and the U.K., companies are signaling that they will not be able to pay these prices and stay in business. The economic forecasts are bleak.
Biden likes to blame these consequences on Vladimir Putin, and there is no doubt that Putin bears much of the blame, particularly for the situation in Europe. But gas prices started rising here in the States well before Putin invaded Ukraine. More importantly, America could be ameliorating the effects of Putin's decisions by increasing our production and sale of oil and natural gas, and we aren't. Instead, Biden wants to lift sanctions on rogue regimes like socialist Venezuela and Iran to get oil from them. Just last week, he went hat-in-hand to demand that OPEC nations increase production. Saudi Arabia told him to take a hike.
Biden has attempted to quell public panic about rising energy prices by releasing millions of gallons from the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserves. But this is a short-term fix with long-term consequences that could be even more severe if we need those Reserves in the future. To date, Biden has drained more than a third of the Reserves and has announced no plans for replenishing them. Trump tried to add to the Reserves by purchasing an additional 77 million gallons in 2020 when oil prices hovered around $20 a barrel; congressional Democrats blocked it. The cost of refilling the Reserves now would be drastically more expensive; oil this week is running close to $90 a barrel.
None of the economic consequences of Biden's policies are inadvertent or unforeseeable. What's worse, there is no indication that Biden (or whoever is making the decisions behind the scenes) intends to reverse course. This means that we are in for a continued economic decline unless and until we put someone else in the White House.