Trump's speech was all about dodging responsibility for the economy he's crashing | Opinion
For years, Republicans had the luxury of blaming America's economic woes on Biden and the Democrats. But Trump is in office now. And the GOP controls both the House and Senate.
President Donald Trump’s first address to Congress of his second term was full of the same. Just more of him blaming former President Joe Biden for everything bad and making fairytale promises about how we can tariff our way out of this mess.
For years, Republicans had the luxury of blaming America’s economic woes on Biden and the Democrats. It's awfully easy for them to assign blame when they lack the power to do anything about it, and awfully easy to promise to fix things if just given the power to do so.
Trump is in office now. Republicans control both the House and Senate. They can’t simply get away with blaming Biden at this point. Eventually, Republicans need a real plan for the economy, because the current one seems to be crashing it. And the plan can't be another Trump speech filled with more Biden-blaming than sound economic policy.
Trump is still trying to blame Biden for the economy
Trump is going to have a tough time convincing Americans that somehow the latest economic problems are due to the Democrats. From blaming Biden for rising egg prices, which are caused by recent bird flu outbreaks, to blaming Biden for inflation trends, Trump has a lot of storytelling to do to make this favorable for himself.
Trump is killing the economy himself and asking "how could Joe Biden do this?" For years, all Trump and Republicans had to do was blame Biden for every problem in America.
Now, he has the difficult job of actually having to improve the country, and instead of righting the ship he is actively sinking it. So far, his failed policies seem focused on tariffs.
Voters have a short memory, and they will be quick to punish Republicans when the next elections come up in less than two years.
Trump will have difficulties selling Americans on tariffs as the solution. Unemployment isn’t a chief concern for Americans, hovering about 4%, so supposed job creation at the expense of higher prices makes little sense, particularly when America has suffered under abnormally high inflation for the better part of the last presidential term.
Americans rarely go along with short-term economic pain under the guise of improving our country in the long term. That sale is even more difficult when the long-term benefit is a lie.
Tariffs are a confusing topic for Americans. However, when they are phrased as a tax on imports, which is what they are, just 43% of Americans support them. When confronted with the possibility of increasing prices, just 30% of Americans support them.
This polling indicates that as prices inevitably rise from tariffs impacting food, housing and energy imports, support for these policies will inevitably drop further than it already lies. Not to mention growing concern over how the markets have responded to Trump's tariffs campaign.
Particularly confusing is Trump’s insistence on tariffs against Canada, a country Americans overwhelmingly view favorably, under the lie of waves of fentanyl being smuggled in from the north.
Just 28% of Americans support slapping tariffs on Canada.
Republicans in Congress need to speak up. They haven't so far.
As much as the GOP applauded Trump’s economic plans during his address to Congress, the Trump administration is going against the fabric of free-market economics.
The one thing that could get congressional Republicans to split from Trump is job preservation, however. While my pessimism is keeping my hopes down, if the economic fallout from Trump becomes bad enough, Republicans in swing districts could stray from Trump’s messaging on the economy.
Some Republicans, such as Kentucky Sens. Rand Paul and Mitch McConnell, are already speaking out against Trump’s backwards economic policy. Hopefully, other GOP staples will find the courage to do the same.
But that would require many of them to find the spines they left on the altar of MAGA, or never had in the first place. If Republicans were wise, they’d be dedicating their efforts to dissuading Trump from applying further tariffs to our trading partners.
Instead, they seem perfectly fine with strolling into the midterm elections in a poor position, having to justify a poor economy to Americans who were already apprehensive about a second Trump administration.
Republicans now have to govern, but they seem far more interested in blaming things on Biden, instead of the man who is actively trying to tank the American economy, Donald Trump.
Dace Potas is an opinion columnist for Paste BN and a graduate of DePaul University with a degree in political science.