Trump’s Presidency Was a Huge Mess

Matthew Yglesias: “On the economy, Trumpstalgics say that what matters is that the results were fine, even if the ideas espoused (like funding the entire government with tariffs) were often unsound. But on Covid, Trumpstalgics say that what matters is that he espoused the right ideas (in this case, being less cautious), even if he was completely inefficacious in delivering results.”

“Biden gets no credit for rapid job growth, because that was just the natural unwinding of Covid-era unemployment, but he is personally to blame for every cent of inflation, which is somehow totally unrelated to that unwinding. And the unemployment itself wasn’t Trump’s fault, because it was the virus that caused the collapse of the labor market, but Trump — rather than the aforementioned collapse of the labor market — deserves credit for the temporary halt in the flow of asylum claims.”

“It genuinely makes no sense! And it’s worth taking a break from wrangling over whether January 6 was technically an insurrection or exactly what Trump meant when he suggested using disinfectant on people’s lungs, and zooming out to the part where he was overall bad at the job.”