Trump Delegates Can't Believe How Terrible The Economy Is For Everyone But Them

The REAL numbers are far worse, like when you include retired people and children!

If there's anything that brings Trump supporters together, it's the absolute certainty that the economy is in the toilet and it's ALL OBAMA'S FAULT. Oh, sure you can show them charts showing 76 straight months of economic growth since the recovery began, or point out that the private sector has added 14.8 million jobs in the same period, but they know the Department of Labor is lying about all that. The economy is stagnant, or maybe already in a depression, because of the heavy hand of taxation and regulation. Don't you even watch Fox News?

Funny thing about most of the delegates to the RNC: turns out most of them think the national USA America economy as a whole is in terrible shape, but they're also really happy with the economy wherever they're from, according to Politico Magazine's Michael Grunwald, who found they know for a fact that Barack Obama has wrecked America, but GOP delegates' own cities and states are doing great because of wise Republican leadership where they live. It's a terrific, crazy-making read:

Just as most Americans say they hate Congress but routinely vote for their local congressmen, most Republicans seem to detect a national economic malaise while — with some exceptions in places like coal country and the oil patch — touting the economic progress in their local communities. They square that circle in a variety of ways — crediting their Republican mayors and governors, accusing Obama of manipulating data, or citing legitimate weaknesses in the recovery from the Great Recession.

Grunwald found some remarkably upbeat GOP delegates who say things couldn't be better -- no thanks to Barack Obama, who murdered jobs and growth everywhere but where they can see it themselves.

“Actually, we’re doing great,” says Donna Gottschall, a human resources consultant in Greenville, S.C. “Employment’s up. Housing’s up. Everything’s green in Greenville!”

“Oh, yeah, unemployment is way down,” says Al Baldasaro, a state legislator and retired Marine from Londonderry, N.H. “Obviously, it’s gotten better.”

“Things are wonderful in our town,” says Ranae Lentz, a Republican county chair from Bellefontaine, Ohio. “We can’t fill all the job openings.”

Uh-huh. And the national economy is a shambles, they're convinced. As a case study, says Grunwald, look no further than the top of the ticket. When Donald Trump explained why he chose Mike Pence for his running mate -- as long as he doesn't talk too much on his own -- Trump said the "primary reason" for going with Pence was Indiana's economic growth, with an amazing 3.4 percent drop in unemployment. Which is perfectly in line with national trends, but an economic miracle in states run by Republican governors. Also, global warming has to be a myth because it still snows in December.

The confirmation bias on display in the folks Grunwald talked to is phenomenal. One woman explained Iowa was doing well because "Iowans work hard" and "there's a lot of real pride in the Midwest." After all, they've got a Republican governor and those real American small-town values. Tina Harris, a delegate from Florida who's a realtor, said it's terrific the housing market is booming again, but she worried that people were taking money out of their 401(k) accounts to buy houses, because that means the "real economy" must be suffering -- never mind that the stock market is booming right along. So did Barack Obama have anything to do with the economic recovery? Aw hell nah: “I’m not saying everything is horrible,” Harris said. “But it was George W. Bush who put in the policies that got the economy going. Obama did nothing.”

That lazy bastard. At least Grunwald didn't meet anyone who blamed Obama for Hurricane Katrina. 

To explain why they're doing just fine while the rest of the nation is presumably in the sewer, the delegates turned to the knowledge they've picked up from Trump, Fox, and other rightwing sources:

Again and again, delegates said they didn’t trust the official unemployment figures, or that the “labor participation rate” (which has declined under Obama, largely because of baby boomers retiring) is more important, or that the new jobs are only part-time, when in fact part-time employment has been flat. But there also was reality-based concern about stagnant wages and tepid growth, problems that Hillary Clinton and especially Bernie Sanders have also discussed, as well as some principled ideological disagreement with Obama’s tax increases on upper-income earners and stepped-up environmental and financial regulations.

There's a nice Texas farmer who thinks the state's doing great, but that Obama's banking regulations have made it next to impossible for young fellers just starting out to get a loan, since banks are now too quick to foreclose rather than let iffy loans ride while troubled borrowers work things out. You know, the people who'd be deadbeats that never should have gotten a loan in the first place if they weren't nice local Texas boys:

“We’re seeing wonderful young men, the first in church on Sunday and the first in the fields on Monday, they miss their first crop and the banks have to take their land,” Harris said. “It’s overregulation, and it’s killing us. Every country that goes down the socialist track fails, and Obama has done that on steroids.”

Yup: Banks strictly requiring people to pay back their loans is socialism. Gotta love that Party of Personal Responsibility -- with an asterisk demanding breaks for "people like us." While he was at it, the Texan dude also complained about the strength and weakness of the dollar at the same time: The Fed has made our money worthless, and he can't sell his cotton overseas because the dollar is too strong.

Try not to be too shocked at Grunwald's observation that most of the delegates' "economic" complaints about Obama really boil down to culture-war stuff: Obama is out of touch with real America because he's not a real American, too urban, too elitist, too cosmopolitan:

In fact, the most common economic critiques I heard from delegates -- more common than taxes, trade, unemployment, the national debt, or immigration — were variants of Mitt Romney’s “free stuff” critique of Obama, the notion that Obama is expanding the welfare state for lazy moochers. They said Obamacare is increasing premiums for the middle class, although premiums actually are growing more slowly than they were before Obamacare, in order to extend insurance to the poor.

Never would have seen that coming! And as Grunwald points out, it's "a Republican article of faith that [Obama's] policies couldn’t work -- and therefore haven’t worked."

Damn that Obama -- if it weren't for him and all his socialism, the rest of the country's economy could be doing as well as it is in the isolated pockets where these GOP delegates are from. Which are all over the country. Maybe when Donald Trump is in office and isn't afraid to say the politically incorrect truth -- that the lazy moochers are dragging hard-working white people down -- this country will finally see a real economic recovery. All we need to do is start drug-testing welfare recipients and cut some taxes,so America can be America again.

[ Politico ]