Trump’s Attack On The Economy Is An Opportunity

Fight, you sorry motherfuckers

comic by Grant Morrison and Howard Porter

According to data analyst G. Elliott Morris, Trump’s current net approval rating on inflation is -26. His rating on the economy is -15.6. His overall rating is -8.3; his best numbers are still on immigration, where his numbers have recovered from their low of -2; he’s now just above water (+1.)

Confronted with these numbers, there are a couple possible approaches for Democrats to take as we edge towards midterms.

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First, we could take the Gavin Newsom/Chuck Schumer approach, and try to avoid talking about immigration, or trans issues, or anything except the economy and inflation. Trump’s approval is, after all, lowest on these issues; why not exploit that? If anyone asks you what you think about Trump murdering 25 million people globally with aid cuts, or about the trans military ban, or about Trump deporting US citizens, just say it’s a distraction, and talk about the tariffs and the price of eggs. Polls say people hate Trump’s economy, so only talk about the economy. Keep people focused on the one thing and you’ll win the midterms. Hurrah!

Alternately, we could try something different. Trump’s approval has plummeted. That seems to be led by terror of what he’s doing with the economy, but it doesn’t just affect the economy. His numbers on immigration have nose-dived; his general approval is bad too.

Rather than focusing solely on where Trump is weakest, this could be a moment to remind the American people of all the shitty policies associated with this terrible president they hate. For example, we could tell people that hatred of immigrants and mass deportation policies harms small businesses and contributes to that shit economy they are unhappy about. We could tell them that the president who is indifferent to their economic suffering also wants them to die of cancer, traumatic brain injury, and food poisoning. We could point out that Trump wants to imprison and terrorize into silence people who dare to object to the policies that are impoverishing the public.

We could, in short, tar the entire Republican agenda of hatred, deregulation, and fascism by pointing out that it is the agenda of the same guy who is doing a speedrun towards stagflation while telling people we should all be happy they’ve lost their jobs.

Obviously I prefer the second, now-coward, non Gavin Newsom approach. This is in part because fuck Gavin Newsom. But also I think, aside from the advantage of not being associated with Gavin Newsom, the pushback-on-everything approach has a couple of other upsides.

For one, “it’s all connected” is the truth. Trump’s christofascist patriarchy is indistinguishable from a regime that blindly follows its leaders shit tariff policies off a cliff. Fascism is hate; fascism is obedience. Trump wants you to die for Darkseid, whether via tariffs or via climate collapse or (if you happen to be trans or Black or an immigrant) via pogroms. Explaining to people that fascism is a single giant bolus of shit and pus is the job of the opposition. It is what being the opposition means.

Second, defeating fascism means confronting hate. You might be able to win a seat or two in Congress by just repeating over and over that the price of eggs is up. But as we saw in 2024, winning an election or two is not enough to defeat fascism. You can’t rely on simply winning every election; the nature of elections means that sometimes you lose. You need to create a consensus against fascism which allows you to ruthlessly prosecute fascist individuals and destroy fascist institutions when you have power. You need to convince people that investing in community and creating abundance for all is vital if we are going to keep people like Trump and MAGA from destroying democracy…and keep them from destroying the economy.

Winning elections is important. But focusing solely on winning elections with the narrowest argument possible is not going to save our democracy. Nor will it create a healthy and functional society. We need a Democratic party, and a progressive movement, that is more ambitious, and which sees Trump’s cratering approval as an opportunity to win not just on one issue, and not just tomorrow, but on everything, and long term.

If we do not stop fascism, the crisis we are facing now will never end. That’s a message the public, and the Democratic party, needs to hear and understand.