Americans: We’re Broke. Donald Trump: No, You’re Not.
Donald Trump and the Republicans are insisting the economy is great and unhappy Americans are deluded. Just like Democrats under Joe Biden, they’re lying to themselves and everyone else — and will eventually pay the price.

Donald Trump’s strategy of telling Americans that everything about their economic prospects is rosy while they repeatedly state that they’re suffering in an unaffordable economy is a tried-and-true recipe for failure. Just ask Joe Biden. (Jim Watson / AFP via Getty Images)
Not long ago, when Joe Biden was running the show, I pointed out again and again (and again) that countless metrics showed Americans were not having a good time economically, and that Democrats fixating on glowing macroeconomic stats and telling themselves the public was deluded would not change this — in fact, that it would eventually lead the party to political ruin. This was exactly what happened, as Donald Trump and the Republicans rode the wave of public discontent with the economy to the White House and control of Congress.
Now it’s Trump and the GOP who are repeating the exact same mistake that led Democrats to lose to them two years ago.
“Look in their heart of hearts, they feel good,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent recently said when asked about Americans’ dismal view of the US economy. “I’m not sure what they’re telling the survey people.”