The reason he is starting to be embraced by both sides, Democratic and Republican, is because with the small changes Donald Trump has made his policies now benefit the Washington elite that he decries. Giving large tax breaks to the ultra high income earners and lower tax rates on investments makes the ultra wealthy more money. In turn, they will have more money to give to the political elite to get more power.
While Donald Trump’s message is that he will bring back jobs to the blue collar middle class, his policies in the end will only help far less than .1% of the population at best. The ultra rich and the tiny number of jobs that he is able to strong arm into staying here will benefit. Those jobs are a statistical blip compared to the help that broader policy reforms could bring.
If Donald Trump increases GDP by 20% in a year and revitalizes the American manufacturing sector I will have been proved completely wrong.
The current estimation is that we’ll see GDP based on PPP per capita hit around $68,000 before Trump leaves office. If we blow that out of the water he has done well for the country. If we don’t hit that, he had a negative impact. I am obviously hoping that I am completely wrong and we rewrite all the books on how the economy works, but I don’t foresee that being the case.
The current manufacturing sector is trending slightly up with 12,260,000 people working in the manufacturing sector as of November 2016. What would be a win here for Trump? The peak of the manufacturing sector was close to 20,000,000 employees, so if Trump brings in 8,000,000 new manufacturing jobs that would fit his rhetoric. If he adds 1,000,000 jobs and we are looking at 14,000,000 employed in the sector I would be shocked and extremely happy.
I foresee a widening wealth gap, recession, an even more tepid recovery, and opportunist politicians who stop the bleeding through things we already know. Not only will they benefit because of their donors, but it will advance their careers if they position themselves right. They can ride the upswing of Trump and his hopey changey dreams at the same time as creating a new “upswing” when they level off the disaster that he causes.