Mr. Trump is increasingly worried about the economy as he rolls into his 2020 reelection campaign, as he should be–it will likely determine his victory or defeat. To his political credit, he has so successfully enraged his Democratic opposition that they seem determined to be against anything he might say, and his very victory has emboldened progressives to push for radical and nasty rhetoric in response, as they believe that we are so polarized the key to success is just to mobilize the energy of your base. Centrists no longer matter. In 2016, the nation was given a choice between a corrupt and pretty far left Hillary Clinton and a narcissistic business man who used incendiary rhetoric while promising policies that were in many respects a consensus of centrist Democrats and Republicans as short as 20 years earlier.* That this was a hard choice for most Americans, left or right, is certain. Yet we are almost equally certain to have the same hard choice in 2020. Whether Mr. Trump is politically brilliant or the luckiest man alive, the Democrats will likely have a candidate that, in order to win the nomination, will have endorsed the most radical policy agenda that we have ever seen. It is a true fact that when Mr. Obama was elected, he came from the most far left of the elected political spectrum. Yet his positions will now seem moderate in comparison to whoever the 2020 nominee is. So once again, we will have a hard choice–do we embrace a man like Mr. Trump, who from a policy perspective gives us reasons to both applaud and condemn, or do we embrace the revolutionaries who want to overthrow the America that many of us have loved? My last assertion will undoubtedly be rejected by some, but many will see that as the choice.

So the economy will be the litmus test for his re-election, and since Mr. Trump has embraced the folly of trade wars as the path to American greatness, which I have warned about before, we have the economy slowing at just the wrong time. Today’s reports on Trumpian Tweets include:

President Trump on Monday called for the Federal Reserve to sharply cut interest rates and again criticized the central bank’s chairman for a “horrendous lack of vision,” while reiterating his belief that the U.S. economy is strong. The president said in a pair of tweets Monday morning that the Fed should cut its benchmark interest rate by at least a full percentage point and resume its crisis-era program of buying bonds to lower long-term borrowing costs. Such moves would typically be considered only when the economy faces serious peril, which Fed officials don’t believe to be the case.

Now I don’t blame Mr. Trump in this sense–there isn’t a politician alive that doesn’t want easy money going into an election cycle. And there isn’t a person alive that doesn’t have some strong temptation to blame someone else for their problems–its in our DNA. Politicians often resort to attacking foreigners for our problems (e.g., China will attack Japan for its vicious WWII crimes, Venezuela will blame the U.S. for the consequences of its own mismanagement, and we will blame China when we are strangling our economy). In most cases, the attacks have some basis in the truth–they have to be somewhat plausible for them to be effective. And as I argued the other day, Mr. Trump has a slight point that our interest rate policies are “tighter” than the rest of the world. Yet, by economic logic, when our economy is doing much better than the rest of the world’s, then our interest rates should be higher, as there are more good investment opportunities demanding scarce savings. So, Mr. Trump, you may just be the victim of your own success! But of necessity Mr. Trump must blame the Fed for our problems, all the while denying we have any problems!

But back to the question of recession, it’s undeniable that Mr. Trump’s trade wars are creating uncertainty, are changing trade patterns and investment flows (which Mr. Trump crows about), and not surprisingly, global growth is slowing. Mr. Trump is absolutely correct that the U.S. economy is stronger than the rest of the worlds, but he is incredibly incorrect in thinking that we are immune to what happens in the rest of the world. And if he loses the election because of a recession, his line that “trade wars are good and easy to win” will enter the category of not only economic nonsense but political suicide.

I’m out of time today, but I’ll return on the subject of recession soon. Whether the economy tanks or not is central to the question of Trump Term II, so we need to think about how likely this it. See you then!

* E.g. enforcing border controls, big infrastructure spending, entitlement spending left alone, strong defense, give the economy a deregulatory and tax boost, etc.