The leadup to the 2024 presidential season has been an interesting one, for a couple of reasons. The primary candidate for the Republican nomination is currently under indictment for more than 90 felonies, the Democratic incumbent is the first octogenarian in the White House, and Donald Trump, despite the fact that he is the frontrunner for the RNC, has not showed up to a single debate with the other primary candidates.
Attack Speech All Around
This campaign has also been full of the same type of attack speech between parties that seems to have become the norm for American presidential elections. Across different levels of government and different races, candidates are more likely to talk about what their opponent is doing wrong rather than what they are personally doing right.
Donald Trump is no exception. His campaign has hinged on reliving the “glory days” of his first term as president, as well as slamming Joe Biden for what Trump perceives as his failings. His rhetoric is inflammatory and insidious, but every now and then a comment will come from Trump that makes people think twice.
Comments on Lindell’s Network
The most recent comment of this type came during an interview that Trump did on MyPillow’s CEO, Mike Lindell’s, TV network. He stated that he hoped that, if the American economy is going to crash, that he would prefer if it happened in the next twelve months, prior to his potential second term as president.
This comment would be shocking on its own, but Trump continued to double down. He went on to say that if he were elected for president for a second term, that he wouldn’t want to be like Herbert Hoover, who was elected into office ahead of the Great Depression.
Shocking, Even For Trump
People who heard these comments were stunned. After all, it isn’t often that you hear a candidate for president hoping that the economy that he wants to manage will fail ahead of his term, so that he doesn’t have to deal with the consequences.
Trump’s comments come in the wake of economic and job numbers from Q4 of 2023 that reveal the flip of his attitude. Trump’s comments imply that the economy isn’t doing well, but the numbers suggest otherwise. The economy is doing remarkably well given the country’s gradual recovery from the coronavirus pandemic, but American sentiment hasn’t caught up with the numbers.
A White House Response
The White House was quick to respond to Trump’s comments, presenting the numbers from the most recent jobs report. Press Secretary Andrew Bates stated that consumer sentiment is rising in the wake of increasingly strong job creation and economic growth, contrary to what many polls are currently saying.
He then went on to attack Trump’s comments personally, stating that the job of the Commander in Chief is always to put the American people first. Hoping that hard-working families suffer economic hardship in order to reap political gain is inherently anti-American, as the White House strongly stated, condemning Trump for his comments.
Enter the DNC
The White House’s response was strong, and the mainstream media latched onto Trump’s inflammatory comments even more. But the most surprising reaction of all came from an unlikely source: the Democratic National Convention.
The Biden campaign seized on Trump’s comments in order to point out the upsides of Bidenomics and how well the economy is truly doing, but the DNC took the comments one step further.
A DNC-Sponsored Attack Ad
The DNC created an attack ad, but they didn’t play it on television and the radio like other attack ads. Instead, they devised a mobile billboard, and they set it to drive in circles around the Fox News studio, where they were holding a town hall that would feature Donald Trump.
This bold move showcases how strongly many of the establishment feel about a second Trump presidency. Many believe that a second Trump presidency would be existential for the state of Democracy in America, and the DNC is clearly doing everything in their power to thwart any chance at Trump making it back to the White House.
The Ad Had Strong Things to Say
The content of the ad was stunning in itself. It was a strongly worded and structured ad, using Trump’s comments about the economy and Herbert Hoover as a backdrop to discuss the numbers from Trump’s four-year term as president.
The ad states that Trump had the worst numbers of any modern president on the economy, being the only president in the last fifty years to leave the office with fewer jobs in the country than he started out as. The argument has been made for the pandemic and the havoc that it wreaked on the economy, but the DNC ad firmly states that the pandemic was only one factor.
Morning Joe Confirming Trump’s Fears
The ad then uses clips from a segment of “Morning Joe,” where the host Joe Scarborough states that as far as the economy goes, Trump was the worst president since Herbert Hoover, even without an economic crash looming.
The DNC gets to the heart of Trump’s comments, and lambasts him for putting his own personal interests ahead of the American people. Trump’s comments are based entirely in the fact that his ego cannot handle the thought of looking bad in front of the American public, and in stating them aloud, he’s ultimately made himself look worse.
Months to the Election
Of course, there are still months to go before the election, and while the economy is doing great currently, it’s impossible to predict where things will be in three months, or six months, or even a year. Trump’s comments are self-serving, but they bring up a real fear of many Americans.
So while the DNC attack ad and many of the Biden administration ad’s have done their best to convince the American public that the economy is doing as well as the numbers say, there’s still a long way to go. Trump’s comments reflect the fear of many, and no number of attack ads will stop Americans from voting with their fear, and their wallets if the time comes.
