EDITORIAL: The Trump economy continues to defy the naysayers

Making political forecasts in the age of Donald Trump is particularly perilous, as the vast majority of pundits discovered in 2016. But it’s hardly a stretch to predict that the 2020 presidential race will hinge on whether independent voters suffer more from Trump Fatigue or from an aversion to Trump Derangement Syndrome.

It would be in the president’s favor, then, that the consistent barrage of positive economic news may be an antidote for the former.

On Friday, various indicators highlighted that the American economy remains strong. “The U.S. labor market showed historic strength in April,” the Wall Street Journal noted over the weekend, “with employers hiring at a faster pace and the unemployment rate falling to a half-century low.”

In addition, economic expansion continues at about a 3 percent clip, a number many progressive observers claimed would be impossible to achieve. Recall that Obama White House and its defenders in left-wing economist circles insisted for eight years that stagnant growth was the “new normal.” Perhaps, regulatory and tax policies matter after all when it comes to boosting opportunity and promoting prosperity.

More good news: Wage growth is up, particularly for the unskilled. Overall, wages have increased 3.2 percent in each of the past two months when compared to the same time in 2017. “Low-income workers are actually seeing healthy wage gains — larger than everyone else’s,” The Associated Press noted.

The voters are indeed noticing. A Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll last week found that 51 percent of those surveyed gave Mr. Trump a thumbs-up on the economy. That’s up 7 percentage points from last year. The president is “making headway with select groups of Americans who disapprove of his job performance,” the Journal reported, “but are willing to credit him for a bustling economy.”

These developments no doubt inconvenience Democratic presidential hopefuls eager to attack the president for his tax cuts or administrative state reforms — particularly when virtually all the party’s candidates propose to be the anti-Trump and agitate for higher levies and a massive expansion of the federal bureaucracy.

“The Democrats who are fighting to deny the Republican president a second term are beginning to acknowledge the weight of their challenge,” the AP reported. “Since World War II, no incumbent president has lost a re-election bid in a growing economy.”

Of course, the irrelevance of historical precedence defines the Trump era. And the president has a tendency to neutralize his own advantages with his cavalier rhetoric and social media obsession. But 18 months in advance of the 2020 November balloting, the president’s economic successes may prove a useful tonic for those struggling with Trump Fatigue.