President Barack Obama talks on the phone in the Oval Office, June 28, 2012. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)
Prior to 2009, all presidents had grown the economy at some point during their tenure by 3 percent. The wonder, exclaims Victor Davis Hanson, is that President Obama was the first modern president to figure out how not to do that.
It took the efforts of a 24/7 redistributionist agenda of tax increases, federalizing health care, massive new debt, layers of more regulation, zero-interest rates, neo-socialist regulatory appointments, expansionary eligibility for entitlements, and constant anti-free-market jawboning that created a psychological atmosphere conducive to real retrenchment, mental holding patterns, and legitimate fears over discernable success.
Obama weaponized federal agencies including the IRS, DOJ, and EPA in such a manner as to worry anyone successful, prominent, and conservative enough to come under the federal radar of a vindictive Lois Lerner, Eric Holder, or a FISA court.
Now along comes a President Trump—to the panic of Vanity Fair, NPR, The New Yorker, Google, the Upper West Side, The Daily Show, etc.—who is seeking to dismantle the redistributionist’s agenda “point by point.”
The initial result so far is not rocket science, but rather a natural expression of what happens when millions of Americans believe they have greater freedom and safety to profit and innovate, and trust they will not be punished, materially or psychologically, for the ensuing successful results. The radical upsurge in business and consumer confidence is not revolutionary but almost natural.
The Left and Never Trump Right claim that Trump is Stalin, Hitler, or Mussolini. In fact, for the first time in eight years, it is highly unlikely that the FBI, IRS, CIA, DOJ, and other alphabet-soup agencies see their tasks as going after the president’s perceived opponents.
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