Reuters/Rick Wilking
- 2018 was another “Year of Trump”: he dominated the news as few of his predecessors have done.
- But by the end of his second year, the prospects that he would achieve his economic goals were in grave doubt as growth slowed and the stock market swooned.
- From 40 Republicans losing seats in the House of Representatives, to a worsening global outlook, below are 10 charts that reveal how politics and the economy fared under Trump in the past year.
By any measure, 2018 was another Year of Trump.
From his efforts to remake the American economy to his go-it-alone trade war to his curious pro-Putin foreign policy to the at least 17 investigations underway into his various activities, President Trump dominated the news as few of his predecessors have done.
But by the end of his second year, the prospects that he would achieve his economic goals were in grave doubt as growth slowed and the stock market swooned.
A 40-seat rebuke of an unpopular president
Steven Rattner
Since Inauguration Day, Mr. Trump’s approval rating, according to the monthly Gallup poll, has averaged 39 percent (a record low for a new president). Voters emphatically registered their disappointment in the midterm elections. As statistical analyses of past midterm elections have shown, the approval rating of the president is more closely correlated to midterm success than the state of the economy is.
This year was no exception. In the House of Representatives, Republicans lost 40 seats (or possibly 41; one race has yet to be called). Meanwhile, Democrats picked up seven governorships. Although the Democrats had a net loss of two seats in the Senate, not one Democrat running for the upper chamber in a state carried by Hillary Clinton lost, while Democrats won in seven states carried by Mr. Trump. Happily, all of this occurred in the context of the highest turnout of eligible voters since 1914.
Alarming churn in the White House
Steven Rattner
As the departure of Defense Secretary Jim Mattis illustrated, the chaos at the Trump White House is striking relative to past presidents. In two years, 65 percent of the president’s most senior aides have departed. That’s the highest of any president since Ronald Reagan, and it’s similar to the turnover experienced by many of Mr. Trump’s predecessors over an entire four-year term. (President Barack Obama had the lowest turnover, at 24 percent.)
Other fun facts: Mr. Trump has had five communications directors, and with the appointment of Mick Mulvaney as acting chief of staff, Mr. Trump has now had three, a record for the first two years of an administration. Mr. Trump has seen 10 departures from his cabinet, compared to four for Mr. Obama and one for President George W. Bush.
Another boast debunked
Courtesy of Steven Rattner
“I will be the greatest jobs producer that God ever created.”
— Donald Trump shortly after the 2016 election
Mr. Trump takes to Twitter frequently to extol the pace of job growth, which has, indeed, been solid. The problem with Mr. Trump’s victory lap is that job growth during his administration has been slightly slower than it was during the last 22 months of Mr. Obama’s tenure: 4.2 million Americans hired under Mr. Trump versus 4.8 million under Mr. Obama. More worrisome is that Mr. Trump’s policies have done little to help manufacturing workers, whose votes in key states helped elect him; their share of total employment has not improved.
See the rest of the story at Business Insider
See Also:
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- Americans are afraid of China, but most Americans know nothing about the average Chinese citizen.
- From corncobs to cosmonauts, here’s a look some of the holiday ornaments that were popular in the Soviet Union when Christmas was banned
