It’s a popular talking point from the Left.
They argue that former President Donald Trump’s economy was terrible because tons of people were out of work in 2020.
It’s also the unstated premise every time President Joe Biden or his proxies claim he created tons of jobs. See, for instance, a Center for American Progress writer’s comment on “Biden’s Job Boom”: “The labor market has added 7.9 million jobs since President Joe Biden took office in January 2021.”
Or see Biden’s tweets:
This is, of course, misleading. I think it’s also shameful.
A lot of jobs were lost in 2020 because the COVID pandemic triggered massive lockdowns and closures.
Trump did not cause the COVID pandemic. He did encourage businesses to close, he did push states to lock down, and he did sign lots of legislation designed to keep people and businesses afloat while nobody was working.
That is, Trump supported and advanced policies that caused employment to tank, and he did that in an effort to slow the spread of COVID.
If you hated the lockdowns, or think that they were too draconian, then you have standing to attack Trump for the economy in 2020.
But liberals criticized Trump for not locking things down more and longer. Biden’s Democratic National Committee attacked Trump for calling on schools to reopen in the fall. If they had their way, the economy would have been worse at the end of 2020 than it was.
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And here’s why it’s not just misleading but downright disgraceful for liberals to attack Trump for the lockdown economy: Trump and liberals both believed that inflicting economic harm on the country in 2020 was the right thing to do because it saved lives.
We were endlessly told that we were “sacrificing” to save lives. Trump, in this way of thinking, sacrificed the economy to save lives. Liberals are repaying him for this sacrifice by attacking him for it. It’s truly shameful.