How Trump Survives

The litany has been repeated so often that it’s easy to recite: The walls are closing in on Donald Trump, person x or y or z is going to bring him down, it’s only a matter of time before he is caught or exposed or loses his base of support and driven from public life. The phrases sound out from our cable channels. We see them in newspaper headlines and in our Twitter timelines. This time Trump has gone too far. The end is near. Take that, Drumpf!

What is forgotten is that the president has operated in this atmosphere of emergency and crisis and imminent doom since he announced his campaign. No matter how dire the outcry, he moves on. His political standing remains stable. At the end of last week, after Manafort and Cohen, after Trump found himself on the receiving end of the reality-politics playbook, NBC News and the Wall Street Journal polled his job approval. There was no appreciable change.

Why? The most important reason has to be the remarkable state of the American economy. On Election Day 2016, the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed at 18,332.43. On August 29, it closed at 26,124.57. That is an increase of some 40 percent. Other indices show similar gains. Growth in GDP went from 1.5 percent in 2016 to 2.3 percent in 2017 and, helped by the excellent 4.2 percent number in the second quarter, is forecast for around 3 percent in 2018.

The jobs engine is humming. Unemployment is at 3.9 percent, with record lows among minorities. Workers say they are satisfied with their jobs at the highest rate since 2005. For good reason: Both median household income and per capita disposable income are at all-time highs. Consumers are spending. Confidence is near an 18-year high. According to the Harvard-Harris poll, 85 percent of blue-collar workers say things are headed in the right direction.

The fact that presidents are not responsible for the economy does not stop the public from assigning them blame or credit. And Trump deserves some credit. His pro-business attitude stirs the bulls’ animal spirits. His deregulatory and tax policies contribute to growth. Trump understands that he is riding the bull — and that his following will be strong for the duration of the journey.