At CBS News, Michael Graham observes President Trump’s improved popularity numbers from a year ago, then asks and answers the question of why this is so. His answer mostly has to do with the President’s actions to improve employment opportunities for blue collar Americans.
You’ll remember President Obama told us those jobs were gone forever, we had to accept the new reality. By contrast, Candidate Trump said his different policies could bring those jobs back. President Trump proved Candidate Trump’s claims were correct and people rightly give him credit for their new jobs.
Increased employment in energy production and manufacturing has repatriated many tens of thousands of jobs. The economic multiplier effect of all those folks getting off the dole and onto payrolls employs many more.
It wouldn’t surprise me if the return of blue collar employment helped put a dent in the opioid dependency problem. Busy people who have a job to go to, and money they earned to spend, have far less time or reason to sit around feeling sorry for themselves while popping pills and far more reason to feel like contributing members of society, getting on with their lives.
Graham concludes by writing that probably, in the long run, Obama was right. However, as economist John Maynard Keynes famously said in rebuttal, “In the long run, we’re all dead.”
In the short to medium run relevant to people’s lives, President Trump was right. People give him credit for policies that brought their jobs, and their consequent feelings of self-worth, back.
