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For Americans living through the recent months of crisis, some of the latest economic data may come as a surprise. Gross Domestic Product (G.D.P.) over the past six months remained far above what we could have achieved even a decade ago. Investors have driven key stock indexes back above their February peaks. But rarely have such economic indicators been so entirely beside the point. Seriously: Who cares?
What good does G.D.P. do, if people we love are falling seriously ill and dying in unprecedented numbers; if the rhythms of daily life vital to our happiness have gone haywire and our social connections have atrophied?
Typically shielded from such problems, the country’s professional class now finds itself experiencing a taste of the insecurity and anxiety that the working class has felt for decades: The dissolution of community; the suddenly prohibitive distances separating friends and family; the anger at experts selling ineffective, poorly planned schooling as adequate to their children’s needs.
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Is Trump About to Invite In the Biggest Predator in the World?
“If you look at my old speeches when I was young, very handsome,” President Trump said while announcing his “Liberation Day” tariffs last year, “I’d be on a television show. I’d be talking about how we were being ripped off.”
Josh Hawley Sees AI as a Binary Choice for the GOP
Hawley’s audience was roughly 500 people who filed into the National Building Museum in D.C. for a black-tie gala hosted by American Compass, a populist, new right think tank with deep ties to Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
Scott Bessent becomes chief salesman for Trump’s economic security pitch
Oren Cass, the founder and chief economist of American Compass, told the Washington Examiner that Bessent’s strength is communicating why “market policy people” should get on board with Trump’s platform, even though they’re effectively behind the exact economic norms the administration is trying to reverse.
