I was having a conversation with my brother a few weeks ago around the time when Elon Musk challenged Vladimir Putin to a physical fight on Twitter (just think: 20 years ago, nearly that entire sentence would have been inscrutable). My brother, knowing that I like Elon Musk, said that he thought Elon would get his ass kicked in such a match. I responded that Vladimir Putin is 69 years old to Elon Musk’s 50, and quite a bit shorter to boot. The tough guy image is a calculated manipulation of reality.
Yet, obviously, calculated manipulations of reality sometimes work.
Putin certainly doesn’t have a monopoly among world leaders on carefully crafting his personal brand. Whatever else you might say about him, our last president certainly also had a gift for projecting an image of himself that did not necessarily come anywhere close to real life.
Stand With Survivors: Legal Tools To Make A Real Difference This DVAM
Enhance your legal skills to advocate for survivors of intimate partner violence.
Yes, Donald Trump came off (to many) as the consummate businessman, despite winding up in the White House at the end of a decades-long string of bankruptcies, unpaid bills, legal liabilities, debts, feuds, and broken dreams. Thanks largely to his manicured (though inaccurate) image, one of the main things Trump’s voters thought America could get out of Trump as a business-savvy president was a lot more jobs.
And, during the first three years of Trump’s presidency, America did pretty well when it came to job growth. Not amazingly well, not historically well, but pretty well.
Then the fourth year, ouch. The U.S. economy shed millions of jobs in a matter of months in 2020.
Donald Trump can’t entirely be blamed for a global pandemic and the job losses directly related to that. But job growth was already slowing substantially under Trump even before the pandemic hit. Plus, given the ultimate job-creator persona Trump meticulously cultivated, it’s important to point out that the best years for job growth so far this century came under his predecessor and his successor.
Pursuing The Pro Bono Story: A Conversation With Alicia Aiken
This Pro Bono Week, get inspired to give back with PLI’s Pursuing Justice: The Pro Bono Files, a one-of-a-kind podcast hosted by Alicia Aiken.
The third-best year for annual job gains so far in the 21st century was 2015, when the U.S. economy added 2.7 million jobs under Barack Obama. The second-best year for annual job growth also came during Obama’s second term: more than 3 million jobs were created in 2014.
However, the absolute top year for job growth in America in more than two decades was last year. In 2021, under Joe Biden, the economy added a truly stunning 6.4 million jobs.
Job growth is still looking good for 2022. In March alone, nonfarm payroll employment rose by 431,000. I guess Biden is the real job growth president.
Even though the majority of this still-new century has seen a Republican in control of the White House — 12 years in total — neither George W. Bush nor Donald Trump was able to crack the top three years for job growth.
So, the next time someone claims to be voting for a Republican at the top of the ticket because they support job growth, maybe remind them that in all of recent history it’s been Democratic presidents who have been proven to be the best job creators. There can be lots of reasons to support a Republican presidential candidate over a Democrat, but let’s not allow buying into a false image of economic prowess — buying into a lie — be one of them.
Jonathan Wolf is a civil litigator and author of Your Debt-Free JD (affiliate link). He has taught legal writing, written for a wide variety of publications, and made it both his business and his pleasure to be financially and scientifically literate. Any views he expresses are probably pure gold, but are nonetheless solely his own and should not be attributed to any organization with which he is affiliated. He wouldn’t want to share the credit anyway. He can be reached at [email protected].