How Trump Inoculated Himself Against Economic Failure—and What We Can Do About It

Presidents Eventually Own Their Bad Economy -- but Trump Will Get a Pass

I. The False Hope I’ve Been Holding Onto

True confession. I will admit that I’ve been waiting— patiently, quietly, with a touch of guilt—for the moment when economic accountability would break the Trump fever. I’ve been waiting for the moment when the tariffs, the erratic markets, the global isolationism, and the investor jitters would finally coalesce and cause widespread misery, and in doing that create pain that would restore some measure of clarity and sanity to the American electorate. I didn’t wish for suffering, but I held out hope that it would act like a cold slap in the face—a shock strong enough to shake people loose from the cultish haze and remind them that reality still matters.

But this week, reading Mike Brock’s analysis, I was the one who got a cold slap in the face. I realized that I need to accept the likely reality that this particular hope—the one I’d been holding onto in secret—is probably misplaced. Yes, the economic storm will likely come, the pain will likely deepen, but the fever might not break. Because Donald Trump has spent the last decade building something powerful and dangerous: a complete psychological firewall against blame.

And enough people buy it.

II. How Trump Became Immune to Accountability

Here’s the basic political truth we’ve all taken for granted: presidents, eventually, own the economy. If things are good, they benefit. If things go south, they get blamed. But that framework assumes at least a somewhat reality-based political culture—one where cause and effect are still legible, and leaders are broadly judged, however imperfectly, by results.

That’s over on Earth 1. On Earth 2, where we all live now, (MAGAEARTH), Trump seems to be immune from that kind of accountability. Brock put it succinctly: when Trump’s policies trigger economic hardship (as they almost certainly will), that hardship won’t be interpreted as failure. It will be seen as punishment—as proof that the world is persecuting a righteous man who dared to stand up for America. It won’t be, “Trump’s tariffs caused prices to rise.” It’ll be, “The Chinese are retaliating because Trump won’t let them walk all over us anymore.” It won’t be, “His immigration dragnet destabilized industries.” It’ll be, “The globalists are sabotaging us because Trump is cleaning house.”

This isn’t a fringe interpretation. It’s the default narrative now for tens of millions of Americans: Trump is never the problem. He is always the victim—or the avenger.

That creates a feedback loop: the more chaos his policies create, the more justified he seems to those who believe he's under siege. And the more the world pushes back, the more proof they see that he’s right.

And that, tragically, is how you get an authoritarian narrative that can survive failure. That’s how you get a leader who can run the economy into the ground—and still win a third term, if he engineers a way to. (Which he will certainly try to do.)

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III. So What Do We Do?

Hell if I know. I can see the problem — I can see it coming at us like a freight train. But how to fix it? Is it even fixable. I feel a need to at least try to figure it out, if only to preserve some measure of sanity—and a tiny sliver of hope. I don’t think we can reason people out of something they weren’t reasoned into. But maybe, maybe, we can touch something else. Or am I dreaming? I started out thinking I could do a list of “things to do” but it’s turning out to be a short list because again and again, I contemplate and idea and reject it: “That won’t work….that won’t work…that won’t work.” It’s a knotty problem.

So here are two ideas which is about all I’ve got. I welcome more. These are things that people who write on substack or other similar venues….or Facebook, IG, whereever….might consider trying.

1. It’s About Emotion, Not Logic: Lift Up the Voices Who Feel the Pain

Not pundits. Not policy wonks. People. Farmers who lost their export markets. Families crushed by surprise fines and deportation raids. Small-town mayors watching their hospitals bleed out. Military veterans whose old allies won’t return their calls. Help them tell their stories—not as “gotchas,” not to dunk on anyone, but to show the quiet cost of this chaos. If you're working in journalism, storytelling, podcasting, TikTok, Instagram—this is where you can move the needle. You might write ten of these stories and nothing happens. Then one hits. It cracks open something. It goes viral. Or maybe it's the slow drip, the cumulative weight of it all that moves people one inch closer to reality. This is not about trying to win arguments. It’s about building empathy. And neighbors still trust neighbors, even when they don’t trust the news.

2. Break the Cycle of “Persecution Exceptionalism”

One of the most insidious parts of Trump’s narrative is the idea that America is uniquely under siege—and he alone is strong enough to defend her. This belief feeds on inverted exceptionalism: that the world isn’t jealous of us anymore, it’s punishing us. That every leader before him—Democrat or Republican—was weak, and Trump is the first to see it clearly. If you follow this logic, America’s only two historical options are humiliation or revenge.

It’s seductive. It’s grievance in patriotic drag. And to break it, it’s necessary to build an effective counter-story—not to shout "We're not victims!" but to reframe what strength and dignity actually look like. Maybe we need to mock the absurdity. Maybe we need to reassert a different kind of American pride—one rooted in resilience and community, not bombast and bullying. But we can’t ignore it or wish it away. This has to be part of the fight.

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Bottom Line: If Reality Won’t Break the Spell, Humanity Might

Facts alone are going to save the situation. Analysis is not going to save it. Rational persuasion is not going to save it. This situation exists in the narrative terrain. It’s about emotional oxygen. It’s about competing myths. It’s storytelling now, as much as politics. I hate on one level to say that because it suggests it’s all about who tells the best story. But …. it’s where we are. It’s time to get creative. To stay human. To focus on empathy, nor argument. To stop hoping the economy will fix what only we can fix.

I wish I had more to offer. As we used to say at the end of difficult cable messages in CIA from the field to Headquarters: “Welcome comments.”