Nobody Knows the Troubles You’ve Seen

What to do about the booming Trump economy is a problem the Democrats have yet to solve. Democratic presidential candidates always want to run as though it is 1932 and their mission is to end a depression, but that is hard to do when employment is at record highs, wages are rising, and in general the economy is perhaps the strongest in American history. For the most part, the Democrats’ strategy has been to change the subject. They have gone from “It’s the economy, stupid” to “The economy? Who cares?”

But they can’t avoid the issue entirely. Media Post reports that the Democrats are readying a social media campaign intended to convince Americans that hard times are here again:

Priorities USA, the biggest Democratic Party super PAC, wants to publish stories on social media that highlight people’s economic struggles.

“This should be covered by local news, but local news is dying,” a Priorities USA spokesperson told Vice News. Any content that it pays for will be labeled as an ad.

The goal is to unseat President Trump by targeting voters in Michigan, Pennsylvania, Florida and Wisconsin that were critical to his 2016 victory. Priorities USA also will advertise in search results and create testimonial videos of people who feel left behind by the Trump economy, Politico reported.

That’s rich. If you want to talk about an economy that enriched the few while leaving most behind, you can start with Barack Obama’s record. In fact, the sense that most had been left behind in the slow-moving recovery from the 2009 recession was the principal reason why Donald Trump won the 2016 election.

So the Democrats think video testimonials on social media can convince voters that times are tough. You can’t blame them for trying, but this is one more example of what I think is the most striking feature of our current public life: for liberals, reality has become entirely optional.

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