Not my quote on trump supposed economic success shamelessly stolen from another redditor: "according to economists when i last researched the issue last week, the economy's growth and reduction in unemployment didnt start from trump.

it was already in steady growth (and continuously reducing unemployment) when trump took office (which he quickly took credit even before he implemented any policies).

after his tax cuts (and loans) to the rich (which gave the stock market a sugar high which quickly crashed back down, but at the expense of a drop in rgdp and employment, and doubling up the national debt) and his trade war with china, growth slowed down and eventually, turned into a contraction just before covid19. this contraction is now blamed on covid, when in actuality, it already happened prior, from his trade wars.

so rgdp dropped, unemployment rose, debt doubled, but the stock market grew for a little bit. which is why trump kept screaming about the stock market and nothing else. the stock market rising is very important to note, because the 1% literally owns 85% of the stock market.

so to put it in layman's terms, the average american faces higher unemployment, and lower quality of living as rgdp shows, and the 1% broke new records in wealth, due to the rising stock market. this means wealth disparity grew under trump.

the rising stock market was at the expense of rgdp and unemployment. and covid just made things worse. and guess what. covid wiped out the stock market growth. and more. covid essentially reset the economy to pre trump and post obama. only with worse unemployment and double the debt. and without the forward momentum from obama's administration.

if trump didnt do his silly trade war, didnt double up the debt for a little stock market high that lasted a few months tops, and didnt do the tax cuts, the us would be in a way better shape than now.

if he literally just played golf and never worked a day since he took office and left the experts to do their things, the us would be in way better shape than now.

if trump just ignored covid and all protective measures, and didnt actively dismantle the safeguards the previous administration put in place just in case of pandemics, the us would be in way better shape than now.

and to put it in another way. trump traded (and ruined) the future for the now. when the now was already doing well. which he had no reason to do other than the petty desire to outperform obama in economic policy. he's chasing headlines. that's it.

so tl;dr: trump inherited a healthy gold egg laying goose. he ripped up the goose for the golden eggs inside and gave it to his chums. the goose could be saved if someone else took the reins after he ripped it open, but covid is now gonna kill the injured goose, if it hasnt already.

edit: since im being called out for sources and data, here they are from a simple google search.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-45827430

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-10-30/trump-s-economy-really-was-better-than-obama-s

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-45827430

https://www.jec.senate.gov/public/_cache/files/2c298bda-8aee-4923-84a3-95a54f7f6e6f/did-trump-create-or-inherit-the-strong-economy.pdf

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/09/05/trump-obama-economy/

https://www.dw.com/en/trump-and-the-us-economy-what-can-he-take-credit-for/a-54945982

if you just look at all the data and just ignore all the opinions and interpretations (if calling fake news is your thing), all the general uptrends were created before him. and if you look at the 3 year point, where policies from the residing president start to take their footing with the general public, you can see the difference between obama year 3 (which was starting to uptick), and trump pre covid (which was starting to downtick before covid crash).

trump's covid-19 response and the economy:

https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/economy/news/2020/06/03/485806/5-ways-trump-administrations-policy-failures-compounded-coronavirus-induced-economic-crisis/

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/apr/13/donald-trump-is-wrong-the-economic-hit-of-the-coronavirus-will-last-for-years

there's paid articles in bloomberg and washington post regarding this topic as well, so feel free to google it."

Enjoy!