Form vs Substance in politics
- Thread starter Jon
- Start date
I honestly think that in this specific case, if he had been ANY type of politician at all, he would never been elected. His "charm" (???????) comes from the fact that he was / is clearly a political outsider. I think the country was tired of the "same-old same-old" political shenanigans that we had seen for too long. He has a lot of dust to sweep out of those closets and I don't know if he will get the chance for a second term. But given the way the current Democratic melee is going, he just might.
I don't know if this was a serious question or not, but I have not seen much substance with Trump. Sure, Obama was extremely smooth, probably the coolest president ever, but his substance was lauded by Colin Powell, a Republican.
What substance does a US president have when his skin is as thin as 1-ply toilet paper, and he can be easily manipulated by foreign actors?
What substance does a US president have when his skin is as thin as 1-ply toilet paper, and he can be easily manipulated by foreign actors?
We need some evidence for this. The Mueller report showed no collusion.
If you watch CNN, you will not see what Trump has done because it is against their political agenda. I think it was a Harvard study that showed CNN covers 95% negative Trump topics. i.e. they give very little airtime to anything positive he does.
You can looking at the ragingly successful economy with record low unemployment and growth rates if you want substance. You can look at the improved tariff deals that were renegotiated with other countries. You can look at ending ISIS. How about the huge amount of red tape that has been cut? Slashing of tax bills. Increased domestic manufacturing. Maybe you feel that is not substance. To me it is.
If you watch CNN, you will not see what Trump has done because it is against their political agenda. I think it was a Harvard study that showed CNN covers 95% negative Trump topics. i.e. they give very little airtime to anything positive he does.
You can looking at the ragingly successful economy with record low unemployment and growth rates if you want substance. You can look at the improved tariff deals that were renegotiated with other countries. You can look at ending ISIS. How about the huge amount of red tape that has been cut? Slashing of tax bills. Increased domestic manufacturing. Maybe you feel that is not substance. To me it is.
I think the evidence is apparent when you see Trump being unable to stand up to Putin. Check out the video where a journalist asks him "would you now, with the whole world watching, tell president Putin, that you denounce what happened in 2016" and Trump backs down because Putin is next to him, essentially going a different way from what US intelligence had told him. Trump: "I don't see any reason why it would be [Russia]". A day after that conference (when Putin was nowhere near him) he said he had misspoken and he actually meant "I don't see any reason why it wouldn't be Russia".
First video
Second video
Come on
Agreed. I think media orgs such as Washington Post and CNN have made attacking Trump their mission, and take every chance they get to point out anything negative about him. They probably lost some objectivity when, at the beginning, Trump labelled them 'fake news' and it's gone downhill ever since.
Some of these points would broadly fall under changes that any conservative administration would work towards. I would question the economy bit, which has been in an uptrend since the Obama days, and the ISIS bit, which is driven by intelligence and military action, no matter who's in charge.
First video
Second video
Come on
Agreed. I think media orgs such as Washington Post and CNN have made attacking Trump their mission, and take every chance they get to point out anything negative about him. They probably lost some objectivity when, at the beginning, Trump labelled them 'fake news' and it's gone downhill ever since.
Some of these points would broadly fall under changes that any conservative administration would work towards. I would question the economy bit, which has been in an uptrend since the Obama days, and the ISIS bit, which is driven by intelligence and military action, no matter who's in charge.
There could be multiple reasons for his comment, but why just take the most negative interpretation instead of thinking it through, and considering other reasons? Genuine mistaken speech. I can show many by Obama if you like. Or, it can be he is looking at the bigger picture. Create a relationship with Putin, potentially reducing the risk of adversarial conflict. Besides, whatever Trump said in that moment, where is the evidence of being manipulated by foreign actors? What did they manipulate Trump to do? Was Trump expelling 60 Russian diplomats caving into Putin? I see Obama expelled 35, Trump expelled 60. Who took the bigger action? is this evidence of Obama caving in to Putin? What about the off-mic moment between Obama and the Russian President Medevev?
CNN never had objectivity. Most media outlets are owned by Democrat supporting owners.
You have discounted the substance, because other conservative administrations may focus on similar issues. Is it rational to say Trump has no substance and then discount things of substance he has done, because other conservatives might have tackled the same issues?
Trump has more substance that most of the previous presidents, because he has a thick skin, tackles the thorniest of issues, is a disrupter and goes in like a recking ball, tearing up previous agreements in order to forge a better deal for America.
If you want to discount the economy and suggest it was due to Obama, are you suggesting record growth, lowest unemployment for Blacks ever, lowest for Women in 60 years has nothing to do with Trump? Trump massively changed the economic landscape. He slashed corporation tax from 35% to 21%, cut income tax, improved tariffs, cut red tape and made America a much better place for manufacturing. These are considerable changes for business. He tore up what Obama did. The Democrats said his policies were going to be a financial disaster. When it did the opposite of their predictions, they said it was because of Obama. You can't have it both ways. Besides, gentle uptrends vs record economic growth are two different things.
ISIS was defeated quickly because Trump changed the policy of trying to have centralised decision making in the US and delegating it out to people nearer the location. They could make more appropriate decisions and faster. The generals said this policy change made a significant difference, going from fighting ISIS for years, and defeating them within one year of being elected, at least that is my recollection of events. Was a while back.
If what I have said above does not sit well, I ask you to read the exact same words, but in a text editor, use find and replace, changing Trump to Obama and Obama to Trump. You might get a different perspective. It helps remove any bias against a person from influencing perceptions about what they have achieved. Instead of using Obama for Trump, you could also use Nelson Mandela, or Gandhi if you like.
CNN never had objectivity. Most media outlets are owned by Democrat supporting owners.
You have discounted the substance, because other conservative administrations may focus on similar issues. Is it rational to say Trump has no substance and then discount things of substance he has done, because other conservatives might have tackled the same issues?
Trump has more substance that most of the previous presidents, because he has a thick skin, tackles the thorniest of issues, is a disrupter and goes in like a recking ball, tearing up previous agreements in order to forge a better deal for America.
If you want to discount the economy and suggest it was due to Obama, are you suggesting record growth, lowest unemployment for Blacks ever, lowest for Women in 60 years has nothing to do with Trump? Trump massively changed the economic landscape. He slashed corporation tax from 35% to 21%, cut income tax, improved tariffs, cut red tape and made America a much better place for manufacturing. These are considerable changes for business. He tore up what Obama did. The Democrats said his policies were going to be a financial disaster. When it did the opposite of their predictions, they said it was because of Obama. You can't have it both ways. Besides, gentle uptrends vs record economic growth are two different things.
ISIS was defeated quickly because Trump changed the policy of trying to have centralised decision making in the US and delegating it out to people nearer the location. They could make more appropriate decisions and faster. The generals said this policy change made a significant difference, going from fighting ISIS for years, and defeating them within one year of being elected, at least that is my recollection of events. Was a while back.
If what I have said above does not sit well, I ask you to read the exact same words, but in a text editor, use find and replace, changing Trump to Obama and Obama to Trump. You might get a different perspective. It helps remove any bias against a person from influencing perceptions about what they have achieved. Instead of using Obama for Trump, you could also use Nelson Mandela, or Gandhi if you like.
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That is an optimistic view, at best. Putin is not the kind of guy likely to be swayed by someone wanting to create a relationship. Don't forget that Putin wants a Soviet union-like regime back in place and he is actively working to consolidate his power to that end.
On a side note, can't blame him! He is doing what he thinks best for the region with a mixture of destabilization tactics, propaganda, invasions (such as Ukraine), much as the US are looking after their interests and the EU is looking after theirs, etc.
Well, what about it?
Let's agree on CNN. I believe BBC news still have a high degree of impartiality, though, and their articles on Trump, while maintaining a more neutral approach, largely overlap CNN, WaPo and other progressive outlets.
What do you think about BBC?
I am discounting the man because you can easily argue that he has poor judgement. When John McCain chose Palin as VP, that demonstrated an incredible lack of sound judgement. I have lost count of all the people that Trump himself appointed and, sometimes in a matter of days, then fired.
I am discounting the man because he has proved to be highly divisive in his approach. Just look at how he wants to control information. Just look at how he wants to stifle expression about whomever disagrees with him. That's not the hallmark of a leader, that's more akin to how a dictatorship is run IMO. Just look at how he disrespects his own intelligence agencies who have repeatedly warned him about Russia's interference. He is blatantly showing he does not care. What kind of leader does that?
Before answering this I wanted to review the definition of 'thick skin':
Now, compare the definition above with Trump's behaviour. Note, this is not from any media organization trying to paint Trump in any way.
This is Trump himself:
This is just a very, very small sample of tweets from... the current so-called leader of the free world! Are you kidding me?
This is not the behaviour you expect from a solid bloke - this behaviour is consistent with a deeply insecure man who absolutely, positively must be better, smarter and sexier than any other man.
I am simply saying, look at the trend:
I selected a wider period, from when Bush junior was elected. The two spikes you see in both charts relate to 1) the 2008 global financial crisis and 2) the Covid-19 disruption, I don't see anything that Trump may have done differently that reflects in the wider net economic effect.
On a side note, can't blame him! He is doing what he thinks best for the region with a mixture of destabilization tactics, propaganda, invasions (such as Ukraine), much as the US are looking after their interests and the EU is looking after theirs, etc.
Well, what about it?
Let's agree on CNN. I believe BBC news still have a high degree of impartiality, though, and their articles on Trump, while maintaining a more neutral approach, largely overlap CNN, WaPo and other progressive outlets.
What do you think about BBC?
I am discounting the man because you can easily argue that he has poor judgement. When John McCain chose Palin as VP, that demonstrated an incredible lack of sound judgement. I have lost count of all the people that Trump himself appointed and, sometimes in a matter of days, then fired.
I am discounting the man because he has proved to be highly divisive in his approach. Just look at how he wants to control information. Just look at how he wants to stifle expression about whomever disagrees with him. That's not the hallmark of a leader, that's more akin to how a dictatorship is run IMO. Just look at how he disrespects his own intelligence agencies who have repeatedly warned him about Russia's interference. He is blatantly showing he does not care. What kind of leader does that?
Before answering this I wanted to review the definition of 'thick skin':
Now, compare the definition above with Trump's behaviour. Note, this is not from any media organization trying to paint Trump in any way.
This is Trump himself:
This is just a very, very small sample of tweets from... the current so-called leader of the free world! Are you kidding me?
This is not the behaviour you expect from a solid bloke - this behaviour is consistent with a deeply insecure man who absolutely, positively must be better, smarter and sexier than any other man.
I am simply saying, look at the trend:
I selected a wider period, from when Bush junior was elected. The two spikes you see in both charts relate to 1) the 2008 global financial crisis and 2) the Covid-19 disruption, I don't see anything that Trump may have done differently that reflects in the wider net economic effect.
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Another point I just want to be clear about: I do think Trump has excellent negotiating skills. But negotiating skills alone a great leader won't make. There are too many great businessmen (and I have no problem in including Trump in that group) who think that the experience they have so skilfully applied in business is easily transferable into politics: it is not. There is a - possibly slight, but undoubtely significant - difference between a businessman's and a politician's skillset. Trump in my view lacks deeply in the latter.
Having said that, when he met with Kim Jong-Un I was positively surprised and I said to myself "if Trump manages to pull this off I must re-think some stuff...".
So far, apart from a couple of highly choreographic meetings with the opposition, things with North Korea have not changed much.
We'll have to see...
Having said that, when he met with Kim Jong-Un I was positively surprised and I said to myself "if Trump manages to pull this off I must re-think some stuff...".
So far, apart from a couple of highly choreographic meetings with the opposition, things with North Korea have not changed much.
We'll have to see...
I think the BBC is biased. I will concede that perhaps it is more neutral than most, since if you look at the polarised news outlets in the US, it strikes a much more moderate tone. Then again, I think people who go into the media type of career tend to be more left leaning and so it would be a natural consequence to have an echo chamber of left leaning ideology.
There is so much I can say to that!!
What I think is divisive is identity politics that pits one group against another. That is the ideology of the left. Bring in the race card. LGBT. And so on. Divide people into groups. Pit one group against the other. As Biden would say, if you vote for Trump you ain't black. Trump is for freedom of speech, unlike the left who want to increase the number of hate speech restrictions that stifle expression about whomever disagrees with them. Who defines what is hate speech when people disagree?
Are these the same intelligence agencies that are under criminal investigation for spying on the Trump campaign? Are they the same agencies where the (ex?) head of the CIA, John Brennan is also being investigate, who has strong animosity against Trump? Or James Comey, head of FBI, who was secretly taking memos after Trump meetings and then leaking them out via a friend to the press? Are they the same agencies that reversed the evidence so that they could use it to get a FISA warrant to spy on Trump? Are they the same intelligence agencies where you had the Muller investigation team full of 17 Democrats, no Republicans, many of whom were financial donors to the Hillary campaign? These same people knew after 1 year that there was no collusion, but they continued for another year. Are they the same intelligence agencies that continued to try to get General Flynn, despite emails now emerging that there was no evidence of his guilt, until they set him up for a perjury trap?
You are assuming you know what he is actually thinking, which you cannot actually know.
I think that if you watch, for example, CNN, then you will only see 95% negative stuff about Trump. You cannot get a balanced picture. They will spin what he says, cut off part of the context, and so on. Look at the 24/7 Russia collusion narrative that they ran for 2 years. It was all a hoax. But if you only watched CNN, you would have thought it was a dead cert. Much of what I have talked about above doesn't get any airtime on CNN. I think most people who watch CNN don't even know its a thing.
Regarding being thick skinned, a thin skinned person would not take on the media, the Paris agreement, China, North Korea, Canada tariffs, Mexico tariffs, the wall, Europe and so on. They would try to avoid criticism. That is my view. Trump is the opposite. He is a disrupter, that leads to tons of criticism because it upsets the apple cart.
I agree with you that Trump is not the typical politician. Yet I think that is one of the very reasons he was elected. People were tired of the corruption and not being able to truly believe what the politicians are saying. They say anything but it has no substance. Trump speaks what he thinks. That upsets a lot of people, but a large number of people find it refreshing and a relief. He got elected for a reason.
Regarding North Korea, I think it was a smart move. If you want someone thin skinned, look over there. Obama took a laid back passive approach. The result? He creates more nukes. Trump has gone and met the guy, little rocket man, and tried to buddy up. One thing I have learned in negotiation books is that no one wants to negotiate if you don't like the person. Create the relationship, then go from there. I sincerely hope it works. Obama on the other hand won the Nobel Peace Prize, while sending record numbers of drone strikes in foreign countries. Hey ho.
I think he is taking the same approach with Putin. Better to be on the good side of a dangerous nation, than their enemy. But Putin is a dangerous man and has his USSR ambitions. Yet he is also human too. Let us not forget that. We have inbuilt desires to do favours, or treat friends better than our foes.
Having said all of the above, I have a feeling that although our political inclinations and conclusions differ, we arrive at our own viewpoints and present our opinions in a very similar way. We try to be rational, provide the evidence, and so on. I'm all for it.
Edit: I (dis)liked your graphs. They challenged my view of the economic miracle. Yet I feel there is something missing. But I am short on time to find out. I will look into it when I get a chance.
There is so much I can say to that!!
What I think is divisive is identity politics that pits one group against another. That is the ideology of the left. Bring in the race card. LGBT. And so on. Divide people into groups. Pit one group against the other. As Biden would say, if you vote for Trump you ain't black. Trump is for freedom of speech, unlike the left who want to increase the number of hate speech restrictions that stifle expression about whomever disagrees with them. Who defines what is hate speech when people disagree?
Are these the same intelligence agencies that are under criminal investigation for spying on the Trump campaign? Are they the same agencies where the (ex?) head of the CIA, John Brennan is also being investigate, who has strong animosity against Trump? Or James Comey, head of FBI, who was secretly taking memos after Trump meetings and then leaking them out via a friend to the press? Are they the same agencies that reversed the evidence so that they could use it to get a FISA warrant to spy on Trump? Are they the same intelligence agencies where you had the Muller investigation team full of 17 Democrats, no Republicans, many of whom were financial donors to the Hillary campaign? These same people knew after 1 year that there was no collusion, but they continued for another year. Are they the same intelligence agencies that continued to try to get General Flynn, despite emails now emerging that there was no evidence of his guilt, until they set him up for a perjury trap?
You are assuming you know what he is actually thinking, which you cannot actually know.
I think that if you watch, for example, CNN, then you will only see 95% negative stuff about Trump. You cannot get a balanced picture. They will spin what he says, cut off part of the context, and so on. Look at the 24/7 Russia collusion narrative that they ran for 2 years. It was all a hoax. But if you only watched CNN, you would have thought it was a dead cert. Much of what I have talked about above doesn't get any airtime on CNN. I think most people who watch CNN don't even know its a thing.
Regarding being thick skinned, a thin skinned person would not take on the media, the Paris agreement, China, North Korea, Canada tariffs, Mexico tariffs, the wall, Europe and so on. They would try to avoid criticism. That is my view. Trump is the opposite. He is a disrupter, that leads to tons of criticism because it upsets the apple cart.
I agree with you that Trump is not the typical politician. Yet I think that is one of the very reasons he was elected. People were tired of the corruption and not being able to truly believe what the politicians are saying. They say anything but it has no substance. Trump speaks what he thinks. That upsets a lot of people, but a large number of people find it refreshing and a relief. He got elected for a reason.
Regarding North Korea, I think it was a smart move. If you want someone thin skinned, look over there. Obama took a laid back passive approach. The result? He creates more nukes. Trump has gone and met the guy, little rocket man
, and tried to buddy up. One thing I have learned in negotiation books is that no one wants to negotiate if you don't like the person. Create the relationship, then go from there. I sincerely hope it works. Obama on the other hand won the Nobel Peace Prize, while sending record numbers of drone strikes in foreign countries. Hey ho.I think he is taking the same approach with Putin. Better to be on the good side of a dangerous nation, than their enemy. But Putin is a dangerous man and has his USSR ambitions. Yet he is also human too. Let us not forget that. We have inbuilt desires to do favours, or treat friends better than our foes.
Having said all of the above, I have a feeling that although our political inclinations and conclusions differ, we arrive at our own viewpoints and present our opinions in a very similar way. We try to be rational, provide the evidence, and so on. I'm all for it.
Edit: I (dis)liked your graphs. They challenged my view of the economic miracle. Yet I feel there is something missing. But I am short on time to find out. I will look into it when I get a chance.
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Thanks @Jon. On some points we seem to be driving further apart so I want to take a step back:
I will be the first to admit, I profoundly, viscerally, dislike Trump's style. My view of him is that of a deeply immature man.
Putting aside my intense dislike of the man, I would like to think that I am able to objectively assess his performance as US President to date, given an agreed set of base facts.
At the same time, I really admired Obama's style. That is not to say I agree with everything he has done when in office. But once again, I'd like to think that, styles aside, it is possible to evaluate his results based on facts alone and not spin.
let's say our ideologies differ. Let's contemplate whether both of us have been getting our news and data from sources which may have had ulterior motives and not necessarily have painted a balanced or, for that matter, objective picture about Trump's and Obama's narratives.
How can we come to a better, shared awareness of each other's point of view? For example, can we agree that, you and I as human beings, may think we are objective when in reality we are not, i.e. are we watching out for any potential blind spots we may have?
For example, can we agree on a set of sources which we both consider impartial and reliable, and reference our future conversations based on these?
I really want to bridge the gap in mutual understanding.
I will be the first to admit, I profoundly, viscerally, dislike Trump's style. My view of him is that of a deeply immature man.
Putting aside my intense dislike of the man, I would like to think that I am able to objectively assess his performance as US President to date, given an agreed set of base facts.
At the same time, I really admired Obama's style. That is not to say I agree with everything he has done when in office. But once again, I'd like to think that, styles aside, it is possible to evaluate his results based on facts alone and not spin.
let's say our ideologies differ. Let's contemplate whether both of us have been getting our news and data from sources which may have had ulterior motives and not necessarily have painted a balanced or, for that matter, objective picture about Trump's and Obama's narratives.
How can we come to a better, shared awareness of each other's point of view? For example, can we agree that, you and I as human beings, may think we are objective when in reality we are not, i.e. are we watching out for any potential blind spots we may have?
For example, can we agree on a set of sources which we both consider impartial and reliable, and reference our future conversations based on these?
I really want to bridge the gap in mutual understanding.
With regard to Trump, I will state clearly and honestly that I am glad my home state of Louisiana has electronic voting machines. That way, I was able to hold my nose with one hand and vote with the other. But because of my employment by the U.S. Military (as a contractor) I had to undergo a lot of training on security issues. Between the Benghazi debacle and the private e-mail server, plus her known ties to "Big Pharma" interests, I simple could not vote for Hillary. Trump was the lesser of two evils.
In the coming election, Joe Biden has been all around the mulberry bush in the Ukraine and was even caught on-camera offering a bribe... 'scuse me, an incentive - to replace the prosecutor who was going after his son Hunter. He has questionable ethics when it comes to being "too familiar" with women who don't have reciprocal feelings towards him. He is becoming senile in the way he speaks in public, which is probably why a debate won't be allowed to happen. Biden made a TON of money off of being Vice President and a lot of money in Congress. Not saying that others didn't do it, but he is definitely a denizen of the swamp that needs to be drained. I can't vote for him.
Therefore, I am again forced to say that while I won't vote FOR President Trump, I will vote in a way to be AGAINST that sham (and shame) of a candidate the Dems have selected.
In the coming election, Joe Biden has been all around the mulberry bush in the Ukraine and was even caught on-camera offering a bribe... 'scuse me, an incentive - to replace the prosecutor who was going after his son Hunter. He has questionable ethics when it comes to being "too familiar" with women who don't have reciprocal feelings towards him. He is becoming senile in the way he speaks in public, which is probably why a debate won't be allowed to happen. Biden made a TON of money off of being Vice President and a lot of money in Congress. Not saying that others didn't do it, but he is definitely a denizen of the swamp that needs to be drained. I can't vote for him.
Therefore, I am again forced to say that while I won't vote FOR President Trump, I will vote in a way to be AGAINST that sham (and shame) of a candidate the Dems have selected.
He is abrasive, bull-headed, and definitely not a politician. However, I frequently remind myself that the framers of the constitution didn't want only politicians to be in office. They didn't want only lawyers to be in office. They wanted a cross-section of the populace to have a shot at the office. So I have to look at accomplishments. Were it not for the corona virus, our economy would have been very hot and people would have been making money in droves. But corona killed the world's economy. It is also proving persistent. Given the frequent flip-flops in advice being given by many scientists, I can understand that Trump doesn't like to be forced into a political showdown based on contradictory advice. He's a businessman who HATES contradictory advice.
So I can't say that I wouldn't be a bit abrasive either in his circumstance.
So I can't say that I wouldn't be a bit abrasive either in his circumstance.
Just a quick rebuttal for the economic charts in the earlier post.
Firstly, the GDP chart chosen is showing numbers all over the place. That is because it is not done by year, and you get seasonal variations in the growth rate. To unmask the trend and remove the noise, aggregate by year.
Here:
https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/gdp
Trump came into power right at the end of 2016. Notice the sharp increase in GDP figures for his entire presidency up until Covid. Hold your ruler up against the screen from 2016 to 2019 to get how steep that slope is, compared to that running up to 2016. Notice also that this was straight after a slowing of GDP growth from the year before. That is one reason why his running of the economy is to be lauded.
Secondly, let us look more closely at the unemployment rate. There is never zero unemployment. This is well known in economics. You get friction because people are between jobs, cannot be employed and many other reasons. So the lower down you go past a certain point, the harder it is to achieve that goal.
In recent times (under Bush), unemployment bottomed out at what looks like 4.5%. Trump took over when unemployment looks like it was just about to reach that figure. Also notice how around that time, the graph trend was starting to get more shallow. Yet Trump continued to grow the economy and improve the job prospects to record lows.
When you see a significant increase in GDP straight after Trump took power, this increase in output requires more manpower to get the job done, hence the lower unemployment rates. His focus on getting manufacturing back into the US surely helped.
Firstly, the GDP chart chosen is showing numbers all over the place. That is because it is not done by year, and you get seasonal variations in the growth rate. To unmask the trend and remove the noise, aggregate by year.
Here:
https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/gdp
Trump came into power right at the end of 2016. Notice the sharp increase in GDP figures for his entire presidency up until Covid. Hold your ruler up against the screen from 2016 to 2019 to get how steep that slope is, compared to that running up to 2016. Notice also that this was straight after a slowing of GDP growth from the year before. That is one reason why his running of the economy is to be lauded.
Secondly, let us look more closely at the unemployment rate. There is never zero unemployment. This is well known in economics. You get friction because people are between jobs, cannot be employed and many other reasons. So the lower down you go past a certain point, the harder it is to achieve that goal.
In recent times (under Bush), unemployment bottomed out at what looks like 4.5%. Trump took over when unemployment looks like it was just about to reach that figure. Also notice how around that time, the graph trend was starting to get more shallow. Yet Trump continued to grow the economy and improve the job prospects to record lows.
When you see a significant increase in GDP straight after Trump took power, this increase in output requires more manpower to get the job done, hence the lower unemployment rates. His focus on getting manufacturing back into the US surely helped.