{"id":114327,"date":"2026-01-01T18:46:29","date_gmt":"2026-01-02T00:46:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/?p=114327"},"modified":"2026-01-01T18:46:29","modified_gmt":"2026-01-02T00:46:29","slug":"114327","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/?p=114327","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2025\/12\/31\/opinion\/beware-the-pseudo-recession-that-brought-past-presidents-down\/\">Beware the Democratic \u2018pseudo-recession\u2019 that\u2019s destroyed past presidents.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Back in 1992, as the presidential campaign approached,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2021\/05\/29\/how-hurt-george-h-w-bush-struggled-after-losing-reelection\/\">incumbent President George HW Bush<\/a>\u00a0was seen as a shoo-in for reelection.<\/p>\n<p>The First Gulf War ended in 1991 with a spectacular US victory at the head of a coalition that had expelled Saddam Hussein from Kuwait with few losses.<\/p>\n<p>For much of 1991, Bush\u2019s approval ratings hovered between 90% and 70%.<\/p>\n<p>By February 1992, an\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2018\/12\/01\/clinton-george-h-w-bushs-oval-office-note-revealed-who-he-truly-was\/\">obscure Arkansas governor, Bill Clinton<\/a>, emerged as the favorite Democratic nominee.<\/p>\n<p>But he was written off as having little chance to knock off the popular Republican incumbent with far more foreign affairs experience.<\/p>\n<p>Bush, however, had just lost his brilliant 1988 campaign manager, Lee Atwater, to cancer.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"single__inline-module aligncenter wp-block-nypost-editor-primary-tag\">\n<div class=\"inline-module inline-module--more inline-module--explore-more inline-module--more--thirds\" data-source-unit=\"Explore More - Tag\">\n<div class=\"inline-module__inner\">\n<div class=\"inline-module__content\">\n<div class=\"layout layout--thirds\">\n<div class=\"layout__grid layout__grid--gap-10\">\n<div class=\"layout__item\">\n<div class=\"layout__inner b-right-md p-right-md p-bottom-half p-bottom-none-md\">\n<div class=\"story story--i-flex story--i-flex-none-md\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"layout__item\">\n<div class=\"layout__inner b-top b-top-none-md p-top p-top-none-md b-left-md p-left-md\">\n<div class=\"story story--i-flex story--i-flex-none-md\">\n<h3 class=\"story__headline headline headline--xxs\"><span style=\"font-size: 16px; font-weight: 400;\">And third-party prairie-fire candidate Ross Perot had entered the race, drawing off conservative Bush support.<\/span><\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/aside>\n<p>Most important, the US economy in 1990 had experienced a mild recession that had bottomed out in early 1991.<\/p>\n<p>By the 1992 election, the United States was headed to full recovery.<\/p>\n<p>In the last six months of 1992, GDP rebounded at an astonishing 4%.<\/p>\n<p>The inflation rate in the months before the election was often less than 3%.<\/p>\n<p>Even stubborn unemployment, at 7.3%, was starting to fall.<\/p>\n<p>The eight-month recession officially ended in March 1991, followed by continual positive economic growth.<\/p>\n<p>No matter: The canny Clinton campaign still ran on the directive \u201cIt\u2019s the economy, stupid\u201d and the slogan \u201cPutting people first.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Clinton\u2019s theme song was the upbeat Fleetwood Mac hit \u201cDon\u2019t Stop,\u201d highlighting the young Clinton-Gore ticket\u2019s supposed contrast to the 68-year-old Bush.<\/p>\n<p>Key to the Clinton campaign rhetoric was a false charge: \u201cthe worst job growth since the Great Depression.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>By November 1992, Clinton had convinced voters that the prior year\u2019s recession was still in full force.<\/p>\n<p>The doom-and-gloom, near-depression \u201crecession\u201d rhetoric, together with Perot\u2019s third-party candidacy and Bush\u2019s sluggish campaign, won Clinton the presidency with 43% of the popular vote.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>In response, the Bush campaign had tried to trumpet the administration\u2019s many foreign policy successes.<\/p>\n<p>The Berlin Wall fell in November 1989.<\/p>\n<p>The Cold War ended in a US victory.<\/p>\n<p>Germany was reunified in October 1990.<\/p>\n<p>In December 1989, Bush successfully removed the narco-dictator Manuel Noriega of Panama, who threatened the viability of the Panama Canal.<\/p>\n<p>The Gulf War was won brilliantly by February 1991.<\/p>\n<p>The nuclear START treaty was signed with the Soviet Union in July 1991, just before the USSR itself collapsed in December.<\/p>\n<p>By any normal reckoning, Bush\u2019s win should have been a certainty: spectacular foreign-policy successes and a rebounding economy after a brief recession that had ended 15 months before the November 1992 election.<\/p>\n<p>Instead, the pseudo-recession of 1992 dominated the campaign.<\/p>\n<p>Indeed, Bush\u2019s many achievements overseas were cleverly distorted by Clinton as proof that the globe-trotting president was more interested in the world abroad than in \u201cputting people first\u201d at home.<\/p>\n<p>As in Bush\u2019s prior 1988 campaign, Atwater would have torn Clinton apart as inexperienced and disingenuous.<\/p>\n<p>Atwater would have ordered Bush to talk nonstop about virtually no inflation, robust 4% economic growth and declining unemployment.<\/p>\n<p>Instead, the lackluster Bush campaign team never caught on and was crushed.<\/p>\n<p>The pseudo-recession of 1992 should remind President Donald Trump\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2025\/12\/23\/opinion\/why-do-pessimistic-pundits-keep-getting-trumps-economy-so-wrong\/\">not to repeat the same mistake<\/a>\u00a0in the 2026 midterms.<\/p>\n<p>Trump\u2019s first 10 months of foreign policy achievements are almost as impressive as Bush\u2019s entire four years.<\/p>\n<p>He neutered the feared\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2025\/06\/21\/world-news\/us-launches-strikes-on-iran-joining-forces-with-israel-days-after-trumps-tehran-warning\/\">Iranian nuclear bomb project<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>He\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2025\/12\/29\/us-news\/trump-backs-netanyahu-after-rumors-of-friction-talks-tough-on-iran-well-knock-the-hell-out-of-them\/\">ensured Israel could devastate<\/a>\u00a0the terrorist cabals of Hezbollah, Hamas and the Houthis, as well as their sponsor, theocratic Iran.<\/p>\n<p>Instead of a trade war, he\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2025\/12\/30\/business\/trump-admin-has-plan-b-to-keep-tariffs-going-if-supreme-court-deems-current-approach-unconstitutional-report\/\">increased tariff revenue\u00a0<\/a>and signed fair trade agreements.<\/p>\n<p>The border was closed shut.<\/p>\n<p>Military recruitment rebounded to near-record levels.<\/p>\n<p>Compared to the prior moribund Biden economy,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2025\/12\/23\/us-news\/trump-credits-tariffs-with-boosting-economy-as-rapid-growth-reported-says-numbers-will-only-get-better\/\">Trump\u2019s has set new precedents<\/a>: record energy production and falling gas prices; inflation now below the 3% he inherited; and third-quarter GDP growth at a remarkable 4.3%.<\/p>\n<p>But more important, 2026 may see even stronger economic growth, given a historic $10 trillion in foreign investment, tax cuts, deregulation, ever-greater energy production, huge investment in new technologies like AI and nuclear fusion, and dozens of favorable trade deals.<\/p>\n<p>Yet the left, like the Clinton campaign of old, is\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2025\/11\/22\/media\/james-carville-warns-dems-to-address-affordability-crisis-or-this-thing-could-break\/\">talking nonstop about \u201caffordability\u201d<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 \u00a0both ignoring the Democrats\u2019 own dismal 2021-25 economic record and claiming Trump, like Bush, cares more about those overseas than those at home.<\/p>\n<p>Whether the pseudo-recession of 2025-26 works as well as the fake 1992 recession now hinges on whether Trump learns from the past \u2014 and from now on fixates on the economy.<\/p>\n<p><em>Victor Davis Hanson is a distinguished fellow of the Center for American Greatness.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Beware the Democratic \u2018pseudo-recession\u2019 that\u2019s destroyed past presidents. Back in 1992, as the presidential campaign approached,\u00a0incumbent President George HW Bush\u00a0was seen as a shoo-in for reelection. The First Gulf War ended in 1991 with a spectacular US victory at the head of a coalition that had expelled Saddam Hussein from Kuwait with few losses. For &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/?p=114327\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64,20,75],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-114327","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-deceit","category-economy","category-media"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114327","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=114327"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114327\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":114328,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114327\/revisions\/114328"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=114327"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=114327"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=114327"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}