Commentary: Trumponomics: a hope and a prayer but scant reality

WASHINGTON — “Dear Michael,” wrote British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan in 1957 to the head of his Conservative Party’s research department, “I am always hearing about the Middle Classes. What is it they really want? Can you put it down on a sheet of notepaper and I will see whether we can give it to them.”

Macmillan’s letter to Michael Fraser, the party official, is cited in Alistair Horne’s fine biography as an example of Macmillan’s delightful aristocratic cheekiness but also as a mark of the moderate Tory’s determination to win the 1959 election. Macmillan figured out what the middle classes wanted well enough to sweep to victory.

A story from a more consensual time is soothing at a moment of exceptional rancor and division, but it’s also a marker of the things that are permanent in political life. In every time, in every democracy, voters are looking for politicians to deliver them tangible benefits — whether in the general form of income-producing economic growth, or in particulars such as greater access to better health care, education or housing.

This reality will determine whether former Vice President Joe Biden can maintain or — dare we think this? — expand his large lead over President Donald Trump.

On issue after issue, Biden holds substantial advantages over Trump. Only on the economy does the president cling to a narrow edge, which explains why he rushed out to speak to reporters after Thursday’s relatively positive jobs report. “Next year is going to be an incredible year for jobs, for companies, for growth,” he crowed.

That is a prediction, not a reality, but the fact that the economy was doing well before COVID-19 hit has left Trump with some residual strength. A Pew Research Center poll released last week showed Trump trailing Biden 54 percent to 44 percent. The Democrat had double digit advantages over Trump on handling the novel coronavirus and race relations, and also on “bringing the country closer together.” But voters put Trump up by 3 points on making “good decisions about economic policy.”

This is why the next month could determine whether 2020 is a Democratic blowout or much more closely contested. If Republicans ignore the role massive government spending played in holding the economy up and stymie additional stimulus spending, they could discover in the fall that the economy’s strength is anything but “incredible.”

July is also the month in which Biden is expected to offer more detail on his economic program. To maintain his overall advantage, he needs to find the Macmillan sweet spot about what the middle class — and Americans who aspire to join it — wants.

Trump is likely to fail if he continues to attack Biden as a “helpless puppet of the radical left,” as the president put it at his less-than-boffo Tulsa rally last month. Few voters (especially leftists) see this as a credible label for a 77-year-old political warhorse. And the progressive positions that Biden has laid out are broadly popular.

One thing middle-ground voters plainly want is health coverage. There can be little doubt about this in the wake of last week’s referendum in Oklahoma, a state Trump carried by 36 points in 2016, to expand the state’s Medicaid program under Obamacare. Conservatives tried the socialist-by-association attack, running ads saying the expansion would give “radicals like” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., “more control over Oklahoma’s health care” and urging voters to “Say No to AOC.” They didn’t.

This is just one area in which Biden can offer a striking contrast to Trump on deliverables to voters. The former vice president’s website is chockablock with popular and specific proposals on matters ranging from access to higher education to infrastructure, climate change and higher wages.

If Trump does lose big, a singular moment will thus be his recent interview with Fox News’ Sean Hannity. When asked what he wanted to do in a second term, the president’s aspirations cupboard was entirely bare. Trump could’ve used some advisor to scribble a few ideas for him on a “sheet of notepaper.”

All these factors suggest that Trump’s current advantage on the economy is not only small but also tenuous. He will thus be left with a hope, and a prayer. His hope is that the economy comes back sufficiently between now and election day to give his “Restoring, Rebuilding and Renewing” slogan — not a bad message if there were any substance behind it — some smidgen of credibility.

His prayer is that what he’s best at will be enough: To scare the electorate into thinking that however sketchy the economy is now, Joe Biden would only make things worse. Calling Biden risky might have worked with a 3.5 percent unemployment rate. Doing so now will challenge even as practiced a demagogue as Donald Trump.

Dionne writes for the Washington Post. You can follow him on Twitter @EJDionne.