President Donald Trump still can't accept the numbers measuring his loss to Joe Biden: more than 7 million popular votes and 74 electoral votes.
But another set of numbers adds insult to his psychological injury. They show that -- notwithstanding lies as promiscuous as the ones he tells about election fraud -- Trump will leave office in January with a historically bad record on the economy.
That sounds discordant since many Americans believe the economic fable that Trump has repeated relentlessly throughout his term. But placing his bottom-line results alongside those of his predecessors paints a deeply unflattering portrait.
Alone among the 13 presidents since World War Two, Trump will exit the White House with fewer Americans employed than when he started. He will have overseen punier growth in economic output than any of the previous 12 presidents.
His throwback "America First" agenda has failed to restore the old economic engine that powered an earlier era's prosperity. On Trump's watch, industrial production has fallen. The Federal Reserve says the manufacturing sector fell into recession in 2019 even before the coronavirus pandemic hit.
Last week was the 38th in a row in which at least 700,000 Americans filed first-time claims for unemployment benefits. (our emphasis)
If Democrats don't pound this disastrous record into the public's consciousness, it would be an act of monumental political malpractice. Don't let him get away with the lie that he presided over the greatest economy ever, or it will become an article of faith with way too many low- information Americans.
