Not even Chicken Little was this committed to the program. Hours after the November 2024 presidential election, Reuters warned that “politically toxic inflation may curb Trump agenda.”
In the subsequent months, the media and Democrats (but I repeat myself) doubled and tripled down on the prophesies of doom: President Donald Trump’s tariffs were going to spike inflation, deportations of illegal immigrants were going to wreck the economy, and cuts made through the Department of Government Efficiency would be ruinous — and deadly.
Update: The sky isn’t falling.
Let’s start with the tariffs. In March congressional Democrats on the House Ways and Means Trade Subcommittee issued a statement on Trump’s tariffs, predicting an inflationary disaster.
“The consequences will be devastating — costs will increase on everything from gas to groceries, making it even harder for American families to make ends meet,” wrote those Democrats, led by California’s Rep. Linda Sanchez. “At the same time, that he’s raising prices at the supermarket, President Trump is jeopardizing hundreds of thousands of American jobs. President Trump is starting a trade war and American families are caught in the cross-fire.”
And in April CBS News reported that “economists are ringing alarm bells as they digest the impact of the wide-ranging tariffs, which they forecast will accelerate inflation and dampen U.S. economic growth.”
But the Trump economy is booming. “Inflation rate slipped to 2.1% in April, lower than expected,” CNBC reported at the end of May. As Fox Business’s Maria Bartiromo pointed out, “Oil is down, eggs are down, food is down. We’re seeing that reflected, so all that hysteria over tariffs is not showing up in these numbers.”
For some reason, the price of eggs is particularly galling for Democrats; in fact, as the Associated Press reported, “some Democrats are convinced that their road to recovery lies in the price of eggs.” Unfortunately for them, the price of eggs is now down 61 percent. As Vice President J.D. Vance responded recently, “We have the lamest opposition in American history.”
How about mass deportations? Senate Democrats claimed in December that “on top of the billions of dollars it would cost to undertake the sweeping deportation efforts that President Trump has called for across the country, multiple analyses show that any mass deportation plan would cause massive declines in GDP and overall employment.” But what’s the reality? “The Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta projected that the U.S. Gross Domestic Product (GDP) would grow by 4.6% Tuesday, an increase from a previous estimate of 3.8%,” the Daily Caller reports.
What about those DOGE cuts? Again, the prophets of doom were very, very sure this time. According to Rep. Jasmine Crockett, D-Texas, “It’ll wreak havoc on TX hospitals, schools, police, food banks & emergency responders that depend on federal grants.”
It hasn’t. DOGE has reportedly saved taxpayers $180 billion so far, all while exempting the very programs Crockett cited: “Any program that provides direct benefits to Americans is explicitly excluded from the [spending] pause and exempted from this review process,” the Office of Management and Budget noted.
Look, it’s great that the Democrats are belatedly realizing inflation is bad, growth is good, and Americans — not foreign countries or NGOs — should come first.
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul is one of the Democrats starting to get the message: “I am very conscious of the fact that so many New Yorkers are struggling. Families cannot get ahead. Inflation has just sent them reeling … It’s all going up, and we cannot be tone deaf to what is happening to real families.”
For its part, the media is still desperately seeking evidence of doom and disaster. Vox claims that Trump voters have “buyer’s remorse” while announcing “the rise of the regretful Trump voter.”
What’s the reality? “President Donald Trump’s approval ratings are trending upward, according to multiple national polls,” Newsweek reported on June 3. Its headline writers, however, just couldn’t handle the truth; the headline they went with said simply, “Donald Trump’s Approval Ratings Shift in Multiple Polls.”
There are two endings to the Chicken Little story we all grew up with; in one, Chicken Little eventually acknowledges the truth — the sky isn’t falling, and it never was. In the second ending, though, Chicken Little’s refusal to recognize reality makes her — and her friends — vulnerable to the predations of a fox.
Meanwhile, Democrats like Hakeem Jeffries continue to double down on their predictions of doom and disaster. “People will literally die,” predicted Jeffries about President Trump’s “big, beautiful bill.” While liberals hide indoors in fear of the falling sky, the rest of us recognize it’s actually beautiful outside in a new day brought by the Trump administration.
The Honorable Robert Henneke is the Executive Director and General Counsel at the Texas Public Policy Foundation.
