Life experience tells me that sometimes before change is possible we have to hit rock bottom. Then and only then do we have that aha moment.

This may sound un american but this is the reason I’m rooting for a recession in 2019. As a collective group of voters, democrat, republican and independent, we need to watch trickledown economics fail spectacularly so that no politician in his or her right mind will ever peddle that canard from the podium ever again.

Trumpism should have died with Charlottesville, but apparently there are more racists among us than we realized. Thankfully enough voters were turned off by the party that decided to “look the other way” at the disgraceful treatment of immigrants and people of color that democrats now control the house of representatives which in turn neuters the Trump agenda for however long he remains in office.

With Trump’s presidency literally hanging by a thread, republicans have one and only one issue they can hang their hats on at the moment and that is economic growth. We’ve seen record low unemployment which usually bodes well for the party in power. What people sometimes fail to realize is that it takes considerable time to know whether economic policies enacted by a party are working or not. I could easily argue that the first year economic results of the Trump presidency were carryover from the Obama administration. This is true for any president.

The problem for republicans now is, the trade deficit is at a 10 year high. Republicans run on a platform of deficit hawks but haven’t addressed the national debt (over 20 trillion and rising). The tax cuts that went largely to the wealthy were supposed to be revenue neutral. That turned out to be more than a slight miscalculation. It was a lie. And they knew it. Tariffs are choking the auto industry and farming. Job growth is slowing. Now the stock market is getting nervous and is below the level it held before the tax cut. To top it off, economics runs in cycles and we’re long overdue for an economic downturn.

1988 Vice presidential candidate Lloyd Bentson said it best in his debate with Dan Quayle.

“If you let me write 200 Billion in hot checks every year, I could give you an illusion of prosperity too.”

Take away the “yeah but look at how fabulous your 401k is growing” argument and republicans are left with nothing to stand on as accomplishments. Let me repeat that. Nothing. The scandals outnumber the accomplishments by a triple digit ratio.

George H.W. Bush, (may he rest in peace), got it right in the 1980 republican primaries when he called Reagan’s tax plan “Voodoo economics”

The next recession NEEDS to happen on the republican watch. Let’s get it over with and bury Reaganomics for good. I just hope it’s not as bad as republican strategist Rick Wilson predicted. I don’t have the exact quote but it was something to the effect of “when this is all over it’s going to feel like waking up on a park bench outside Tijuana after a 3 day tequila and stripper club bender.”