President Donald Trump is continually focused on upcoming elections, and in his struggle to himself maintain power and, more broadly, help his party do so, he can count on the votes of one individual — Fox News’ Dagen McDowell. During a segment this week on Outnumbered she lost it and began relentlessly shouting those in the panel discussion who dared question her belief that Trump has enacted an economic utopia.
At one point, she defined her argument by saying:
‘There is nothing wrong with this economy and if you try to find something, well you’re making it up.’
Any statement that’s as general and all encompassing as the above quote is automatically worthy of scrutiny. Life isn’t as simple as some Trump supporters would prefer.
McDowell didn’t really offer any citations of data backing her up during her ranting, which continued well beyond the above.
In response to fellow Outnumbered panelist Guy Benson, she ranted:
‘It’s the walk — it’s what people are doing with their money. It is the fact that if you actually go into restaurants, they’re upbeat. It’s not what they will tell a pollster [asking] about oh, “how do you feel about tax cuts versus ObamaCare?”‘
Random anecdotes about happy restaurant owners and workers are not reliable policy guidance points. Even still, she’s taking after her pseudomessiah in presenting them, since Trump routinely draws claims from the fringe and pushes them into the mainstream. An anecdote from a golfer has been reported to be what drove his national push to root out non-existent voter fraud (although the golfer — Bernhard Langer — disputed that).
Fox’s Marie Harf tried to point out the issues in McDowell’s reasoning, but to no avail.
She began:
‘Republicans would be remiss to ignore the fact that there’s anxiety over three things — rising health care costs, which are going to continue going up in September, the fact that inflation is high and real wages –‘
McDowell cut her off, shouting:
‘Inflation’s not high! Wages are growing faster than inflation, period! People can not tell me that it’s not.’
Her usage of the “period!” exclamation again puts her in the same category as her argumentally challenged boss and his associates; infamously, early on in Trump’s tenure, then-press secretary Sean Spicer asserted that Trump’s inauguration had the highest crowd assembled for any inauguration ever “period!” (It didn’t.)
Harf tried to continue:
‘Real time wages are not growing fast for the middle class in places that matter in this election… There is anxiety about the economy underlying some of this good news. I’m not trying to win an argument. I’m saying Republicans need to pay attention to that and not just take a victory lap — otherwise they’re going to be surprised.’
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A55peTceG6I
McDowell was not about to sit there and listen to Harf’s presentation of the facts, however, and the segment ended in part with her again shouting Trump-ian talking points.
With FiveThirtyEight projecting that Democrats take control of the U.S. House in the midterm elections later this year, it certainly does seem that people like McDowell are hurtling towards a big surprise.
Featured Image via Screenshot from the Video
