A lot of pondering has gone on about whether Trump is a symptom or a cause of the decline of the GOP into a cult of idiocy. We know Trump is - by the standards of the Oval Office - a very stupid man. Josh Marshall relates how Trump made his money not through skill but through legal bullying. Trump is also incredibly unversed in the basic contours of liberal democracy as a concept. So, yeah, Trump is dumb; Trump is the center of a cult of personality; that cult of personality is super dumb.
However, this cult of unreason does very much precede Trump. Reagan wasn't nearly as stupid, but he was also not some genius. That largely goes for both Bushes. They were...fine...in terms of intelligence compared to the average, but they also had long experience in government - unlike Trump. They were, in essence, trained in civic government. Trump is not, which is why he's an authoritarian goon.
The cult of unreason, though, can be seen in Reagan and Dubya, as Krugman points out with regards to budget math. Reagan bent a little to the reality that cutting taxes would not create so much growth as to pay for themselves. Bush 41 was even more responsible in that regards. Bush 43, however, was the same sort of spender that Trump has been. If a few hundred votes in South Florida had been counted differently in 2000, the fiscal situation in the US would be sterling. Gore would not have had a Democratic Congress, so spending would have remained low. There's a 50-50 chance that the Gore national security team stops 9/11, the way they did the Millennium bomb plot. Even so, they likely would not invade Iraq with that catastrophe hopefully avoided.
Maybe Obama and Obamacare doesn't happen in that world. Or maybe healthcare becomes such an issue it gets addressed without the collapse of support for Bush 43 from 2005-2008.
The fiscal situation of the United States would be immeasurably better, and that really can't be debated.
A bunch of dumb ass voters, though, would continue to insist that Republicans are better for the economy, because...ugh.
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