“Just to name one example, illegitimate birth rates among blacks was not so different before LBJ came along and workforce participation rates were actually higher, partly as a result of businesses which were able to find blacks willing to do the same work for lower pay than whites. The “Great Society” and the entitlement mentality which it fostered changed all of that big time.”
Yes, and it is an example of my point.
The effects of many of Johnson’s programs was not felt much at all until after Johnson was out of office. So he was not the occupant of the White House at the time the sheeple were seeking the occupant of the White House to “do something” about any bad conditions, and then those White House occupants got the blame when whatever they did had no affect - maybe just not until THEY were out of office. Meanwhile other macro economic forces were at play, contributing to circumstances and affects.
I think IF a presidents actions (or desired policies that Congress approves and helps institute) have any great affect, it is not while they sit in the White House, it is over time later on.
Trump with his trade war presents a different case.
Immediate, and almost unilaterally, changing of tariff structures, and as large as those changes are, is producing immediate economic, financial and trade changes, and not limited to just the U.S. and China. Those immediate impacts are resonating immediately across many economies, and even once the tariffs come back down, some trade relationships will not jump back to where they were before (because alternate arrangements are being made and there may be no good economic reason to change them back).
Trump breaks the mold. Other presidents may have pursued MAJOR trade relationship changes with China, and kept those negotiations going for quite some time, with no immediate resolution and no immediate tariff changes, and maybe no tariff changes in the end. Trump put the stick out there first and then China had to negotiate for the carrot.
That you would not have seen Clinton, Bush or Obama do, even if they thought seriously that major changes in our trade relationship with China had to occur.
The one thing that Trump is not is a fan of the status quo. There are a number of good things about that, because so much of the status quo had become a settled and stale orthodoxy that refused to be challenged, as if that thinking had become the only legitimate view of things. The orthodoxy kept sweeping problems under the rug, because addressing them meant a challenge to the orthodox views.
And the swamp doesn't want to be drained.