The slow and steady recovery that President Barack Obama kick-started with the stimulus has continued under Trump — just a little slower and a little steadier than before. Indeed, as you can see [above], the economy added almost 3.5 million jobs in Obama's last 16 months in office, compared with just under 3 million jobs in Trump's first 16 months.
Whenever I work up the nerve to scan Twitter, I notice that Trump supporters devote at least as much space to bashing Obama as they do praising their president for his fabulous jobs record. I have never understood their compulsion to denigrate Obama on this score. On the whole, are they 1) simply unaware of President Obama's superior record? or 2) just lying about Trump's record? or 3) merely trying to bait the knowledgeable tweeters among us?
I suspect the answer is #1: They are mind-boggingly ignorant of Obama's record. I say this, I admit, because of scant anecdotal evidence. About six months after Trump's election, on Twitter I had to point out to a triumphalist Trump supporter that Hillary had actually won the popular vote. Later he came back and proudly announced — meticulous and honest scholar that he was — that he had done some research and learned that Hillary had indeed won the popular vote. He had done some research. For six months, mind you, this Trump supporter had lived in wholesale ignorance of what had been headline news.
I was dumbfounded; I hadn't fully realized, till then, just what a little, enclosed world these people were living in.