Ben Shapiro is worried. He likes Trump and, as a conservative, desperately wants him to succeed. However, he thinks (correctly) that the upcoming midterms will turn on the economy. If the economy is good, Republicans can probably hold Congress; if it’s bad, they will almost certainly lose it. What worries him is that Trump isn’t doing enough to turn the economy around.

I happen to think that Trump is doing everything possible to turn the economy around. If he fails, it will be because Democrats will have destroyed the economy—as they tried to do with the shutdown, which will have far-reaching ripple effects, and which they’re still trying to do through lawfare—not because of anything he’s doing. What’s interesting is that two of Trump’s chief economic advisors—National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent—share my optimism.

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I’m no economics maven, but it doesn’t take a genius or a scholar to figure out that the policies Democrats and their Uniparty allies have implemented don’t work.

If the government prints money, you get inflation, which is a purely monetary problem. With more dollars circulating, the actual value of things doesn’t change, but the candy bar that once cost $1 will now cost $2, because the market will adapt to the influx of cash.

If the government constricts supplies, the price of the thing constricted will go up. Thus, if you enact whackadoodle climate policies that make it harder to obtain fossil fuels (i.e., oil, gas, and coal), the price of those commodities will increase. This raises prices across the economy because absolutely everything in American society is dependent on fossil fuels, whether in agriculture, manufacturing, transportation, or creature comforts (e.g., housing, heat, A/C, etc.).

If the government opens the border and imports tens of millions of illegal aliens, housing will become more expensive, and wages will be lower. That’s because illegal aliens compete with Americans for housing, so landlords can charge higher rents to desperate people, while employers can pay lower salaries to people desperate for scarce jobs. (This last point is especially true because illegal aliens will take under-the-table, below-minimum-wage jobs.)

If the government pumps money into specific industries, those industries will become more expensive. Government funds for floating colleges and the healthcare industry are perfect examples. These are targeted inflation pockets, affected by the government’s monetary policies.

If the government allows foreign countries to flood our markets with cheap goods while imposing significant barriers to trade against American goods, manufacturing in America will be severely damaged, resulting in lost wealth and high unemployment.

And, of course, if the government is corrupt and wasteful, people pay taxes and get nothing in return for their money. They are poorer, both economically and in a world where infrastructure breaks down and services diminish.

Since he entered office, President Trump has tried to address every one of those things: He’s cracked down on government spending, including corruption and waste; he’s taken barriers off of fossil fuels; he’s blocked new illegal aliens from entering and is working hard to rid America of those currently here; he’s trying to defund bloated colleges and insurance companies; and he’s worked hard to create parity in tariffs, so we’re not facing an unparalleled economic crisis as all of American industry collapses.

As for that last one, it remains to be seen what the Supreme Court does. And as to all of them, of course, leftist judges are engaged in a sustained form of legal warfare against him.

I don’t see that there’s much more that Trump can do, except withstand stupid shutdowns and quickly get reversed the bizarre, non-legal rulings coming from rogue judges.

But of course, economic change doesn’t happen in an instant. It’s like turning an enormous ocean liner. Trump is doing all the right things, but it will take a while before the economy shows the effects.

Thankfully, those in the know—that would be Hassett and Bessent—are optimistic. As Ward Clark helpfully pointed out, both appeared on Sunday talk shows and said that, by the first half of next year, the economy should show the kind of turnaround that wins elections.

According to Hassett, Biden’s policies drove prices up across the board, with his examples being mortgages and groceries. The speed of inflation left a $3,000 gap between wages and prices, but Trump, in just 10 months, has closed that gap by almost 50%:

If Hassett and Bessent are correct, good times are coming and Republicans stand a fighting chance in November 2026—but for goodness’ sake, don’t get complacent. We always lose when complacent Republicans sit out elections.