Is the Economy Better Under Republicans or Democrats? The Stock Market Doesn't Lie.

PatriotOne
Mar 13
3 min read

Fifty two days into the second Trump term and you might conclude that Republicans are horrible for the economy and, as a barometer of how the economy is doing, the stock market.

But, would you be right?

One party does in fact far outshine the other when it comes to stock market performance during their terms. It's not just that it's a little better or some terms are better and others are worse. No, one party is the absolute clear winner.

The stock market isn't the economy, but whenever I've had Reddit discussions with members of the "other" party about the economy and try to cite GDP growth, unemployment rate, jobs report, etc, they tend to not understand, or claim that statistics lie, or that it's reported by unreliable sources. Sometimes, it's just a diffcult argument to make. The stock market is a great barometer for the economy. If it's up, the economy is good. If it's down, the economy isn't doing so well. It's easy to understand. Based on historic market performance from when a president enters office until he leaves a simple percent increase for his term can be derived and used to compare.

Now, let's look at the numbers.

Since we are only 52 days into Trump's second term it wouldn't be fair to include his stock market performance in the average so I'll list is separately here. In the past 30 days the NASDAQ has declined more than 13%. A 10% decline is considered a correction and they aren't rare so this isn't necessarily a bad thing. The market could rebound soon and the glorious effects of Trump's tariffs may soon rocket the markets t new heights, never seen before. If that happens, it will truly be glorious.

Trump II - DJIA, S&P500, NASDAQ

Now, all the stock market performances by presidential terms since Reagan.

Here are all three markets combined

Clearly, the stock market performs better under democratic administrations than under republican administrations. This should be a wake up call for all Republican voters. Are you really voting Republican for the right reasons? Trump's budget during his first term added 8 trillion dollars to the national debt largely due to his tax cuts that benefited billionaires. What will his new budget do? And what more will he do to make up for the shortfall? Fire more federal workers? Cut Medicaid? Cut Veteran's benefits? Cut food progrms for food insecure children? Too many Republicans believe that spending on these programs hurts the economy. This couldn't be farther from reality. Cutting these programs will do little to balance the budget. But cutting them will hurt many Americans and that will have a detrimental effect on the economy. Cutting programs such as NSF research grants, DOE Research grants, SBA loans, NIH research grants, and other programs which stimulate innovation will have a dire effect on the economy in the years to come. What Trump is doing is short sighted and ill advised. Simply put, it's insane. Democrats have a much better way to solve the problem.

Supplmental Information

Below are the stock market performances based on the three maor indexes for each president since Ronald Reagan.

Reagan