Politics have always been ugly. Even back in 1840, the campaign song “Tippecanoe and Tyler Too” praised the virtues of presidential candidate and eventual winner William Henry Harrison while calling incumbent president Martin Van Buren a “used-up man” and “little Van.” (Maybe that’s where Donald Trump got the idea to insult Senator Marco Rubio by calling him “Little Marco.”)
Not to be outdone, the Van Buren campaign released its own song to the tune of “Rock-a-Bye Baby,” questioning Harrison’s war hero status at the Battle of Tippecanoe, where he had earned the nickname “Tip”:
Rock-a-bye, baby, when you awake
You will discover Tip is a fake.
Far from the battle, war cry and drum
He sits in his cabin a’drinking bad rum.
That’s pretty good. I particularly like that not only are they calling him a drunk, but they’re also saying he makes poor liquor choices.
While politicians have been slamming each other for more than 200 years, it’s not debatable how downright nasty they’ve become in the 21st century.
During George W. Bush’s and Donald Trump’s campaigns and presidencies, Democrats portrayed them as complete morons.
On the flip side, Republicans labeled Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden as Marxists.
With morons and Marxists having led our country for nearly a quarter-century, surely the market has taken a nose-dive during that time… right?
Not by a longshot.
Granted, the market did not perform well under Bush, losing 37%, its second-worst performance during a presidential administration. Only Herbert Hoover had a worse showing, and he had the bad timing of entering the White House just as the Great Depression got underway.
The Great Recession happened on Bush’s watch, but he also inherited the collapsing dot-com bubble, having taken office less than a year after the market had topped out.
Then, after stocks bottomed in 2002, we got a rip-roaring bull market until the global financial crisis. Whether the Bush administration created conditions that led to the mortgage meltdown can be debated, but leading up to the crisis, the market didn’t seem to care.
While Bush had the misfortune of becoming president as the market was imploding, Obama had the benefit of being sworn in just two months before the market bottom in 2009.
Keep in mind, that wasn’t the end of the recession. Obama’s administration had to pull out all the stops to keep the economy from falling off a cliff. But the market, not getting the memo that Obama was a Marxist, started to rally well before the recession ended. Over Obama’s eight years, it rose a sensational 181%.
During Donald Trump’s four years, the market rose 67%, including the dramatic drop and rebound at the beginning of the pandemic.
Whether Trump is a “stable genius,” as he claims, or duller than a No. 2 pencil at a crossword puzzle convention, the market didn’t care, as it put in a nice performance over those four years.
Under Joe Biden, the market has hit record highs and is currently up 51%.
Even Jimmy Carter saw the market rise 31% during his time in office. While I don’t recall him ever being accused of being a Marxist, his presidency is widely considered one of the most unsuccessful administrations in recent memory (despite his improved reputation in his later years due to his humanitarian efforts).
You would think the stock market wouldn’t respond well to the Oval Office being occupied by a complete dolt – or someone whose beliefs aligned more with Lenin’s thinking than Jefferson’s.
But over the decades, history has shown that markets go up over the long term and that the person residing in the White House does not have much of an effect on market performance. It also shows that you shouldn’t believe all the mudslinging and name-calling that are all too common in our politics.
Here’s the bottom line: Stay invested even if next week’s outcome is the opposite of what you’re hoping for. You may be surprised by how well your investments perform during the next president’s term – whoever it may be.