Confidence in the Trump whim is unlikely to survive a recession | Robert Shiller

In an economic downturn Americans will reassess their president's unreal narrative and random management style

Donald Trump concluded his remarks at the recent G7 summit by inviting the assembled leaders to hold next year's meeting at his Doral country club near Miami, describing a fantasy-like world of "magnificent buildings" whose "ballrooms are among the biggest in Florida and the best". It was yet another instance of the US president's public narrative, which has been on a rising growth path for nearly 50 years.

One can observe this by searching Trump's name in digital news sources such as Google Ngrams. His narrative has been slow to grow by contagion, but it has been growing for a long time, such that his domination of public discourse in the United States almost seems implausible.

In your private life, be resolved to do anything and everything, to dice, to drink deep, to live high and keep mistresses, or at all events to boast of it even if you do not do it, telling everyone about it and showing notes that purport to be written by women. You must aim to be elegant, you know, and take pains to create the impression that women are devoted to you. This also will be set down to the credit of your rhetoric by the public, who will infer from it that your fame extends even to the women's quarters."

Bring with you, then, as the principal thing, ignorance; secondly recklessness, and thereto effrontery and shamelessness. Modesty, respectability, self-restraint, and blushes may be left at home, for they are useless and somewhat of a hindrance to the matter in hand " If you commit a solecism or a barbarism, let shamelessness be your only remedy."