If America falls into recession, Donald Trump will be our next president

That’s why Team Clinton should pay close attention to that jobs report, even if Trump isn’t. Job growth has slowed sharply, a possible harbinger of deeper economic trouble. Not only did the jobs report show a meager 38,000 net jobs created last month, but totals for March and April were also revised considerably lower. Over the past three months, then, job gains have averaged 116,000 per month. That’s about half the average monthly gain since 2010. Barclays recently explained why this is worrisome: Essentially, this sort of molasses-slow job growth signals “that risks of a near- to medium-term recession have risen.”

That’s essentially the same conclusion from JPMorgan’s economic team. JPMorgan’s model doesn’t look at job growth, but other factors such as the unemployment rate, auto sales, and consumer sentiment. And based on those variables and others, the bank sees a 36 percent chance of a recession within a year, the highest so far during the seven-year-old expansion…

But here’s the thing none of these models factor in: the impact of Trump himself. He could become his very own October Surprise through what I have termed the Trump Doom Loop — the negative feedback effects among markets, politics, and the U.S. economy. The better Trump does in the polls, the more people around the world will worry, and the worse it will be for economic confidence… and thus the better Trump does in the polls.