I'm not an American but as an outsider it's so odd to see the anti-Obama stance this government is taking. Look at the US economy coming out of 2008. From my perspective it's done quite well. Unemployment has gone from 10% to 4%, GDP has climbed. S&P and US stocks in general have done exceptionally well. It seems like whatever Obama did was working. Do the Republicans think they can do better? Why not just ride their coat tails to glory?
You have the assumption that economic growth is what they want. Trump has a mandate to punish the rich/middle class people so the poor people can feel relatively better about themselves. Startup visas can do nothing to help the poor rural unemployed. They'll probably be happier with a weaker dollar and thus more primary/secondary industry job opportunities. They certainly don't care about unicorns.
This is a big population of severely disadvantaged people who gain nothing from GDP growth. They do matter.
The problem is that most people (ie voters) have not seen things get better. Wages are not keeping up with cost of living. Things are stabilized for the upper echelons of America, but the lower income/wealth individuals (a majority of Americans) are getting left behind. By both parties. So you're always going to have a huge portion during each election that just wants a "change" in the hope it will finally make things better for them. Spoiler alert, it won't.
I'm pretty sure they honestly and truly believe that the economy is doing well /despite/ Democrat policies rather than because of it. That, or they believe that the financial crisis was just a blip and now this is the economy in its "natural state".
Regardless, whatever the problem is, their solution is always lowering taxes on corporations and rich people. Whether the economy is doing poorly or well, that is what they will propose.
Guns, God and Gays. Republican voters are easily manipulated to vote against their own economic self interest by playing to cultural issues. And there are a whole lot of republican voters who are in parts of the country that don't have the economic growth that the coasts and the cities do.
These metrics do not imply that those gains were shared widely by the populace, and especially the employment figures don't account for quality of employment or benefits.
Obama inherited the market on a low. We are at a high and what may have been compatible with growth at a low may not be good enough for improving the market on a high.
