Gail: Well, we’re entering a big, big election year. I’m wondering how many Republican candidates are going to stop bragging about tax cuts for long enough to focus on the slightly more critical question of whether we have a mentally unstable person in the White House. What do you think?

Bret: Fuhgeddaboudit. The number of Republican candidates who will expressly denounce Trump’s behavior is probably less than zero. The only question is the ardor with which they’ll express their admiration for and fealty to the president. Then again, one consequence of Wolff’s book is that it has pretty much destroyed the political career of one Stephen K. Bannon. That might mean that the G.O.P.’s taste for nominating Roy Moore-like figures may abate, at least for a while. Mitch McConnell must be smiling.

Gail: Yeah, in fact, tweeting a grin.

Bret: All this being said, I continue to think that Democrats are gulling themselves if they think they can retake one or both houses of Congress merely on the strength of opposition to Trump. Constantly calling the president an idiot is another way of insulting everyone who voted for him and may do more to galvanize them come November than to persuade them to flip their vote. And Democrats will be even less persuasive to voters if the economy continues to perform well, or if middle-class voters see their taxes go down thanks to the tax bill.

All of which means that Democrats have to develop a political slogan at least as effective as MAGA. I would humbly suggest MASA: Make America Sane Again.

Gail: I can imagine Chuck Schumer having a flag made. But let me ask you a question about the economy. It’s been doing very well ever since — ahem — Barack Obama resurrected it. It’s been a good ride but people are beginning to question how long it’ll last. I’m worried that any artificial heft the economy got from the tax cuts could just hasten the popping of our current balloon. Or, at minimum, make it harder for the government to deal with a recession crisis since there’s less revenue coming in, even from the folks who can afford to send it.

Bret: Morgan Stanley’s Ruchir Sharma had an excellent Op-Ed essay in The Times the other day on the subject of economic forecasting. As he tells it, economic forecasters “have not predicted a single United States recession since the Federal Reserve began keeping such records a half-century ago, and missed many revivals,” including the worldwide resurgence in 2017. Which is only to say that the answer to your question about how long the recovery will last is, ¿Quién sabe?

Gail: Bret, if we only conversed about things we had solid information about, we would have to spend all our time discussing yesterday’s weather. Come on, take a jump.