Well, it might, in a world where the economic incentives were designed to encourage constant investment and free circulation of money. In that world, you could imagine that the wealth would both “trickle down” and create new wealth (for all involved) along the way — by focusing on increasing the supply of goods you could in theory also increase demand and make everyone better off.

But to do that you’d have to commit to, for example, limiting what the rich can do with their money — that’s an essential part of “trickle down economics” if you actually want it to work. If you don’t do that part, then nothing trickles. And of course we didn’t do that part; the Republicans just wanted to give money to the rich, not force the rich to participate in a mutually-beneficial economic structure by reinvesting. So in some sense we didn’t actually try trickle down economics in a meaningful way — it’s entirely possible that in a different, better world it could work.

I say that because there are people who cling to the idea of trickle down — and, ok. But if you want a trickle down approach, you’ve got to unstop the gutter first, and force the water to trickle down. If someone were willing to do that, I’d hear them out. But if you don’t want to do that, then you don’t support “trickle down” — you just want to fuck over the poor and middle classes.