I don't think the people in charge view what they are doing as being self-destructive. You could convincingly argue that the administration's policies have made the recession worse and will make it harder for the economy to recover, but these people don't care that much about "growing the pie" anymore as much as they care about maximizing their class' share of the pie. With that goal in mind, things have been going exceedingly well. In fact, growing the pie can be dangerous to their interests if the rewards are distributed equitably throughout society.
Rule of thumb - particular people can be stupid (Trump is obviously a fucking moron) but generally administrations are not stupid even if you don't really like the people in them. If you think they are behaving stupidly, then you probably don't understand what they are trying to do.