For those still looking for the point in what Trump is doing, I give you a quote. This is from A scary quote for the GOP on Trump and tariffs by Aaron Blake at WaPo. And here’s the quote.
“He’s at the peak of just not giving a f— anymore,” a White House official with knowledge of Trump’s thinking told The Post. “Bad news stories? Doesn’t give a f—. He’s going to do what he’s going to do. He’s going to do what he promised to do on the campaign trail.”
I don’t know how much of the current ongoing disaster really is about what Trump promised on the campaign trail. I do suspect he has some kind of notion about how all this chaos is going to work out, somehow. I don’t think he’s deliberately sabotaging his own administration. but Trump doesn’t know what he’s doing. And Aaron Blake’s point is that when the tariff ship sinks (as it undoubtedly will) the Republican party is going to go down with it. The entire party has spend years protecting him and making excuses for him and Letting Trump Be Trump. When the ship sinks it will be too late for backsies.
But Trump doesn’t give a bleep what happens to them. He’s going to do what he wants to do, what feels good to do. So every government agency that ever in the least bit annoyed him,, which is probably all of them, is getting cut. Every program that doesn’t directly reflect glory and honor on him is being cut. He doesn’t give a bleep if they are popular or even if lives depend on them.
And I do think the tariffs are in part a power play. He thinks the world will come groveling to him. That’s what he most dearly wants, to be the capo dei capi of the whole planet. That is, I think, why he keeps changing his story about whether the tariffs are permanent or negotiable. If they are supposed to be protectionist and cause more goods to be manufactured in the U.S., they have to be permanent. Nobody is going to start building a new factory to relocate manufacturing to the U.S. if they think the stupid tariffs will end in a few weeks. Even Trump ought to be able to understand that. So Trump has to say the tariffs are around to stay. But what he really wants is the groveling. So then an hour later he’ll say they are negotiable.
But it’s not going to work. He doesn’t understand tariffs, and economies. He over-calculated America’s importance. Instead of making himself stronger, he’s leaving a power vacuum where the U.S. used to be, and sooner or later some other country, or perhaps the EU, will step into that void. Under Trump’s “leadership” the U.S. is becoming more isolated, and vulnerable, and dysfunctional, and quickly a whole lot poorer. So much winning. And as people lose their investments and FEMA doesn’t show up after a disaster and hospitals close and prices get ridiculous and unemployment goes up because nobody is hiring because consumers aren’t buying, Republicans who have hitched themselves to Trump will have no where to hide.
How bad is the tariff plan? Even the bleeping right-wing American Enterprise Institute says it makes no sense. See also There Is Only One Way to Make Sense of the Tariffs by Derek Thompson at The Atlantic.
One of the highest tariff rates, 50 percent, was imposed on the African nation of Lesotho, whose average citizen earns less than $5 a day. Why? Because the administration’s formula for supposedly “reciprocal” tariff rates apparently has nothing to do with tariffs. The Trump team seems to have calculated each penalty by dividing the U.S. trade deficit with a given country by how much the U.S. imports from it and then doing a rough adjustment. Because Lesotho’s citizens are too poor to afford most U.S. exports, while the U.S. imports $237 million in diamonds and other goods from the small landlocked nation, we have reserved close to our highest-possible tariff rate for one of the world’s poorest countries. The notion that taxing Lesotho gemstones is necessary for the U.S. to add steel jobs in Ohio is so absurd that I briefly lost consciousness in the middle of writing this sentence.
Thompson is basically saying that the tariff policy is an extension of Trump’s chaotic psyche. No real thinking went into any of this. Nobody knows anything about how it’s supposed to work. It was just slapped together to please Trump. As Thompson says, we’re all living in Trump’s head.
On a brighter note, the Hand’s Off protests seem to have gone well yesterday. We need more of those. I was sorry to not go, but I’ve been dealing with a lot of arthritis pain and haven’t been all that mobile. Still, sitting out really bothers me.
What scares me is, a reason Trump may not care, if the tariffs end up destroying the world economy, devastating the GOP, throwing the US economy into recession and all the pain US citizens will feel, and losing the support of his own base is because he knows he's going to implement a plan to prevent the vote in 2026, as it will be the only way to keep republicans and himself in power. Meanwhile, destroying the economy is part of the plan to create a fire sale of assets for him and his billionaire friends so they can buy up everything cheap.
As for Trump "doing what he promised to do on the campaign trail," he's not doing any of that. Prices aren't cheaper, people are losing jobs, pay has not increased. He’s not even deporting millions of “illegals” “on day one” for that matter, to the chagrin of his rabid base. Literally everything he is doing, from firing of government workers, gutting Medicare, destroying social security in order to privatize it, at best, ignoring the courts and relegating congress to a cheerleader squad, is straight out of the Project 2025 playbook, something he insisted he knew nothing about.
So no, Trump is not doing what he promised to do on the campaign trail, other than be a dictator on day one.
There you are assuming there's a plan. I don't think so. I'm reading Dow futures fell 1,500 points today, so they're expecting another rout on Wall Street tomorrow. A whole lot of monied people are losing a whole lot of money. And nobody can plan what to do because nobody knows what Trump will do. He changes from hour to hour. And let him try to cancel elections, which the states run. The nation held elections as usual during the Civil War; there is no circumstance in which elections can be canceled nationwide in the U.S. And the way things are going, by next year Trump won't have the political capital left to declare National Pizza Day, never mind cancel elections.
That says what we are up against to those who can and do read as well as it could be written. With current facts available if fits, and it avoids common speculation errors that are so common in a lot of present journalism and comment to their article. Lots of people can protest and create good and not so good signs. Few have the skills, the knowledge base and the judgement to write what you did. Please accept my view you spent your time well. I trust the power of a well skilled pen backed by a honed knowledge base. Thanks for writing this instead. It is the best descriptive I have read so far as to what we are up against.
I can't remember the mechanic, but I recall his story well. It is one I have conveyed over time but never written down. I think it deserves print, and its source, but that is lost. The mechanic related a story about a local who asked him to diagnose what was wrong with his car's engine. He said that was all he needed as he was handy and could get the parts and do the work himself. The mechanic declined his request, telling him that in his estimation diagnosis was about 70% of the job. On average that figure over time seems quite accurate. Knowing what the problem is, is well over half of most jobs. I have spent many hours and dollars 'fixing' non-existent problems due to poor diagnosis. Then more dollars, time and effort to fix what was the real problem of course too. The mechanic's story is well etched in my memory by the school of hard knocks, which provides no written degree. It applies well beyond car repair. It applies to this problem situation quite well it seems. Let's see how many others will read and agree. A 70% start to a solution of this huge problem is quite an accomplishment. I think you nailed the diagnosis.