It is amazing and amusing to witness all the Republican politicians "hitching their wagons" to Trump. They parrot Trump's words and entirely endorse his "negotiating." One might think they would be a bit cautious and circumspect, but in fact, those left in the Republican Party have long since sacrificed all honor, intelligence, and shame. It would be comical, were it not so serious for the country. In my state of Iowa they are Reynolds, Ernst, Grassley, and in my district a man named Feenstra. What incredibly fatuous fools.
In a rational world, they would take one look at what tRump said he wanted to do with the economy and run screaming in the other direction. But, nooooooo... they hitch their wagons to a man who bankrupted casinos (pleural) in Atlantic City... an Orange idiot who teetered on the edge of insolvency for many years until he finally stuck his money siphon into the US presidency. We are simply f****d!
The GOP's a cult that's gotten to where they are partly by always sticking together and never falling apart. No matter how fucked up things get, largely due to their own efforts, they figure, nothing REALLY bad will ever happen to any of them, because they're all part of the same power elite. And the more bridges they burn, the more tightly bound together they are.
Right now, Trump is the president of that club, and that means they do whatever he says.
I disagree. The GOP fell apart when the magas finally realized that the Republicans were a bunch of rich guys who sold them social issues and gave them policies that didn't bring the social changes they sought. After Iraq and 2008 they realized the GOP had screwed them royally and there was a grassroots takeover headed by the right wing talk show folks on radio and FOX.
Again the magas are getting screwed, but they're poorly educated ( there's become a strong anti-college bias among them) and are being taken for a ride by the talk show people, tech bros and Christian Nationalists.
At least in the rural PA region where I grew up, the anti-education, anti-college resentment was already well-entrenched by the early- to mid-1970s. Professor Hofstadter's, "Anti-intellectualism in American Life" was published in 1963. I subsequently found evidence of this in a descriptive history of the region published circa 1914.
This. Hence, "cult." It will be interesting, and probably hair-raising, to see whom MAGA blames as Trump's/Musk's policies leave them poorer, sicker, and without gov't. services from SSA, FEMA, etc. A lot of them--probably millions--will be psychologically incapable of recognizing how they've been conned and betrayed.
In a few months it will be clear who were simply tricked and who are so far gone they cannot be brought back to reality. I estimate at least 40 million of his supporters will require cult deprogramming.
Yes, and he is very clearly doing their bidding. One aim is to destroy as much of the economies of US and allies as he possibly can, while profiting from it (his own perogative). It is the only way any of this makes sense. Expect more mayhem. Where it ends no one can tell. I suspect there will be violence this summer. This is America, after all.
Seeing as there's a Bipartisan Senate committee report confirming Russian interference in favor of Trump readily available, its true madness to deny this reality. Try googling and reading it.
The January 6th attempted insurrection wasn’t as bad as a bipartisan senate committee providing detailed publicly available evidence about Russia’s involvement in getting Trump elected?
This is why it’s a cult. Like Twain says, no amount of evidence will convince an Idiot. You’ve been dismissed. Seek help.
This is not a conspiracy theory. Russians “turned” Trump in the 1980s when they were recruiting young rich Americans looking to achieve greater wealth and power. There is plenty of evidence of this.
If it walks like a Russian asset, and it talks like a Russian asset, what the hell do you think it is, a duck? You are putting two and two together and getting a zebra. He has been a Russian asset since at least 87. He and his kids have all admitted taking money from the Russians. But, hey, keep telling yourself fairy tales. Sure, they must be true if state media tells you so. Lol.
Right now they're the First Felon's tariffs but if the GOP Congress doesn't end them in a week, they'll be the Republican Tariffs. The GOP caucus could end the tariff madness by law and with the certain help of the Democratic caucus they would override a veto. At the same time they could stop and reverse injurious cuts to cancer, dementia and infectious disease research. The longer the GOP caucus delays taking action the more all of they will own the madness.
Jim Jacob’s in my opinion is not that the GOP is delaying taking action, what is, is that the republican congress is content and purposely approving of everything and anything trump does. Like another post stated, trump is the leader of the GOP club. And these republicans in Congress bow and follow orders. Care nothing about the American People. They serve and work for their club leader and they are eager to be part of the dismantling of our country, they want power and enrichment. And could care less if it means stepping over each American.
One would assume that every GOP MOC will get a hell of a bad time at the country club this weekend? Time is running out fast; better course correct no later than Monday and Tuesday!
Yes, but there might be a silver lining. I am very hopeful that Trump's policies have been so insane and destructive that Representatives from the few competitive districts will start to abandon him. Once a few move, things in Washington could change so fast it will make your head spin.
Something I don't see people talking much about is how Trump's history with people—including or especially his allies—will affect the course of things when the winds turn against him.
My mind keeps returning to Armando Iannucci's "Death of Stalin" and its depiction of the fate of Beria.
Thanks for the reference to "Death of Stalin" (the greatest movie of the century so far.) I think that what is going on in Washington today is a replay. Obsequious, incompetent toadies pandering to a lunatic. The question is, who will be our Zhukov?
I heard Rubio spouting nonsense this morning on NPR. He's in Brussells at a NATO FM meeting talking about how great the tariffs are. Even he knows how much of a lie it is but he has sold his soul to the Devil...forgetting what happened to Faust.
Never in a million years would I think I’d agree with Rand Paul, but he’s one of few Senate Republicans who spoke out against tariffs on Canada. It was a performative speech on the Senate floor and something Trump said he’d never sign, but it showed some Republicans are starting to shift.
Rep Ben Cline VA 6th district is my local fool. Most of what he posts on Facebook is outright lies. For Ben and his ilk, the oath they took to protect the constitution means less than nothing to them.
A theocratic state with a thin veneer of fake democracy would be just fine with these America haters.
Government by destruction, what's not to like? And the GOPers remain convinced that the Great Unwashed firmly believe in all this self-inflicted carnage, and that to even timidly oppose tRump policies as a matter of simple sanity risks being "primaried", so keep the faith, nodding one's head like a bobblehead doll.
How much is too much? We're finding out real fast, right?
Not amusing, but the only source of hope at the moment, namely that we may be saved from malevolence by incompetence once again. There was seemingly nothing standing in the way of their slowly continuing to impose a police state, but economic mismanagement just might prevent a full autocratic consolidation, if enough people get angry.
And to think there was a time, back when I was a union organizer in Iowa, when we had Senators like John Culver, Dick Clark and, later on, Tom Harkin. “In January of 1975, Iowa Democratic Party activists and office holders could not have been happier. In the previous November's mid-term elections, Iowans had elected or reelected five of the six Democratic candidates for the U.S. House of Representatives, including newcomers Michael Blouin, Berkley Bedell, and Tom Harkin. In addition, Democrats now controlled both branches of the state legislature. About the only thing for the state's Democrats to be unhappy about was the situation in the Iowa Executive Council, where the GOP controlled all seven offices (including that of governor). Even so, what probably excited loyal Democrats more than anything else was the election of former Second District Congressman John C. Culver to the United States Senate. The Culver election, coupled with the election two years earlier of Culver's legislative assistant Dick Clark over then-incumbent Sen. Jack Miller, marked only the second time in the state's history that two Democrats had been elected in the same decade to the highest legislative body in the nation. Iowa had finally become a competitive two-party state.”
Anyone else concluding that this is the "Let them eat cake" administration of clowns?
Stuff like this is why all of my work colleagues in Argentina had US $$ "under their mattresses" and bank accounts in countries like Switzerland. They didn't want their liquid assets to be subject to the whims and incompetence of their governing regimes.
I needed cash to pay the entry visa when flying from Argentina to Chile and my Argentine colleague came in the next day and handed me several hundred USD for the visa! I don't carry that kind of cash even at home in the U.S.! This same colleague also showed me a framed 1,000,000 Argentine note from one of the country's bouts of severe inflation and currency devaluation -- he laughed and said he wanted to remind his kids that they used to be 'multi-millionaires'. Here WE are now.
They’re not “hitching their wagons” to Trump, they’re being dragged by the shackles on their ankles. Trump has threatened primary challengers to any Republican who defies him. So there’s nothing amazing about their behavior.
If we didn’t have winner-take-all elections, an alternative conservative party would be able to challenge the Republicans.
Personally, I no longer excuse or have sympathy for their situations. They 'signed up' for the role. They also swore an oath to the Constitution (not to their party or their seat) so it is time for them to put on their 'big-boy pants' and DO THEIR JOBS to defend the Constitution, the country, and those who live here.
We must hold our GOP electeds to account and push them to honor their oath to protect and defend the Constitution. Silence by any will be taken as consent.
I agree completely. My point was simply that the "hitching their wagons" is a misleading metaphor. Hitching is a voluntary action. If we're going to figure out how to deal with this mess, we need to be very clear about player's motives. Trump is ruling by fear, and for now it's the elected Republicans who most afraid of him.
You may be right, but they may in fact agree with Trump. The polls how that an astounding number of Republican voters still agree with Trump on this one. You are correct in their oath, as a number of the GOP Congress know that Trump is disregarding it.
Chaos -is the inconceivable yet apparent objective leading to step by step autocratic power grab by the first kakistocracy in US history - totally contrary to the foundational principles embedded in the Constitution of the United States and the interest of its citizens.
While the economy is a significant global concern, I believe there is a more pressing, existential issue: the control and oversight of U.S. nuclear weapons.
I am concerned about several questions: Does the "Club" still exist? Is the U.S. still a member? Who has the authority to make decisions regarding nuclear weapons? What strategies are in place when potentially dangerous entities, such as North Korea, become capable? Will the policy become a fragmented, "every man for himself" approach?
These ill-considered tariffs could literally have deadly consequences. It is imperative that all NC members remain united to counter donald the dictator.
I urge you to listen to the Arms Control Wonk podcast featuring Aaron Stein and Jeffery Lewis for more insights
Also, now that Trump ended the world order, Poland, Germany, South Korea, Japan, and likely Mexico and Canada will get nuclear weapons. How do we deal with the worst crisis of nuclear proliferation imaginable?
Poland, South Korea, and Japan, yes. The others will probably be okay. (If Poland has nuclear weapons Germany won't need them because Poland is between Germany and Russia.)
You left off Australia. It's highly likely that there's already an Australian/Japanese/Korea nuke program going, probably backed by U.K. expertise. Trump's attack on NATO and allies will lead to an incredibly dangerous situation where all first world countries have their own strategic nuclear forces.
When you allow gerrymandering congressional districts, representatives no longer are beholding to their constituents. They don’t even need to attend their constituents’ town halls. And flush, there goes your democracy.
History will ask how could so many smart people make such disastrous choice so effortlessly? The low information voter is not hard to understand but Wall Street and the CEO club obviously were willing to put everything at risk for a tax cut. That speaks to the degradation of our values over the last 50 years. When people stop considering how their choices might impact others its not going to end well.
In a well functioning Democracy Trump wouldn’t have been taken seriously as a candidate. He would have been convicted of tax fraud 20 years ago.
SCOTUS never dealt with it. I’m not sure what Justice Kennedy said about it, but it was like, “It’s too hard to figure out.” So, balls and strikes. Right. Nobody would go to a baseball game where they made up the ‘rules’ as they go.
I’m a law and order guy. The torturers should have been locked up. The NYC finance guys should have been arrested. If NYC and NYS had done their job, Trump would have been a couple decades into a prison sentence. Democracy has rules and there have to be consequences for violating them.
Last, umpires are not just behind the plate. They are all over the field assuring the play is fair to all participants. You think that is our SCOTUS?
Given how for you MAGAts every accusation is a confession and QAnon is basically an admission you are all Matt Gaetz-like creeps, I assume you spend a lot of time trying to figure out how people in middle school talk. Can’t wait to see your appearance on “To Catch A Predator”!
Great essay. I am so glad you left the NYT. They never would have let you write this excellent analysis of our current economic mess. The problem is....now what?
I have a cynical idea about the Trump tariffs when they are implemented. A mid- to small-size country calls or visits Trump to get a reduced tariff for their country. Yes, they have to kiss the ring and say some nice things and praise Trump for being a financial genius but that isn’t enough. They will have to buy the Trump cryptocurrency or invest in some other Trump asset. If they don’t follow through on this commitment, the tariffs will return. I doubt that Trump can pull this off in the same way with any large EU country.
I think that you hit the nail on the head. Trump is a classic mobster and this is a protection racket:
"Nice business/industry/economy you have there. It would be too bad is some extreme and unjustified tariffs should happen to it. But only I am able to protect you from those tariffs -- I just need a favor in return: a small investment in Trump cryptocurrency or Truth Social stock."
Technical note: those are both intangible items with little or no intrinsic value but are trading on public markets for orders of magnitude more than they are worth. Trump has billions of dollars worth of them, but cannot sell without the price collapsing ... unless there is a buyer somewhere who is also buying around the time that Trump is selling.
In other words, perfect vehicles for laundering money to Trump.
The EU acts as a block. They are going to give Trump a chance to negotiate during next 14 days. If he doesn't cooperate, the EU will do certain tariffs.
But there are a lot of countries out there that would like to trade with the US that are not protected as part of the EU. Trump will take his personal payoffs from anyone who offers.
China already has partnered with Japan and South Korea, or rather they have partnered with China to coordinate reciprocal tariffs, etc. Can smaller Asian countries be far behind? China is already investing in Cambodia, Vietnam, Malaysia. An all-Asia Chinese economic empire will diminish America’s, for good or ill.
If he’s just talking his pocket then the little guys will be more than enough. May I suggest you are thinking too hard, or rather too long. Limit yourself to, say, ten words, then figure out what he’s doing. Call it “keeping with the realm of the possible.” If he’s successful in his wants, a longer discussion will not dissuade him.
You brought up a good word that will haunt America going forward: stupid. We’ve had the period of the ugly American, and the fat American, but we are deeply entrenched in the era of the stupid American. And unlike changing clothes or loosing weight, there’s no pill for stupid.
Paranoia is often a sign of dementia. People with dementia often think friends and even relatives are ripping them off or trying to steal their money. We have a demented megalomaniac in the White House. He thinks all the countries in the world are ripping off the US, including islands with just penguins.
Absolutely Winston! EVIL and WORSE -> STUPID. Trump is the upper left peak on the Dunning-Kruger curve. 👇 When evil people are this stupid they are extremely dangerous because they can't be taught, but are easily manipulated by people like Putin...
I just read an interview with the president of Finland where he had had a good meeting with Trump & he seemed certain that Trump would be imposing harsher sanctions on Russia…I had a bit of hope but the one consistent thing with Trump is his love of Russia.
What business can’t deal with is a regime under which trade policy reflects the Whims Of A Mad King, where nobody knows what tariffs will be next week, let alone over the next five years. Are these tariffs going to be permanent? Are they a negotiating ploy? The administration can’t even get its talking points straight, with top officials saying that tariffs aren’t up for negotiation only to be undercut by Trump a few hours later.
I think the deepest irony of all this is how Chinese this policy feels. Fire the central debt bazooka to fund intervention, run a massive deficit for two years, and regrow when you take your medicine.
Is that good? Probably not when your technocrats consist of the three stooges and seven dwarves
More and more I follow American politics, the more and more I like the Chinese government. The Chinese seem to be more efficient and better at what the West is doing. Everything, really.
Incarcerating people, check; gaslighting and spreading fake news, check; suppressing real economic news, on the way - check; taking away human rights, check; trying to control the economy for the whims and fancy of a single person, check (the Chinese policies seem to at least favor them at all instances); and the list goes on...
Disagree, but it’s like a race to the bottom so only halfheartedly. My little brother is graduating college and I’m very glad he’s seeking a white collar job here and not China.
They don’t even publish youth unemployment anymore! That’s what you get when the real estate industry hires over half(!!!) of college graduates at its peak, then folds.
China itself can seemingly only fire the bazooka a couple more times. And its central debt looks a lot more appealing to collect than America’s
Trump and Musk learn from China, but what they did is worse than China. I have talked about that with my Chinese friend for a few months. It’s ridiculous and heartbroken.
Not Chinese per se, Mao-ish. He was a good revolutionary but a terrible administrator who was sure he knew everything. He killed millions of his own people with stupidity and arrogance.
I wouldn't want to live under Xi's rule, but he's a lot smarter than Trump. But no matter how you cut it, an absolute monarch isn't as good as a group of intelligent experts in many fields.
We don't talk enough about the underlying thinking - I guess there is a little thinking going on -behind the tariffs, is that Trump and his friends want to replace income taxes with tariffs, replacing the internal revenue service with the external revenue service. What a gift that would be for the billionaires!
Earlier this week Musk announced that the DOGE boys will be replacing ALL of the SS systems within the next 4 months. As a programmer, analyst, architect and project leader, I have to say that this is even dumber than the tariffs. (And that's saying a lot).
There are white papers from the GAO to the Senate Finance Committee laying out the basic architecture and components of the SSA database and applications. The GAO gives high praise to the SSA for their systems but points out the need for changes.
Musk is an idiot who has no fucking clue what he is doing. Sure, a large portion of the SS recipients can survive a month or so without a check, but who is going to feed, house and clothe the millions that can't?
We all know it's not going to be Musk/Trump or the Republicans.
I have worked under a tech "leader" reliving his glory days of hacking out a system in a weekend, who came into an established company and tried to rewrite the core software in a weekend too. At the end of the weekend he had a solution that was a squared Pareto - 64% (80% of 80%) of the functionality. The problem was, the real business value was somewhere in the missing 36%, but he had no idea where because he hadn't spent any time actually understanding the business.
Musk wants to replicate his similar "success" at Twitter, with the entire country. And he seems to think the entire Social Security Administration boils down to the tiny fraction (much less than 64%) that is central database of recipients.
It generally takes months to write the design documents for a large system, and even then, there is a good chance you miss some of the business rules. "Managers" and "Leaders" think all of this is easy. They are people who move their lips when they read. And think they are geniuses with high IQ.
If I were a business, this would be my thought process:
1. We have a lame duck at the helm and elections are due next year; the congress is possibly going to flip if these policies continue. These policies will be overturned at that time.
2. If, however, these policies are just a ruse or negotiating ploy, they will change soon and I will not have to do anything.
3. In the meanwhile, I am going to promise big investments and changes that take more than a year to materialize. The President can have his moment of success, pretty much like the past 'war is over' banner that we all remember.
People should move their backs and vote. There will be all attempts to disenfranchise them. They have to understand that voting doesn't mean just trying to turn up on election day; it means successfully registering and making sure their vote is valid.
That's assuming that the tariffs remain in place for more than the next two weeks, that there will actually be midterm elections, that (provided there are midterm elections) Congress does flip, that, provided Congress flips, Trump actually follows the Constitution and acknowledges the power of the legislative branch (which he isn't willing to do when he has a compliant Congress willing to lie down for his every insanity), and that Trump will remove tariffs based on what American businesses promise to do rather than on what the countries he's imposed them on actually DO do. That's a LOT of assumptions, many of them based on earlier assumptions in the series becoming facts.
We are both retired and terrified. Our retirement plan is draining away. I fear for my TRS pension. Our stocks, that were reliable are all tacking major hits. We wanted to sell our house and down size, now we don’t know. Now we get Oz, we already felt we were living in Oz.
I am of the last generation that has DB pensions. And in his last days Biden signed an Act abolishing the Windfall Elimination Provision, doubling my SS. But I have no confidence my Fed pension and SS will be paid under Trump. Fortunately I have 3 other smaller state pensions: CDN, CH, GB. And I live in GB: as the dollar falls so does my income in local currency. I’d been selling off my daughter’s & grandson’s pension fund (SIPP, like an IRA; and ISA, like a Roth) and investing the proceeds in a GBP money market fund at 5%. I don’t think the stock market will beat that over the next year but who knows, and kiddo can’t touch his pension for another 50 years. Our mortgage will be paid off next year: I fear for families about to be made homeless.
It is amazing and amusing to witness all the Republican politicians "hitching their wagons" to Trump. They parrot Trump's words and entirely endorse his "negotiating." One might think they would be a bit cautious and circumspect, but in fact, those left in the Republican Party have long since sacrificed all honor, intelligence, and shame. It would be comical, were it not so serious for the country. In my state of Iowa they are Reynolds, Ernst, Grassley, and in my district a man named Feenstra. What incredibly fatuous fools.
In a rational world, they would take one look at what tRump said he wanted to do with the economy and run screaming in the other direction. But, nooooooo... they hitch their wagons to a man who bankrupted casinos (pleural) in Atlantic City... an Orange idiot who teetered on the edge of insolvency for many years until he finally stuck his money siphon into the US presidency. We are simply f****d!
The GOP's a cult that's gotten to where they are partly by always sticking together and never falling apart. No matter how fucked up things get, largely due to their own efforts, they figure, nothing REALLY bad will ever happen to any of them, because they're all part of the same power elite. And the more bridges they burn, the more tightly bound together they are.
Right now, Trump is the president of that club, and that means they do whatever he says.
I disagree. The GOP fell apart when the magas finally realized that the Republicans were a bunch of rich guys who sold them social issues and gave them policies that didn't bring the social changes they sought. After Iraq and 2008 they realized the GOP had screwed them royally and there was a grassroots takeover headed by the right wing talk show folks on radio and FOX.
Again the magas are getting screwed, but they're poorly educated ( there's become a strong anti-college bias among them) and are being taken for a ride by the talk show people, tech bros and Christian Nationalists.
Out of the pot and into the frying pan.
At least in the rural PA region where I grew up, the anti-education, anti-college resentment was already well-entrenched by the early- to mid-1970s. Professor Hofstadter's, "Anti-intellectualism in American Life" was published in 1963. I subsequently found evidence of this in a descriptive history of the region published circa 1914.
They have always been here, the Knownothings.
This. Hence, "cult." It will be interesting, and probably hair-raising, to see whom MAGA blames as Trump's/Musk's policies leave them poorer, sicker, and without gov't. services from SSA, FEMA, etc. A lot of them--probably millions--will be psychologically incapable of recognizing how they've been conned and betrayed.
In a few months it will be clear who were simply tricked and who are so far gone they cannot be brought back to reality. I estimate at least 40 million of his supporters will require cult deprogramming.
We are but we don’t have to be.
Yes, and he is very clearly doing their bidding. One aim is to destroy as much of the economies of US and allies as he possibly can, while profiting from it (his own perogative). It is the only way any of this makes sense. Expect more mayhem. Where it ends no one can tell. I suspect there will be violence this summer. This is America, after all.
Seeing as there's a Bipartisan Senate committee report confirming Russian interference in favor of Trump readily available, its true madness to deny this reality. Try googling and reading it.
The January 6th attempted insurrection wasn’t as bad as a bipartisan senate committee providing detailed publicly available evidence about Russia’s involvement in getting Trump elected?
This is why it’s a cult. Like Twain says, no amount of evidence will convince an Idiot. You’ve been dismissed. Seek help.
HRC just won the popular vote and not the Electoral College, that's all.
The KGB had notes on him going back to 1971.
This is not a conspiracy theory. Russians “turned” Trump in the 1980s when they were recruiting young rich Americans looking to achieve greater wealth and power. There is plenty of evidence of this.
But how else can it be explained in a rational way?
Willful ignorant shitposting is no way to go through life. But it's not "ignorance" if you're getting paid to say it I suppose.
If it walks like a Russian asset, and it talks like a Russian asset, what the hell do you think it is, a duck? You are putting two and two together and getting a zebra. He has been a Russian asset since at least 87. He and his kids have all admitted taking money from the Russians. But, hey, keep telling yourself fairy tales. Sure, they must be true if state media tells you so. Lol.
Explaining Trump's presidencies is simple: stupidity, misogyny, and racism, not necessarily in that order.
To your east in Pennsylvania we have “Fighting” John Fetterman, a Democrat who should be declared Missing In Action… or drowning in inaction!
Its not his fault brain damage turned him into a republican.
Right now they're the First Felon's tariffs but if the GOP Congress doesn't end them in a week, they'll be the Republican Tariffs. The GOP caucus could end the tariff madness by law and with the certain help of the Democratic caucus they would override a veto. At the same time they could stop and reverse injurious cuts to cancer, dementia and infectious disease research. The longer the GOP caucus delays taking action the more all of they will own the madness.
Jim Jacob’s in my opinion is not that the GOP is delaying taking action, what is, is that the republican congress is content and purposely approving of everything and anything trump does. Like another post stated, trump is the leader of the GOP club. And these republicans in Congress bow and follow orders. Care nothing about the American People. They serve and work for their club leader and they are eager to be part of the dismantling of our country, they want power and enrichment. And could care less if it means stepping over each American.
One would assume that every GOP MOC will get a hell of a bad time at the country club this weekend? Time is running out fast; better course correct no later than Monday and Tuesday!
Yes, but there might be a silver lining. I am very hopeful that Trump's policies have been so insane and destructive that Representatives from the few competitive districts will start to abandon him. Once a few move, things in Washington could change so fast it will make your head spin.
Something I don't see people talking much about is how Trump's history with people—including or especially his allies—will affect the course of things when the winds turn against him.
My mind keeps returning to Armando Iannucci's "Death of Stalin" and its depiction of the fate of Beria.
Thanks for the reference to "Death of Stalin" (the greatest movie of the century so far.) I think that what is going on in Washington today is a replay. Obsequious, incompetent toadies pandering to a lunatic. The question is, who will be our Zhukov?
I heard Rubio spouting nonsense this morning on NPR. He's in Brussells at a NATO FM meeting talking about how great the tariffs are. Even he knows how much of a lie it is but he has sold his soul to the Devil...forgetting what happened to Faust.
So true. You know he's lying because he said Trump is "absolutely right."
It was another diplomat, Talleyrand, who said, "All that is exagerrated is insignificant." Boy did he have Rubio's number.
Rubio has no soul left to sell to the devil. Perhaps he's on to auctioning off his children or something now?
Never in a million years would I think I’d agree with Rand Paul, but he’s one of few Senate Republicans who spoke out against tariffs on Canada. It was a performative speech on the Senate floor and something Trump said he’d never sign, but it showed some Republicans are starting to shift.
Rep Ben Cline VA 6th district is my local fool. Most of what he posts on Facebook is outright lies. For Ben and his ilk, the oath they took to protect the constitution means less than nothing to them.
A theocratic state with a thin veneer of fake democracy would be just fine with these America haters.
Love the alliteration - fatuous fools!
Government by destruction, what's not to like? And the GOPers remain convinced that the Great Unwashed firmly believe in all this self-inflicted carnage, and that to even timidly oppose tRump policies as a matter of simple sanity risks being "primaried", so keep the faith, nodding one's head like a bobblehead doll.
How much is too much? We're finding out real fast, right?
I agree that it is amazing. I do not agree that it is amusing. Frightening? Yes. Depressing? Yes. But, not amusing.
Not amusing, but the only source of hope at the moment, namely that we may be saved from malevolence by incompetence once again. There was seemingly nothing standing in the way of their slowly continuing to impose a police state, but economic mismanagement just might prevent a full autocratic consolidation, if enough people get angry.
Hope springs eternal, Jim, but there an awful lot of people who won't give up. Just look at the recent Florida elections
And to think there was a time, back when I was a union organizer in Iowa, when we had Senators like John Culver, Dick Clark and, later on, Tom Harkin. “In January of 1975, Iowa Democratic Party activists and office holders could not have been happier. In the previous November's mid-term elections, Iowans had elected or reelected five of the six Democratic candidates for the U.S. House of Representatives, including newcomers Michael Blouin, Berkley Bedell, and Tom Harkin. In addition, Democrats now controlled both branches of the state legislature. About the only thing for the state's Democrats to be unhappy about was the situation in the Iowa Executive Council, where the GOP controlled all seven offices (including that of governor). Even so, what probably excited loyal Democrats more than anything else was the election of former Second District Congressman John C. Culver to the United States Senate. The Culver election, coupled with the election two years earlier of Culver's legislative assistant Dick Clark over then-incumbent Sen. Jack Miller, marked only the second time in the state's history that two Democrats had been elected in the same decade to the highest legislative body in the nation. Iowa had finally become a competitive two-party state.”
Anyone else concluding that this is the "Let them eat cake" administration of clowns?
Stuff like this is why all of my work colleagues in Argentina had US $$ "under their mattresses" and bank accounts in countries like Switzerland. They didn't want their liquid assets to be subject to the whims and incompetence of their governing regimes.
I needed cash to pay the entry visa when flying from Argentina to Chile and my Argentine colleague came in the next day and handed me several hundred USD for the visa! I don't carry that kind of cash even at home in the U.S.! This same colleague also showed me a framed 1,000,000 Argentine note from one of the country's bouts of severe inflation and currency devaluation -- he laughed and said he wanted to remind his kids that they used to be 'multi-millionaires'. Here WE are now.
They’re not “hitching their wagons” to Trump, they’re being dragged by the shackles on their ankles. Trump has threatened primary challengers to any Republican who defies him. So there’s nothing amazing about their behavior.
If we didn’t have winner-take-all elections, an alternative conservative party would be able to challenge the Republicans.
Personally, I no longer excuse or have sympathy for their situations. They 'signed up' for the role. They also swore an oath to the Constitution (not to their party or their seat) so it is time for them to put on their 'big-boy pants' and DO THEIR JOBS to defend the Constitution, the country, and those who live here.
We must hold our GOP electeds to account and push them to honor their oath to protect and defend the Constitution. Silence by any will be taken as consent.
I agree completely. My point was simply that the "hitching their wagons" is a misleading metaphor. Hitching is a voluntary action. If we're going to figure out how to deal with this mess, we need to be very clear about player's motives. Trump is ruling by fear, and for now it's the elected Republicans who most afraid of him.
You may be right, but they may in fact agree with Trump. The polls how that an astounding number of Republican voters still agree with Trump on this one. You are correct in their oath, as a number of the GOP Congress know that Trump is disregarding it.
Some of them obviously agree with Mr T. MTG comes to mind.
I just can't resist. Is your district guy going to be "de-Feenstra-ted"???
Spineless sycophants, all of them.
But at least we’ll all be Christians.
Chaos -is the inconceivable yet apparent objective leading to step by step autocratic power grab by the first kakistocracy in US history - totally contrary to the foundational principles embedded in the Constitution of the United States and the interest of its citizens.
While the economy is a significant global concern, I believe there is a more pressing, existential issue: the control and oversight of U.S. nuclear weapons.
I am concerned about several questions: Does the "Club" still exist? Is the U.S. still a member? Who has the authority to make decisions regarding nuclear weapons? What strategies are in place when potentially dangerous entities, such as North Korea, become capable? Will the policy become a fragmented, "every man for himself" approach?
These ill-considered tariffs could literally have deadly consequences. It is imperative that all NC members remain united to counter donald the dictator.
I urge you to listen to the Arms Control Wonk podcast featuring Aaron Stein and Jeffery Lewis for more insights
Also, now that Trump ended the world order, Poland, Germany, South Korea, Japan, and likely Mexico and Canada will get nuclear weapons. How do we deal with the worst crisis of nuclear proliferation imaginable?
I say these countries should move forth quickly as possible. They may be the only thing that will prevent nuclear holocaust.
Poland, South Korea, and Japan, yes. The others will probably be okay. (If Poland has nuclear weapons Germany won't need them because Poland is between Germany and Russia.)
You left off Australia. It's highly likely that there's already an Australian/Japanese/Korea nuke program going, probably backed by U.K. expertise. Trump's attack on NATO and allies will lead to an incredibly dangerous situation where all first world countries have their own strategic nuclear forces.
Thats the fun part. We don't!
I'm too scared to look in that direction.
Great musical coda!
When you allow gerrymandering congressional districts, representatives no longer are beholding to their constituents. They don’t even need to attend their constituents’ town halls. And flush, there goes your democracy.
History will ask how could so many smart people make such disastrous choice so effortlessly? The low information voter is not hard to understand but Wall Street and the CEO club obviously were willing to put everything at risk for a tax cut. That speaks to the degradation of our values over the last 50 years. When people stop considering how their choices might impact others its not going to end well.
In a well functioning Democracy Trump wouldn’t have been taken seriously as a candidate. He would have been convicted of tax fraud 20 years ago.
How's that MAGA hat lookin today? Find another group to annoy with your worthless comments
Reported "hayduke" as a troll.
How is Scott’s comment maga?
SCOTUS never dealt with it. I’m not sure what Justice Kennedy said about it, but it was like, “It’s too hard to figure out.” So, balls and strikes. Right. Nobody would go to a baseball game where they made up the ‘rules’ as they go.
I’m a law and order guy. The torturers should have been locked up. The NYC finance guys should have been arrested. If NYC and NYS had done their job, Trump would have been a couple decades into a prison sentence. Democracy has rules and there have to be consequences for violating them.
Last, umpires are not just behind the plate. They are all over the field assuring the play is fair to all participants. You think that is our SCOTUS?
That’s rude. The writer is hardly a troll. And you may see clichés, I don’t.
Hey hayduke: try something more than snark
Hey hayduke: it’s than not then
Given how for you MAGAts every accusation is a confession and QAnon is basically an admission you are all Matt Gaetz-like creeps, I assume you spend a lot of time trying to figure out how people in middle school talk. Can’t wait to see your appearance on “To Catch A Predator”!
Thats what I figured, Hayduke. What grade are you in?
Same jerk as before, just different name. Go away. You're silly and boring.
Hey hayduke: more comments from an 8th grade incel
Great essay. I am so glad you left the NYT. They never would have let you write this excellent analysis of our current economic mess. The problem is....now what?
Hey hayduke: your comments are nonsense
Or you are. More likely you.
I have a cynical idea about the Trump tariffs when they are implemented. A mid- to small-size country calls or visits Trump to get a reduced tariff for their country. Yes, they have to kiss the ring and say some nice things and praise Trump for being a financial genius but that isn’t enough. They will have to buy the Trump cryptocurrency or invest in some other Trump asset. If they don’t follow through on this commitment, the tariffs will return. I doubt that Trump can pull this off in the same way with any large EU country.
I think that you hit the nail on the head. Trump is a classic mobster and this is a protection racket:
"Nice business/industry/economy you have there. It would be too bad is some extreme and unjustified tariffs should happen to it. But only I am able to protect you from those tariffs -- I just need a favor in return: a small investment in Trump cryptocurrency or Truth Social stock."
Technical note: those are both intangible items with little or no intrinsic value but are trading on public markets for orders of magnitude more than they are worth. Trump has billions of dollars worth of them, but cannot sell without the price collapsing ... unless there is a buyer somewhere who is also buying around the time that Trump is selling.
In other words, perfect vehicles for laundering money to Trump.
Your technical note really hits the nail right on the head. Thank you.
The EU acts as a block. They are going to give Trump a chance to negotiate during next 14 days. If he doesn't cooperate, the EU will do certain tariffs.
But there are a lot of countries out there that would like to trade with the US that are not protected as part of the EU. Trump will take his personal payoffs from anyone who offers.
There are hundreds of nations targeted by the tariffs. Does Trump want to negotiate with them all? He probably doesn't know most of them
China already has partnered with Japan and South Korea, or rather they have partnered with China to coordinate reciprocal tariffs, etc. Can smaller Asian countries be far behind? China is already investing in Cambodia, Vietnam, Malaysia. An all-Asia Chinese economic empire will diminish America’s, for good or ill.
We conceded that half of the planet to China last week.
I hope no country comes to kiss the ring of a con man. Stand up World.
If he’s just talking his pocket then the little guys will be more than enough. May I suggest you are thinking too hard, or rather too long. Limit yourself to, say, ten words, then figure out what he’s doing. Call it “keeping with the realm of the possible.” If he’s successful in his wants, a longer discussion will not dissuade him.
Its both a grift and a way to punish his enemies. Has nothing to do with economics.
The USA became a big Tesla metaphor: you just can’t sell your products when everyone despises you.
You brought up a good word that will haunt America going forward: stupid. We’ve had the period of the ugly American, and the fat American, but we are deeply entrenched in the era of the stupid American. And unlike changing clothes or loosing weight, there’s no pill for stupid.
Don't wanna be an American idiot
Don't want a nation under the new media
And can you hear the sound of hysteria?
The subliminal mindfuck America
Paranoia is often a sign of dementia. People with dementia often think friends and even relatives are ripping them off or trying to steal their money. We have a demented megalomaniac in the White House. He thinks all the countries in the world are ripping off the US, including islands with just penguins.
This does not pass the smell test. The policies are not demented enough to include Russia.
Good point. Trump wants to have a special relationship
with Russia, probably in the hope that he can build Trump hotels there.
Actually, he already has a special relationship with Russia. Ever since getting the codename "Krasnov" back in the '70's.
Yes! Trump is a Russian asset whether he knows it or not.
If Trump KNOWS he is a Russian asset, that's EVIL.
If Trump DOESN'T KNOW he is a Russian asset, that's WORSE!
I maintain he's evil either way.
Absolutely Winston! EVIL and WORSE -> STUPID. Trump is the upper left peak on the Dunning-Kruger curve. 👇 When evil people are this stupid they are extremely dangerous because they can't be taught, but are easily manipulated by people like Putin...
https://bsky.app/profile/justinsg.bsky.social/post/3lgyra2gsl22b
Russia is sanctioned up the wazoo, so no trade, no tariffs.
Trade with Russia: Nearly zero
Trade with uninhabited islands: Actually zero
Oh not for long... Trump is working hard to remove those sanctions on Russia.
I just read an interview with the president of Finland where he had had a good meeting with Trump & he seemed certain that Trump would be imposing harsher sanctions on Russia…I had a bit of hope but the one consistent thing with Trump is his love of Russia.
Malignant stupidity.....Paul you do have a way with words.
Well, it can be difficult to discern precisely where malignancy ends and stupidity begins.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon%27s_razor
Nails it:
What business can’t deal with is a regime under which trade policy reflects the Whims Of A Mad King, where nobody knows what tariffs will be next week, let alone over the next five years. Are these tariffs going to be permanent? Are they a negotiating ploy? The administration can’t even get its talking points straight, with top officials saying that tariffs aren’t up for negotiation only to be undercut by Trump a few hours later.
2020: Recession begins due to global catastrophe. Trump unable to competently respond.
2025: Recession begins due to global catastrophe. Trump IS the catastrophe.
I think the deepest irony of all this is how Chinese this policy feels. Fire the central debt bazooka to fund intervention, run a massive deficit for two years, and regrow when you take your medicine.
Is that good? Probably not when your technocrats consist of the three stooges and seven dwarves
More and more I follow American politics, the more and more I like the Chinese government. The Chinese seem to be more efficient and better at what the West is doing. Everything, really.
Incarcerating people, check; gaslighting and spreading fake news, check; suppressing real economic news, on the way - check; taking away human rights, check; trying to control the economy for the whims and fancy of a single person, check (the Chinese policies seem to at least favor them at all instances); and the list goes on...
Disagree, but it’s like a race to the bottom so only halfheartedly. My little brother is graduating college and I’m very glad he’s seeking a white collar job here and not China.
They don’t even publish youth unemployment anymore! That’s what you get when the real estate industry hires over half(!!!) of college graduates at its peak, then folds.
China itself can seemingly only fire the bazooka a couple more times. And its central debt looks a lot more appealing to collect than America’s
I was being sarcastic, but I like your optimism - this s##t is better than the other.
Trump and Musk learn from China, but what they did is worse than China. I have talked about that with my Chinese friend for a few months. It’s ridiculous and heartbroken.
Agree. They all learn from each other.
Reading a book about that now- Autocracy Inc. Scary stuff.
Not Chinese per se, Mao-ish. He was a good revolutionary but a terrible administrator who was sure he knew everything. He killed millions of his own people with stupidity and arrogance.
I wouldn't want to live under Xi's rule, but he's a lot smarter than Trump. But no matter how you cut it, an absolute monarch isn't as good as a group of intelligent experts in many fields.
Hayduke: you’re gibbering again
Perfect song choice!
We don't talk enough about the underlying thinking - I guess there is a little thinking going on -behind the tariffs, is that Trump and his friends want to replace income taxes with tariffs, replacing the internal revenue service with the external revenue service. What a gift that would be for the billionaires!
YES! The largest transfer of wealth from workers to billionaires EVER!
"LIBERATION DAY" is the day Kleptocracts celebrate liberating us from OUR money!
WAKE UP AMERICA!
"Call me and we'll come to an arrangement."
This is the greatest grift of all time, isn't it?
"You're face. To face. With the man who scammed the world."
If so, that is a big tax raise for most Americans.
Really absurd! Just 3 months!!!
I am still asking myself what the “idea of a plan” on healthcare will be!
Earlier this week Musk announced that the DOGE boys will be replacing ALL of the SS systems within the next 4 months. As a programmer, analyst, architect and project leader, I have to say that this is even dumber than the tariffs. (And that's saying a lot).
There are white papers from the GAO to the Senate Finance Committee laying out the basic architecture and components of the SSA database and applications. The GAO gives high praise to the SSA for their systems but points out the need for changes.
Musk is an idiot who has no fucking clue what he is doing. Sure, a large portion of the SS recipients can survive a month or so without a check, but who is going to feed, house and clothe the millions that can't?
We all know it's not going to be Musk/Trump or the Republicans.
I have worked under a tech "leader" reliving his glory days of hacking out a system in a weekend, who came into an established company and tried to rewrite the core software in a weekend too. At the end of the weekend he had a solution that was a squared Pareto - 64% (80% of 80%) of the functionality. The problem was, the real business value was somewhere in the missing 36%, but he had no idea where because he hadn't spent any time actually understanding the business.
Musk wants to replicate his similar "success" at Twitter, with the entire country. And he seems to think the entire Social Security Administration boils down to the tiny fraction (much less than 64%) that is central database of recipients.
It generally takes months to write the design documents for a large system, and even then, there is a good chance you miss some of the business rules. "Managers" and "Leaders" think all of this is easy. They are people who move their lips when they read. And think they are geniuses with high IQ.
That SS system will be like the StarShip system: *boom* 8 minutes after launch! 😳
Pain and death - except for the wealthiest.
Edit: Oh yes, and cod liver oil.
It was "concept of a plan" and he didn't have one of those either. We keep giving him credit for brains he doesn't have.
Yes, thanks
If I were a business, this would be my thought process:
1. We have a lame duck at the helm and elections are due next year; the congress is possibly going to flip if these policies continue. These policies will be overturned at that time.
2. If, however, these policies are just a ruse or negotiating ploy, they will change soon and I will not have to do anything.
3. In the meanwhile, I am going to promise big investments and changes that take more than a year to materialize. The President can have his moment of success, pretty much like the past 'war is over' banner that we all remember.
Play poker.
Don’t forget the need to ensure that at the time of the 2026 midterm elections, the US will still be a sufficiently democratic country.
People should move their backs and vote. There will be all attempts to disenfranchise them. They have to understand that voting doesn't mean just trying to turn up on election day; it means successfully registering and making sure their vote is valid.
Snap a pic of your ballot.
That's assuming that the tariffs remain in place for more than the next two weeks, that there will actually be midterm elections, that (provided there are midterm elections) Congress does flip, that, provided Congress flips, Trump actually follows the Constitution and acknowledges the power of the legislative branch (which he isn't willing to do when he has a compliant Congress willing to lie down for his every insanity), and that Trump will remove tariffs based on what American businesses promise to do rather than on what the countries he's imposed them on actually DO do. That's a LOT of assumptions, many of them based on earlier assumptions in the series becoming facts.
If this is about negotiation, why would other countries come to an agreement with us, when Trump is liable to back out of it on a moment's notice?
We are both retired and terrified. Our retirement plan is draining away. I fear for my TRS pension. Our stocks, that were reliable are all tacking major hits. We wanted to sell our house and down size, now we don’t know. Now we get Oz, we already felt we were living in Oz.
I am of the last generation that has DB pensions. And in his last days Biden signed an Act abolishing the Windfall Elimination Provision, doubling my SS. But I have no confidence my Fed pension and SS will be paid under Trump. Fortunately I have 3 other smaller state pensions: CDN, CH, GB. And I live in GB: as the dollar falls so does my income in local currency. I’d been selling off my daughter’s & grandson’s pension fund (SIPP, like an IRA; and ISA, like a Roth) and investing the proceeds in a GBP money market fund at 5%. I don’t think the stock market will beat that over the next year but who knows, and kiddo can’t touch his pension for another 50 years. Our mortgage will be paid off next year: I fear for families about to be made homeless.