Then riddle me this, Nostradamus: why did Trump back down and pause the majority of the tariffs for 90 days?
I mean, the exact phrasing of the title was always a little misleading. It’s not that Trump personally has godlike powers that no one can counter. It’s that those who can counter them (Congress in particular, as well as Republicans across the US) are actively facilitating his agenda. It’s that the right have captured a majority of the news media and, with it, has gaslit a significant number of Americans into thinking he’s doing good things for America. And it’s that too many people in key roles appear to be unaware that many of the previous norms have been swept away, and that if they don’t raise their game now bad things will continue to happen.
The answer to that depends on who you ask and when you ask them. It might be a policy reversal or a deliberate negotiation strategy or because the markets were “getting yippy” or - most likely - because he doesn’t know what the fuck he’s doing.
That’s true if you’re asking a MAGA ghoul.
This part is undoubtedly true.
But I don’t think it’s particularly cryptic, MAGA smoke and mirrors aside. He has been consistent since the 80s about his idiotic belief that trade deficits are inherently bad. His tariff plan was meant to rectify that, hence the scaling tariffs based on the size of the deficit. And when both the stock and bond markets crashed at once, he realized he deeply fucked up.
If impeachment alone were enough to oust a US president, Trump would be dead in the water right now. Impeachment only requires four Republican defectors (five when the two vacancies are filled). There are enough Republican Congresspersons in office right now who can shrug off MAGA (e.g. retire, leave politics, survive a primary) and do the right thing.
As the house (thread participants, not the US House) knows, however, impeachment is not enough. The Senate would need to convict the President by a 2/3 majority. That will require unanimity among the 45 Democrats and two Independents, plus 20 defectors out of 53 Republican Senators, to get to 67 votes to convict.
Considered over the 3+ years remaining of Trump’s term, conviction in the Senate is an improbability but not an impossibility IMHO. There aren’t 20 Republican defectors in the Senate today, but there are likely something like six to ten (IMHO, no cite). And the number is growing (also IMHO).
Should Trump get impeached and convicted, there will be no telegraphing of the play. It will go from “can’t happen” to “it happened!” within a week.
And if Trump crashed the markets hard enough, that number could double or more overnight.
You left out the ‘insider trading’ of Trump telling everyone to buy the dip.
Agreed. Should it happen, it will be sudden.
I knew I was forgetting something.
I agree, impeachment is easy, removal is hard. I imagine that after another ~2 years of Trump’s “policies,” (if you can even call them that) enough GOP politicians will have the backing from their constituents to cross the aisle and convict him. The longer this goes on, the harder the economy is hit, the harder lives become, the more upset voters get. Even MAGA will crack.
When has a President ever caused, in so direct and attributable fashion, an economic disaster?
Do you really believe it was because he feared a military coup? Come on.
So that he and his cronies can make a killing in the stock market?
No:
5 characters
Right.
Also, once again, it’s worth being clear that an action having consequences, consequences that Trump may not like, does not refute the idea that Trump can do whatever he wants. Trump should have his powers limited by judicial and senate / congressional oversight and accountability. That’s largely been swept away, and that’s the key thing that this thread is (or should be) about.
If I buy 100 cream donuts for dinner tonight, and I get sick after eating 5, and throw the rest of them in the trash, every part of that is me doing whatever I want. The fact that I didn’t like some of the consequences and somewhat reversed my decision, doesn’t change that.
Otherwise, we’re defining “do whatever he wants” in a way that most gods don’t even have that power.
By this definition, every single president could do whatever he wanted. Hell, every non president can do anything they want. They just may face consequences for doing so.
An aspect of this whole discussion keeps reminding me of a great “Family Guy” bit (1m 07s YouTube video).
False, and I just explained exactly the distinction. Trump right now has assumed executive powers far beyond what a president is supposed to have, utilizing “emergency powers”. It makes him qualitatively different from other non-wartime presidents and of course regular Joe who has no such power.
…you’re aware that Trump didn’t magically seize these powers, right? Congress has (to their great shame) ceded these powers to president after president, starting a very long time ago.
Which “non war-time president” are you referring to, given that thanks to the 1976 National Emergencies Act we have been in one “state of emergency” or another for literally decades? Gerald Ford would be the last president who was “qualitatively different” in this way.
The neutering of the Legislative branch of government has been ongoing for a very long time, and is mostly self inflicted.
I have to ask: Is that a misspelling of ‘demagogue’? Or is it a description of Trump’s image of Himself?
Definitely a Freudian Slip on my part! 