Actually, I’m worried mid-terms won’t change a thing. Not trading with our allies and price-changing tariffs aren’t going to hit voters on a personal level until at least next year. At when it does-- Obama.
To be honest, I might even invest in companies that manufacture old-time CCCP flags. The large outdoor kind. They could be one of the magical “tariff free” items we’ll see at Wal-Mart.
The answer to all of that is “He is not Hillary”. They are all firmly convinced thst Ms. Clinton would be worse. Ask for details of that thought process and they will just repeat the mantra.
And they see all the chest-thumping about pulling out of trade deals and forcing the G7 nations to give us more favorable terms as a) brilliant, and b) what we should have been doing all along, because we’re the Big Dog and all the others just have to do what we say!
The big question is how many Trump voters are actually smart enough to realize that the Biggest Bully on the Block show is going to devastate their own bottom lines (and the US economy as a whole). The hard-core racist 25% won’t be able to make the connection no matter how small the words used to explain it to them. But there’s probably a fuzzy 12 - 16% who may know that the entertaining show Trump is putting on will have genuinely negative consequences.
And then there are the Trump voters who really matter: the one-percenters. They will, at the very least, have financial advisors who will be gingerly, diplomatically telling them THIS IS GOING TO BE BAD. If enough of them get on the horn to their pet Congresspeople, and if those Congresspeople aren’t actually implicated in the Russia investigation (and thus possessed of an overriding motive to protect Trump at all costs), then…something could happen.
But this group got their gigantic BJ tax cut. So, on balance why would they turn on the dumbass who did that for them? They are keyed-in enough to know when and where to move their money, no matter what happens.
Our allies need to stop pretending like they can negotiate and mollify the shitgibbon. They need to start squeezing our balls. If you happen to live in Canada, the EU, Japan, or South Korea, then make it clear: urge your government to start imposing punitive tariffs aimed at Trump country. Put these fuckers out of work. I want Trump voters to feel pain. If they knowingly voted for an enemy of the state, then pain is what they should feel. I want them broke and unemployed. They’re not Americans, but enemies of Americans.
One common complaint from 90% of Spaniards about those who live in Madrid is that they tend to forget that 90% of Spaniards neither live in Madrid nor want to. I’ve heard similar complaints about other countries, the capital thinking they embody the country when actually they’re, although large, a minority in poppulation, space and mindset.
The people currently pushing around the rudder of the good ship USA are managing to get other countries to say “seriously guys, yes you’re fucking big, hell you’re 25% of the world’s GPD… but that means the rest of us are 75%!” Well, ok, for the next 6 biggest guys it’s not 75%. But all of us together, we are.
Canada’s interest is to minimize the damage Trump does to the Canadian economy. I fail to see why we should set fire to our economy by needlessly antagonizing him just because you were dumb enough to elect him. It’s your fuck up. You fix it. We’ll just be hunkered down over here as best we can.
Anyways, if you go look at the list of stuff we’re putting retaliatory tariffs on, they’re all aimed directly at business and industry in the constituencies of congressional leadership. Why the hell does the executive have the power to unilaterally declare tariffs anyways? Shouldn’t that be the province of the legislative branch?