Also, there’s …
Today’s billionaire faces so many nearly insurmountable challenges …
They are a tragic lot, full of woe and hardship. Nobody understands the trouble they’ve seend.
Stranger
That’s why they applaud RFK Jr.'s bringing back measles, polio, a soon-to-be-a-human-killer avian virus, and other exciting new developments!
Clear out the rabble. Whoever’s still left alive: give them the Benefits of Slavery. And then sit back and enjoy your 75-dollar ice-cubes in your artisanal vodka beverage.
Somebody has been binging The Last Ship on repeat cycle. I’m guessing Pete Hegseth is a big fan.
ETA: corrected show name
Stranger
The Lost Ship? Not that I’m familiar with either List Ship OR Lost Ship. Or Last Ship:
ETA: Looking up the Last version I see a multi-season drama about a post-pandemic world, so I’d guess that’s it. Five seasons, so at some point they must have dealt with the question of keeping the ship running!
They were very resourceful. It’s been a minute, but I do remember them taking that part somewhat seriously, for a TV show. Finding other ships; fuel depots; that sort of thing. Completely implausible because the world is big, but at least they acknowledged that ships do need fuel.
Such a guilty pleasure. Kind of.
Well, Trump just torpedoed the North American automobile industry.
Basically removed the US from all world trade.
Trading patterns won’t change that fast. They’ll continue, it’s just that the US taxpayer is going to be out a lot of money, and businesses will start dying.
The automakers are screwed. It’ll be worse in Canada at first, for sure. Mexico will be bad too. But jobs will begin vanishing in the States soon.
My take:
- There is no goal. It’s all impulse. Trump’s impulses are:
- Make Trump the center of attention.
- Shake things up and see who comes forth to kiss the ring.
- Lash out at foreign countries for the crime of not being under his thumb (and also for foreignness in general).
- Probably some insider trading for his inner circle, and probably the outer circle too.
- Get everyone talking about economic chaos instead of his misdeeds.
I do expect that in a few days/weeks, those impulses will be satisfied, and will be replaced by new impulses to change the subject, resulting in many of the tariffs being rescinded. He’ll claim he forced someone to do something and that’s basically a win.
But one day this routine will stop working. He’ll break things in unrecoverable ways (if it’s not happened already). Then we’ll really see what’s what.
Alas, he will use the outraged reaction of non-Trumpers to his xenophobia and racism as evidence that he is bravely doing what his followers want – like building a big beautiful wall that Mexico pays for. But hopefully by the midterm elections, people will start to remember that they didn’t vote for an empire run by a messiah – they voted for cheaper eggs.
For those just tuning in …
Expect reciprocity/retaliation from … well … you know … the rest of the world.
I think you’ve hit every point I’d come over to make. Yes, Trump desperately needs to change the subject away from:
a) the bad-for-Republicans election results, with an outright loss in Wisconsin and much-too-close-for-GOP-comfort Florida races
b) the epic unpopularity of his heat-shield Musk as demonstrated in Wisconsin (and the likely loss of that heat-shield going forward)
c) Signalgate, which is deeply troubling to many in the military in its clear exposure of the indifference to military lives and safety, felt by many of Trump’s minions and, inescapably, by Trump himself.
For the rest: yes, lots of fun and profit for Donald ahead as he entertains delegations of fawning supplicants for tariff-exemptions. And lots of worshipful attention from MAGA folks who buy the ‘other nations have been screwing us over for decades!’ whopper.
Revolting. One cannot help being genuinely ashamed for this nation.
I hope you’re right about the first part of this–that after some period (hopefully, short) Donald will declare victory and drop the tariffs. But of course as you say, damage will have been done.
I just have to wonder at the number of Americans who are willing to buy this “AMERICA MUST LEAD THE WORLD IN MANUFACTURING” hogwash. The most prosperous nations in the world of 2025 make most of their money from services, not from manufacturing. Of course things were different in the 1950s when Donald’s brain ossified.
The NYSE has bene open for twenty minutes and the Dow Jones has dropped over a thousand points.
The White House is apparently trying to stop this by saying “Trust the President.” That message, to be frank, will just make it worse. Businesspeople and traders don’t make decisions based on “Trust me, bro.” If anything, that will add to the panic.
I like that. They should say it a lot.
There’s no real goal, but one could imagine a goal of:
- Kill the economy in 2025
- Reopen it (reducing or eliminating tariffs) in 2026
- People like the direction the country is heading, since it’s much better than 2025, red wave election
The electorate seems to have a short enough memory that that could work.
They’d be in good company, at least:
“Honestly, I think we should just trust our president in every decision he makes and should just support that, you know, and be faithful in what happens.”
– Britney Spears (2003), in an interview with Tucker Carlson, about the Iraq invasion.
I think that he wants to engineer some kind or return to an imagined golden age, circa 1986, when strong men built cars all in America, but you know, without unions, or any other unpleasant details.
Get economic devastation out of the way this year, point to revival in 2026 (no matter how minimal) and beat the drums on wokeism . If not a formula for election success, it should mitigate losses in 2026 and set things up for Vance (or Trump) in '28.
I don’t doubt Trump is dumb enough to think that. What’s more puzzling is why so many smarter, less demented people around him are supporting him. Clearly, oligarchs see a way to profit off this catastrophe.
And is WILL be a catastrophe, folks. This will be the worst economic disaster since the Great Depression and will lead to global instability and at LEAST significant regional wars.
The best response the rest of the world can come up with is immediately turning towards each other and liberalizing trade.