Here’s our self-described Oval Office “genius” at work:
“We gave back Greenland to Denmark after World War II. How stupid were we to do that, we did that.” — President Donald Trump at the 2026 World Economic Forum, 1/20/2026 (see #1)
When will Trump’s most ardent sympathizers and supporters stop making excuses for his steady stream of whoppers? It’s dangerous. The reporter Salena Zito in September 2016 laid the groundwork for the omnibus excuse for Trump’s habitual use of shameless falsehoods when she wrote, “When he makes claims like this, the press takes him literally, but not seriously; his supporters take him seriously, but not literally.” Her rendering of seriously and literally may be true but when combined with diplomacy, he is a fool. He puts us in peril.
Whoppers are not the only common feature in Trump’s spiel. The guy’s secret sauce in international diplomacy is to beat up on friends, allies, and anyone weak, vulnerable, and dependent on us, the low hanging fruit, the ones truly susceptible to his threats and cajolery. The “Art of the Deal” is to pander to thugs while treating our partners to the worst sort of threats and brow-beating. Putin and Xi get kid gloves while everyone else gets the Zelensky treatment. Remember the infamous February 2025 meeting with Zelensky in the White House? Go ahead, read the transcript here (see #2). The tactic is to drag the victim closer to the victimizer, while expecting minimal face-saving gestures on the part of the reprobate. There you have it, The Art of the Deal, the diplomacy edition.
The above verbal blast before a forum of people at Davos who know better is flat out false. We never “gave back” Greenland to Demark, nor was its claim of sovereignty over the place seriously challenged for three centuries. How brazenly false is the bombast? Let me count the ways (see #1 and #3).
* In 1721, the unified kingdom of Denmark-Norway began a concerted effort at settlement of Greenland. No one seriously contested the move.
* In 1814, Denmark’s retention of control of Greenland was confirmed after the Napoleonic Wars in the Treaty of Kiel.
* In 1941, after the Nazi conquest of Denmark, the Danish government in exile signed an agreement with the US to help Denmark’s government-in-exile keep Greenland out of the hands of the Nazis. The pact recognized Denmark’s sovereignty of the place.
* In 1951, a defense pact between the US and Denmark for the US to build Thule Airforce Base in Greenland recognized “the sovereignty of the Kingdom of Denmark” over the island.
* In 1954, the US supported the successful passage of the UN resolution guaranteeing Denmark’s sovereignty over Greenland.
Yes, Truman in 1946 offered to buy the island but Denmark rejected the offer, and the matter died there till our orange and elderly loose cannon in the White House started to make noise about the place.
Anti-Trump protests in Greenland, March 2025. (photo: Christian Klindt Soelbeck / Ritzau / Christian Klindt Soelbeck)
It’s what Trump does in his Art of the Deal praxis: maul our friends and allies, like Demark or Ukraine – watch out Taiwan – because they won’t shoot back. As for Putin and Xi, Putin’s possession of 5,460 nuclear warheads and Xi’s CCP, with the second largest economy, 600 and growing nuclear warheads, and nearly 400 warships and submarines, get the equivalent of a Valentine’s Day bouquet of roses and a peck on the cheek. And for this he deserves the Nobel Peace Prize?
Honestly, Trump’s foreign policy is the one typically exercised in the schoolyard. Ingratiate yourself to the bullies and treat weaker friends and allies with risible contempt. Makes you wonder, is Trump a juvenile 79-year-old? Is he exhibiting signs of age-related mental decay, different from Biden’s only in kind? Something to think about, and be concerned about since this guy has the security of the country in his hands.
Near and current octogenarians wanting to be president may not mean that we’ll get the wisdom of advanced age. It could mean that we get the opinionated old fart who causes worries for everyone at Thanksgiving dinner. Biden, now Trump. Go figure.
RogerG
Source:
1. “Did US give Greenland to Denmark after WW2? Fact-checking Trump’s ‘stupid’ claim at Davos”, Hindustan Times, 1/21/2026, at https://www.hindustantimes.com/world-news/us-news/did-us-own-greenland-give-to-denmark-after-world-war-2-fact-checking-trumps-stupid-claim-at-davos-101769010422536.html.
2. “Vance’s heated argument in the Oval Office”, transcript, AP, 2/26/2025, at https://apnews.com/article/trump-zelenskyy-vance-transcript-oval-office-80685f5727628c64065da81525f8f0cf.
3. “The Cold War Agreement That Opened Greenland to the US Military”, History, 1/15/2026, at https://www.history.com/articles/1951-agreement-that-allows-us-military-presence-in-greenland.
Recent elections are an embarrassment to our country. 2008 gave us a slick, smooth-talking community organizer (aka left-wing activist/agitator). Well, anyway, we proved that we’re not racists. After two terms of that, 2016 gave us a vulgarian. Not a Republican mind you, but a Perotista (an acolyte of Ross Perot, the Reform Party of the 1990s). Well, at least he (Trump) was not her (Hillary). 2020 gave us another of those “at least he’s [Biden] not him [Trump]” as our chief executive, along with a lefty cultural revolution, a Kabul bugout, and inflation. Four years later, we’re back to the vulgarian and “at least he’s [Trump] not him [Biden]”. Our last three elections were vote-against affairs, not vote-for. It’s fair to say that we have produced subpar leaders of the free world, maybe even embarrassments.
Our current embarrassment is incapable of inspiring anyone beyond his political groupie, MAGA. It’s what happens when people cloister themselves into their insular socio-political bubbles. The world wide web does not help. Indeed, it seems to have accelerated the self-sequestration in a fog of ignorance. The web is the polluted equivalent of the Cuyahoga River when it caught fire in Cleveland in 1969. The longer one spends on it, the dumber one gets and the more excitable are our vacuous minds. When booting up, warning labels should be affixed as they are on booze and cigarettes.
Do you think that the other side has anything better to offer? They swim around in a crowd of Democratic Socialists (the Bolsheviks’ former moniker), eco-militants (Bolsheviks under another banner), “geniuses” who can’t define “woman”, activist swarms on the hunt for systemic oppressions (inspired by Marx), and tax and spend addicts who would turn the country into the Soviet Union with the Soviet Union’s fate. Now that’s a claque to vote against.
Neither side acts like they understand the simple maxim that politics is about addition, not subtraction. Our current occupant behind the Resolute desk is all the rage among his groupie, even if it was proven to them that he was the second gunman on the grassy knoll in Dallas, November 22, 1963.
The groupies reorient their positions to align with his, even if they must delete their old Twitter posts and see to it that their old speeches don’t see the light of day. Listening to Hugh Hewitt is a daily reacquaintance with the debasement. Free traders become enthusiasts of the “most beautiful word in the English language”, tariff. All of a sudden, no one is a “neocon”, even if Trump can’t define it. Trump moderates on China, Tik Tok, abortion and so do they. He and his sidekick, Vance, berate the leader of a country victimized by the most brazen act of territorial aggression since the little corporal went hunting for Lebensraum, and the Trump choir approvingly chants in unison. Immediately, out came many versions of the “Zelensky deserved it” line based on the shocking charge that he wore the wrong shirt and pants. Vance was especially heinous. Revolting.
For his second term, Trump is as unbridled as a kid in a candy store, but with access to his daddy’s bank account (Fred Trump, worth $300 million in 1999 dollars, double in today’s money). Only, the candy store is today’s presidency with all of its assumed near-imperial powers. He’s a mixed bag. Enforcing federal law (immigration law), finally, good. Cutting taxes, lessening the eco-evisceration of our transportation and energy industries, finally, good. Seizing Maduro and his vicious wife, finally, good. Siding with Israel to prove that the mullah-junta in Teheran have no clothes, and no nukes, good, finally.
But it also includes declaring a trade war on the world on his simple signature. Some of it is juvenile grandstanding in replacing “Mexico” with “America” for the Gulf. Some of it is blatant extortion. Trump panders to Putin, berates Zelensky, and bullies a vulnerable Ukraine into a minerals deal.
Now, he’s busy treating Denmark like an enemy, like maybe the . . . CCP. It’s looney. The ChiComs get a better deal. The CCP gets our advanced Nvidia chips and Demark experiences the seizure of a huge chunk of its sovereign territory. Yes, “sovereign” by 1916 US/Denmark treaty, a 1951 mutual defense pact, and 1954 UN resolution.
All of it over Greenland. Interesting thought experiment: What happens if Trump sends in his version of Putin’s “little green men” into Greenland and Denmark resists? What happens if Denmark, a charter member of NATO, invokes Article 5 of the NATO Treaty which decrees the responsibility of member nations to come its aid? Imagine that, Polish and Czech fighters flying sorties against our “little green man”. Sure, it’s a conundrum, but will probably end with the breakup of NATO. If so, Trump is wittingly or unwittingly Putin’s stooge? Trump invites such conclusions when he delivers a handsome strategic victory to the henchman in the Kremlin. Whose side is he on?
Is this the meaning of America First? America Alone is more accurate.
After ten years in the public eye, Donald Trump is no mystery, or shouldn’t be. The guy is celebrated for his bluntness. More importantly, he is disgustingly vain, an embarrassment, and mesmerized by big and splashy events. Here he is in a text message to Norway’s prime minister, Jonas Gahr Stoere:
“Dear Jonas: Considering your Country decided not to give me the Nobel Peace Prize for having stopped 8 Wars PLUS, I no longer feel an obligation to think purely of Peace, although it will always be predominant, but can now think about what is good and proper for the United States of America. Denmark cannot protect that land from Russia or China, and why do they have a “right of ownership” anyway? There are no written documents, it’s only that a boat landed there hundreds of years ago, but we had boats landing there, also. I have done more for NATO than any other person since its founding, and now, NATO should do something for the United States. The World is not secure unless we have Complete and Total Control of Greenland. Thank you! President DJT” (see #1)
It reads like a petulant teenager on Instagram. Peace for “8 Wars PLUS”? Hogwash. The vast majority of his diplomatic interventions did not establish peace, and India, a potential ally in Cold War II, is left grinding their teeth. His other attempts were limited to bashing our . . . friends (Israel, Ukraine, NATO). He has no leverage with the thugs, unless he goes to war, which would disqualify him for the Nobel Peace Prize. The whole thing is shameful. We should be mortified. It is unbecoming of a president.
It would be nice for us to be on the side of the angels. Are we anymore? We are behaving like Putin. Yet, our alternative to the 78-year-old juvenile is a cabal of neo-Marxists. In the party, moderates are Mensheviks and the base is Bolshevik. Either party faction is an invitation to ruin. Right now, they have rediscovered their inner John C. Calhoun, another storied Democrat of the 1830s. They are infatuated with nullification in pursuit of their Jacobin-style revolution. Jacob Frey (D), Minneapolis mayor, demanded that federal law enforcement leave the city: “Minnesota needs ICE to leave . . . . (see #3)” Even stronger, “get the f— out!” Sounds like South Carolina’s 1861 ultimatum for federal troops to vacate Ft. Sumter.
The assault on the Supremacy Clause (The Constitution, Article VI, Clause 2) is garbled in gibberish about the fed’s enforcement of the federal code, Title 8. Let that sink in, the feds enforcing federal law. Violators of that law are amazingly described as “our friends and neighbors”, as if that is relevant. Yes, they could be, but they are “friends and neighbors” who violated federal law. Being a “friend and neighbor” is immaterial to being a lawbreaker. The talk billowing out of the mouths of Mayor Frey and Governor Waltz is a mash of incoherence, if not a demand for old style nullification.
Presently, that’s the political lay of the land. One party has turned itself into a MAGA fan club, while the other has greater affinity for The Communist Manifesto than The Declaration of Independence. And amazingly, the 2026 midterm, which coincides with the 250-year anniversary of The Declaration, offers the likely prospect of The Manifesto’s rise to governing prominence in at least the House.
Oh, what a mess. A groupie fan club or the hammer and sickle without the flag. In 2026, if you think that you can have the Democrats without the hammer and sickle, just give them a little time in the seat of power and you’ll get the opportunity to be . . . California. Enjoy.
RogerG
Sources:
1. “The exchange of messages between Norway’s prime minister and President Trump”, Reuters, 1/19/2026, at https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/exchange-messages-between-norways-prime-minister-president-trump-2026-01-19/.
2. “Tearing Apart NATO, over a Trinket”, Jim Geraghty, National Review, 1/20/2026, at https://www.nationalreview.com/the-morning-jolt/tearing-apart-nato-over-a-trinket/.
3. “Minneapolis mayor on Trump threat: Minnesota doesn’t need additional troops”, Ashleigh Fields, The Hill, 1/15/2026, at https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/5690999-unrest-minneapolis-ice-presence/.
“MUST CUT INTEREST RATES, NOW, AND BIGGER THAN HE HAD IN MIND. HOUSING WILL SOAR!!!” — President Trump on Truth Social, 9/15/2025 (see #1)
What is the “this” in the title? It’s the president’s push to lower interest rates by as much as 2.5 points, maybe 3. That’s a lot in monetary and interest rate terms. The president finds the Fed’s recent quarter point drop “too little, too late”. He wants 10 times that. Is the Fed Board suffering from TDS? Hardly. There are sound reasons to be cautious about lowering interest rates. The president is playing with fire.
What is the “bane” of populism? Vox populi is NOT vox dei, or “the voice of the people is NOT the voice of God”, a necessary reformulation of an old Roman saying. Popular opinions are erratic, often reliant on deeply embedded falsehoods, incoherent, and a slave to the moment. And to be honest, some “elites”, as well as almost all populists, are soiling themselves almost daily. The populace at times may seem to be a better fount of wisdom, until they aren’t.
In an election greatly influenced by Biden’s high inflation, meaning too many dollars chasing too few goods and services, President Trump, the so-called populist, seems intent on reinflating the inflation balloon. The last few incidences of galloping inflation and economy-wide maladjustment – the 1970s, 2007-8, and 2022 – were not euphoric traipsings through the economic daisies.
In this respect, before I get started, we have to remind ourselves that Donald Trump is a real estate tycoon. Real estate magnates love low interest rates, and so does the Dow. They focus like a laser on goosing demand for real property and securities. Their portfolios soar in value when money is easy. It’s great for the holders of these things, bad for everyone else looking to buy. Low interest rates help disguise in cheap loans the artificial leap in prices, the inflation. People are invited to run up more debt.
Everyone wins, right? Hogwash. The government swamps the economy in easy money until personal finances go underwater. The bubble bursts, asset values plummet, and people suddenly realize that they owe more than the thing is worth. Hello, tulip bubble of 1637. Hello, the 2007-8 financial crisis, and anyone who bought a new car in 2023. The 2007-8 crisis helped elect Obama and a coming to power of a party ideologically hard-wired to goose demand in all ways possible and ignore the supply half to the equation.
In this respect, Trump wants to inject heroine into the economy like the Democrats. The Democrats wish to make addicts of us through fiscal policy, like the Schumer/Pelosi/Biden trillion-dollar bills to refashion the nation to fit their dreams – adding $3.7 trillion to our national debt from 2022 to 2024. Floods of dollars sloshed around on the heels of the Covid lockdowns. Supply was disrupted as demand was goosed. This didn’t end well. Inflation leapt to 9% in summer 2022.
Trump is eager to repeat the formula. He disrupted supply with his declaration of a trade war on the world. Supply chains became tenuous, like during the COVID lockdowns, as suppliers reeled from Trump’s jump in tariff rates of up to 25% (or more) against everyone and nearly everything. When suppliers and producers adapt to this new environment, it won’t redound to lower prices. Compound the problem by the president’s refusal to do, or propose, meaningful fiscal restraint. The elevated fiscal floor of Biden and the Democrats essentially remains intact, with or without a DOGE, as the big-dollar entitlements (Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid) remain untouched on their path to insolvency.
The CBO in January expected the 2025 deficit (annual overspending) to hover around $2 trillion. The total federal debt (total accumulated tab) is pegged at $37.41 trillion as of this month (Sept.). Has overspending been cured by Trump, or DOGE? No. Add this fiscal heroine to the economy’s bloodstream. Mmmmm, rattled supply chains and a bloated money supply, have we seen this movie before?
The Big Beautiful Bill (BBB) won’t be of much help. Tax cuts are a great idea since they keep more money in the creative private sector. The tax cuts in the BBB were mostly, technically speaking, not a reduction in tax rates but a continuation of existing ones from 2017, with a few bribes for favored political constituencies in states like Nevada and organized labor in Michigan and Pennsylvania (the spiel of the tax-free tips, overtime, and Social Security benefits). One spur for growth – the lowering of the capital gains tax bite and generous depreciation allowances – won’t produce substantial economic benefits for a few years at a minimum. It took the money-supply belt tightening of Fed chair Paul Volcker and Reagan’s tax cuts a couple of years to create the climate for the Reagan boom.
Deregulation will have the same delayed effect. Now, to tide us over till the benefits of the business tax cuts and deregulation kick in, Trump wants easy money. So, any mid- and long-term economic advantages of the bill will be negated by worrisome inflation. Throw his tariffs into the mix and the benefits of the BBB and deregulation will not be felt till way over the horizon, if ever. Then, the whole enterprise will be short-circuited by a return to power of the neo-socialist Democratic Party riding a wave of popular displeasure over declining fortunes, the same circumstance that made Trump 45 into 47. With the Dems in power, any relief from the Leviathan will be thrown into reverse.
It’s the bane of populism. Populism can be reduced to “popular”, doing what is popular. And what is popular, once again, is fickle, contradictory, incoherent. It bounces around depending on the moment, group, circumstance, and frequently rides on a deep current of fables. “Elites” are held in disrepute after some disgraced themselves of late in their tenured positions and bureaucratic sinecures (Fauci, et al). For many among the populi, no one can be trusted except . . . Trump/MAGA. The bantering bilge flows with little check.
President Trump is the embodiment of populism. He pushes the BBB . . . and . . . his toxic tariffs. He excoriated Biden’s inflation as he repeats Biden’s mistake. Like he talks “peace through strength” while he shifts from hostility to nonchalance about the victim of the most flagrant act of aggression on the continent of Europe since Stalin incorporated all of Eastern Europe into personal satraps.
Like all populists, the dramatic gesture is preferred. Populist politicians are drama queens. A populist is a slave to headlines. Out comes the language and behavior of the drama queen, the belittling nicknames and quick strikes. The impulsiveness and insults fit into a medium – social media – which is not conducive to deep thought, to a populace growingly accustomed to thinking in social media’s rhetorical burps.
Sloganeering is the preferred mode of expression, if not thought. “No more forever wars” becomes code for an isolationism that cannot be said. Quick strikes – butcher-and-bolt – have a credible use in, let’s say, taking out Soleimani and Iran’s Fordow. But you have to possess more in the national security toolkit than a bunch of one-and-dones. Trump follows the headlines and loves to be in them, but don’t expect logical consistency or much of an eye for the long term. Trump is as flippant as fads, maybe more so. He has shown the capacity to embrace two things that undermine each other: condemn inflation while stoking it.
The last jobs report came out, it’s disturbing, so he fires Bureau of Labor Statistics commissioner Erika McEntarfer for delivering the bad news. For the populist leader, two beliefs came together in his mind: he’s convinced that a lurking deep state is at work, and he can never be wrong. He replaced her with a lackey, Heritage’s E.J. Antoni. Now, Trump has his Winston in Oceania’s Ministry of Truth. Life imitates Orwell’s art in “1984”.
E.J. Antoni with President Trump
President Trump wants easy money, the Federal Reserve Board seems reluctant, having been burned by lowering interest rates in summer 2022 which helped to ignite the 9% inflation. So, he replaced one retiring board member with his chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, Stephen Miran. This guy had to square the circle of reducing inflation and inaugurating a trade war on the world. So much for credibility.
Stephen Miran
To make this move even more surprising, Miran didn’t resign from his position as Trump’s chief economic adviser. He took a “leave of absence” which expresses his desire to return to Trump’s inner sanctum and favor. If you believe that he’ll be an honest broker, stay away from the crazy uncle trying to convince you to invest in Mongolian tugrugs (currency).
Troubling signs are evident. The producer price index of services jumped 1.1% in one month, July (see #3). The last time it was that high for one month was the 1.3% in March 2022, the harbinger for Biden’s 9% inflation in the summer of 2022. Currently, inflation stays stubborn at around 3%, above the Fed’s target of 2% (see #2). The durable goods sector (autos, appliances, etc.) is in a tailspin. It’s what happens when you hammer supply chains with 25% tariffs. Trump absolutely needs easy money to cover the slide.
Add it all up and we have Trump’s mind: scatter-brained, fickle, and unintelligible. But what did you expect? He’s a populist. We’ll quickly learn that populists are no better than our disgraced elites. The populace doesn’t like inflation but like the things that bring it about. They love easy money and government bennies from all the spending. Trump is a leader, but a leader to where? This won’t end well.
RogerG
Sources:
1. “Trump calls for ‘bigger’ interest rate cut ahead of Fed meeting”, Reuters, 9/15/2025, at https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-calls-bigger-interest-rate-cut-ahead-fed-meeting-2025-09-15/.
2. “Current U.S. Inflation Rate is 2.9%: Why It Matters”, Nerd Wallet, 9/11/2025, at https://www.nerdwallet.com/article/investing/inflation#:~:text=The%20current%20U.S.%20inflation%20rate%20is%202.9%25%20for,release%20from%20the%20Bureau%20of%20Labor%20Statistics%20%28BLS%29?msockid=287a0b967a9564c61c991f537b2f65ee.
3. “Beware the Return of Inflation”, The Editors, National Review, 8/15/2025, at https://www.nationalreview.com/2025/08/beware-the-return-of-inflation/.
President Trump announcing his “Liberation Day” tariffs on April 2, 2025.
Javier Milei in a speech before the World Economic Forum in 2024: “If measures are adopted that hinder the free functioning of markets, competition, price systems, trade and ownership of private property, the only possible fate is poverty.” (see #1)
Donald Trump on his tariffs in April 2025: “You know, someone said, ‘Oh, the shelves, they’re going to be open.’ Well, maybe the children will have two dolls instead of 30 dolls, and maybe the two dolls will cost a couple of bucks more than they would normally. But we’re not talking about something that we have to go out of our way. They have ships that are loaded up with stuff, much of which — not all of it — but much of which we don’t need.” (see #2)
Is there a difference between Donald Trump and Javier Milei? Yes, an emphatic “yes”. Trump is a classic central planner with all the limitless self-regard that the position demands. Milei is reintroducing free markets to a country that has not had many for decades. With Trump, we get a person who asserts the power to determine how much we deserve and “need” and how much we should pay for it. Milei is dialing back Trump-style manipulations with impressive results. The other shoe has yet to drop in the U.S. on the fundamental disorder to supply chains from Trump’s economic illiteracy in his tariff campaign. Stay tuned, The Big Beautiful Bill or no, there are troubling signs in the consequential durable goods sector.
Argentina’s President Javier Milei attends the opening session of the legislative term at the National Congress in Buenos Aires, Argentina, March 1, 2025. (photo: Matias Baglietto/Reuters)
Let’s start with Milei’s Argentina, and add Poland’s rise to the mix. After decades of socialistic Peronism, Argentina under Milei is teaching a lesson to Donald Trump. Year-over-year, the nation’s economy has grown 7.7%. Poverty is beginning its downward slide. Milei has corseted government interference (for instance, ending rent control in Buenos Aires), cut spending, restrained the money supply, and eliminated many price controls. The result is an Argentinian renaissance.
Poland showed the way for Milei. In 1989, Leszek Balcerowicz, Poland’s Finance Minister after the shedding of communism, cut spending, balanced the budget, reigned in the money supply, ended many government spending programs, basically freed-up the economy, and Poland took off (see #3). It remained free of Brussels by not joining the euro. We would be happy with 3% growth in GDP. Poland is humming at 5%.
Where is Donald Trump leading the U.S.? In some ways, in the opposite direction. All governmental interventions are not equal in their effects. Some have greater impact than others. Supply chains are crucial. That which disrupts supply chains ripples down to layoffs, repos, and personal bankruptcies. After treating the U.K. like the CCP, one in which we amazingly had a trade surplus, Trump is targeting South Korea and Japan with 25% tariffs. It’s madness.
Expect showrooms and car lots to have fewer offerings in that industry of the most durable of all durable goods. No big deal for Trump, we only deserve two to choose from, right?
It’s all over the place, everywhere you look in automotive industry reports. Signs are abundant of a coming automotive industry recession. Quoting AutoForecast Solutions, industry insiders such as F & I and Showroom expects “light-vehicle sales will fall for the first time since 2022 due to uncertainty around the tariffs”. It’s a perfect storm of a Federal Reserve skittish about inflation and keeping interest at their current level, Moody’s downgrading of the U.S. credit rating, Conference Board Leading Economic Index’s fall of nearly 2% in March-April, rising loan defaults, etc. (see #4)
No wonder Trump is on a jihad against Fed Chairman Jerome Powell. Trump wants easy money to paper over the effects of his tariff war.
In putting makeup on the pig, President Trump and his spokespeople trot around citing normal manufacturing shifts (Mercedes, BMW, Honda, Hyundai, Kia, Stellantis and Toyota) that were planned and announced before Trump announced his America-the-victim-of-the-world tariff war, as if the resulting chaos is a stroke of genius. Trump should take this comedy routine on the road.
Buyers aren’t stupid. If people see price increases on the horizon, they buy while the getting is still good. The numbers are the numbers. The June auto sales numbers fell by 2.6 million from April to June. March and April were great because tariff reality would soon set in. Jonathan Smoke, chief economist at Cox Automotive Inc., put it bluntly: “The party is over.” This isn’t a mysterious happening according to Smoke: “It’s clearly slowing. It’s because of affordability getting worse and forcing what we think will be production declines to keep supply in balance.” (see #5) Translation: Think again about buying that new car.
The goal is reshoring. Laudable, but the method asinine. It jumps over the question of why they left. Is it merely the attractiveness of slave or peasant labor? Cheaper labor overseas has always existed and yet the country grew. What happened between then and now? We decided to muck up the works. By law and government interventions, we turned organized labor into an extortion racket. We taxed and regulated our way into near oblivion. We have greater difficulties in building anything. Try to build power plants, refineries, dams, mines, roads, power lines, even housing, in the good ‘ol USA. Home-grown NIMBYs and greenie revolutionaries have a greater influence on our economy than Malaysian peasants.
Conversely, we could tack in the opposite direction and make our country accommodating to industries. It’d be like the mysterious voice in Field of Dreams: “Build it (a free economy) and they will come.”
Instead, we have a president and his Republican Party fan club who’d rather throw up a wall, like a curtain, to hide the extortion racket and the government bludgeoning of economic activity, and then paste “Make America Great Again” over the mess. Jargon replaces accountability.
In that good ‘ol USA, central planners like Trump, not us, decided that we needed upscaled electric golf carts to replace our family sedan. Anything large powered by fossil fuels was to be pounded into dust by CAFE standards. The car industry played along because they’re essentially cowards. Hitching your industry cart to government and its activists, whether Friends of the Earth or MAGA tariff-enthusiasts, depending on who temporarily holds the reins of power, can be an economically unhealthy thing to do. Watch California become a Third World nation, er state.
And it shows in the crap foisted on us. It’s high-priced, underpowered, loaded down with gimmicks to mask their shortcomings (turbochargers); beset by stunts like cylinder deactivation, on/off engine disruptions during idling, the carbonization of direct fuel injection, the notorious 10-spead transmissions; and range anxiety coupled with spontaneous combustion of battery packs for those “virtuous” EVs.
At least The Big Beautiful Bill (BBB) corrected some of the folderol. The only problem is that we have a Donald Trump (DJT) intent on wreaking havoc on the guts of economic activity. What the BBB giveth, DJT taketh. Sounds like central planning.
RogerG
Sources:
1. Milei’s speech can be viewed in YouTube at https://youtu.be/4z44XP4u9Xs?si=OEB-mRfFMY2xts1U.
2. “Trump says children could have ‘2 dolls instead of 30’ with his tariff plan”, Alex Gangitano, The Hill, 4/30/2025, at https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/5275798-trump-says-children-could-have-two-dolls-instead-of-30-with-his-tariff-plan/.
3. “Shock Therapy: What We Can Learn From Poland”, Taylor Marvin, Prospect Journal, at https://www.prospect-journal.org/articles/2010/11/11/shock-therapy-what-we-can-learn-from-poland.
4. “2025 Auto Sales Slump Forecast”, Hannah Mitchell, F & I and Showroom, 6/3/2025, at https://www.fi-magazine.com/376082/2025-auto-sales-slump-forecast.
5. “Car sales plummet following pre-tariffs panic buying: ‘The party is over’”, Ariel Zilber, The New York Post, 7/1/2025, at https://nypost.com/2025/07/01/business/car-sales-plummet-following-pre-tariffs-panic-buying-the-party-is-over/.
6. An excellent synopsis of Milei’s success can be read at “The Milei ‘Miracle’ Is a Vindication of Free Markets”, The Editors, National Review, 7/8/2025, at https://www.nationalreview.com/2025/07/the-milei-miracle-is-a-vindication-of-free-markets/.
Yesterday (6/19/2025), Donald Trump announced a two-week reprieve for the mullahs. That’s dangerous. Many legitimate estimates put Iran at two weeks from a nuclear bomb. Two weeks is a rough assessment that can’t preclude one week or less, if rushed. If he succeeds, Khamenei will have the premiere blackmail weapon, or turn Tel Aviv into Hiroshima, before time runs out. Is Trump about to snatch defeat out of the jaws of victory? How did we get to this point? Well, partially, it’s the language, stupid! (Like in James Carville’s famous words from 1992, “It’s the economy, stupid!”). Read further.
Today, our overheated politics disfigure our language. In the Left, “top 1%” (billionaires), “men” (the “patriarchy”), “privileged” (anybody white or male or anyone able to escape the public schools for their kids), “heteronormative”, “…phobia”, et al, denote an evil presence. In the Right, specifically the MAGA universe, “establishment”, “elites” (which practically means anyone of high status in a demographic), “neocons” (the old Reagan coalition), “Wall Street” (shared with the Left), “globalists”, et al, are used to identify their meanies in the world. Each side has their jargon. Since MAGA and the MAGA-adjacent are in power, it’s their linguistic twaddle that presently holds sway in personnel choices and policy.
In MAGA world, the buzzwords lead to some really odd policies (a tariff war against the planet, the crude verbal abuse of allies) and personnel choices. Right now, an “elite” real estate developer, Donald Trump – one who hobnobs with “Wall Street” and “globalists” – makes some stylistically crude overtures to blue collars, essentially big labor unions, but also turns to buddies in his high-end real-estate social circles for statecraft positions and advice, people whose only real experience is in the cocooned transactional world of U.S. law and real estate, people like Steve Witkoff. Any criticism of these picks is dismissed by tarring these wayward voices with MAGA’s list of jargonized horribles.
The ancient Greeks wrote of hubris (excessive pride) leading to nemesis (retribution, bad happenings). Could the reliance on buddies, absent any real background in the field, with overconfidence in their abilities, lead to nemesis and catastrophic failure for the nation? One need only examine Witkoff’s résumé to understand the lurking dangers.
Who is Steve Witkoff? He’s a lawyer and real estate developer from New York, like Trump (see #1). He was Trump’s lawyer in the 1980s. According to Witkoff’s testimony in Letitia James’s New York civil suit against Trump, his friendship with Trump began in 1985. During this decade, he became heavily involved in real estate development. His sole interaction with foreigners was his 2016 effort to sell his group’s stake in the Park Lane Hotel project in the Central Park neighborhood. All his activities occurred under the aegis of American legal norms. The friendship with Trump endured through it all.
The result is a man totally out of his lane in international diplomacy. He succeeded in the release of a couple of American hostages in singular transactions that required no real sacrifice from malevolent actors (Hamas, Putin). These were important for their families, but are not evidence of any acumen in the momentous arena of international statecraft. As Trump’s travelling envoy, he’s been an embarrassment. Maybe that’s because he doesn’t realize that he’s been given impossible tasks in trying to broker deals in conflicts without middle ground. In one, Putin invaded another sovereign country, brutalizes its people, and can’t back down because of the heavy sunk costs in the effort. It’s either conquest or being overthrown and execution, always a strong possibility for dictators.
An isolated American real estate lawyer is a duck out of water in places not corseted by American legal norms. Additionally, he was given the job of bringing an end to the Gaza War. What made him think that a deal was possible between the victim of mass murder and the butchers of men, women, the old, and children, many burned alive? A level of fanaticism is at work that a real estate lawyer schooled in real estate deals cannot comprehend. He cannot envision that the side across the table from him isn’t united with him in common purpose, like making money. They’re goal is your demise, not anything like achieving mutual benefit under American contract law. These malcontents are cut from the same cloth as the 911 hijackers. Negotiating with them will get your throat slit, as many discovered on the planes during 911.
People who have cut their teeth in a lifetime of American real estate transactions run the risk of being ill-suited to handle the world’s cutthroats. Witkoff was stunned coming face-to-face with them; he admits it. At the Arab summit in March, he said about his discussions with Hamas (see #2),
“I thought we had a deal, an acceptable deal. I even — I even thought we had an approval from Hamas, maybe that’s just me getting — getting, you know, duped . . . .” (see #2)
Getting “duped”? After being “duped” by Hamas, Witkoff engages with Putin and comes away with, “I don’t regard Putin as a bad guy.” He then proceeded to sound like Putin’s Russia Today network endorsing Putin’s seizure of the Crimea and Ukraine’s eastern provinces (see #3). He then points to plebiscites in them, under Russia’s guns, to justify Putin’s declared right to rewrite borders at his whim. And, like a parrot out of the Russian Foreign Ministry, Witkoff blames NATO. Is this guy Putin’s ambassador to the U.S. or our envoy to Russia?
To be honest, he sounds like his partner in real estate, Donald Trump. Remember Trump’s Putin-like hammering of Zelensky in the Oval Office earlier this year? Repulsive, absolutely repulsive.
A transactional approach to foreign policy assumes a commonality of purpose that doesn’t exist. It’s easier if only money is at stake. Any other motive – ideology, religious fanaticism, an overriding sense of grievance – throws the transactional approach into the category of self-annihilation for the side not so disposed. Trump is transactional, and so is his special envoy. It’s stupid, it’s dangerous. Are we nuts?
RogerG
Sources:
1. Thanks for Jim Geraghty’s insights and sources in “The Fate of Israel and Iran Is in Steve Witkoff’s Hands”, National Review, 6/20/2025, at https://www.nationalreview.com/the-morning-jolt/the-fate-of-israel-and-iran-is-in-steve-witkoffs-hands/. I strongly recommend his Morning Jolt newsletter. Sign up at https://link.nationalreview.com/join/4rc/newdesign-nls-signup?
2. Thanks to Jim Geraghty for this source: “Trump’s longtime buddy testifies as defense expert in Manhattan fraud case”, Erik Eubelacker, Courthouse News Service, 11/14/2023, at https://www.courthousenews.com/trumps-longtime-buddy-testifies-as-defense-expert-in-manhattan-fraud-case/
3. “Steve Witkoff Says Putin Not a ‘Bad Guy’, Stumbles on Ukraine Geography”, Ellie Cook, Newsweek, 3/23/2025, at https://www.newsweek.com/steve-witkoff-ukraine-ceasefire-russia-mistake-regions-annexed-vladimir-putin-2049224
Who’s Leszek Balcerowicz? He was Poland’s Finance Minister in the country’s first non-communist government, then served twice as Deputy Prime Minister (1989–1991, 1997–2001) and as Chairman of the National Bank of Poland (2001–2007). He and his wife of 47 years, Ewa Balcerowicz, are economists. He oversaw Poland’s economic reforms from communist collectivism to free markets and democratic capitalism. By all accounts, it worked, while it failed in Russia, possibly owing to Russia’s penchant for sclerotic autocracy and state-empowered cronyism (let’s leave that for another time).
Why bring him up? He is the counterpoint to Trump and his bunch, the Fox News stable grafted onto the executive branch. I doubt seriously that Americans voted for isolationism and protectionism. Tariffs and withdrawal from the world didn’t show up in any polls of the public prior to November 4. Yet, those are what we are getting. Reluctance to defend the international order is evident in stories of Trump’s people pressuring Israel not to strike Iran’s nuclear facilities and some voices in the administration expressing a willingness to cut Ukraine and NATO adrift. Protectionism is the sole remaining root for Trump’s tariff war on the world after every other explanation is reduced to incoherence. Balcerowicz’s story is a fresh breath of sanity in our domestic maelstrom of security and economic claptrap.
Balcerowicz faced a tall order in 1989 with the collapse of Poland’s communist regime. Collectivism, once begun, is like drug addiction. The recovery is hell, but eventually a healthier person is restored. Free market “shock therapy” was initiated, tough times ensued, Poland stuck with it, and today Poland is rivalling Japan in per capita income. It’s a lesson well worth remembering as we lurch toward Trump-inspired collectivist protectionism.
Heck, we can’t even reform our bankrupting entitlements (Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid) without a political bloodbath. Trump promises to do nothing about them, and is trying to centrally plan his autarkic economy through his “most beautiful word in the English language”, tariffs. Businesses are watching as their decades-long economic arrangements are hammered into rubble and markets tumble.
A marked contrast is Poland. Per capita (per person) GDP is a good measure of economic health. In 1990 it was Brazil-sized at $12,810, $4,000 behind Mexico’s. In 2023 it stands at $43,585, a mere $2,500 short of Japan’s (see #1). Japan, once the darling of industrial-policy Democrats with its state-management in The Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI), and an unacknowledged centerpiece of Trump’s economic outlook, has flatlined for three decades. Demographically, it is in the midst of social suicide with a 1.20 fertility rate, and now with an economy to match. Trump is eager to repeat the performance with his own MITI run out of the White House and his executive orders, something akin to imperial decrees.
Oh, 2026 is the year that Poland is projected to surpass Japan in per person wealth. Barring Trump dragging the world’s economy into the toilet, aka 1930, the future looks bright for a country near the front lines abutting Putin’s horde. Not so for us.
Poland shows the way forward, not Donald Trump. If only the Republicans had the guts to study the career of Leszek Balcerowicz. Instead, as they play footsie with Donald Trump, the tumbling securities markets forecast dark clouds. Sure, bear and bull markets do not always presage a nation’s future fortunes, but sometimes they do. All the elements of serious economic disruption are present: massive government meddling, Trump’s demand for irresponsible monetary policy to cover his tracks, shattered business relationships, mammoth uncertainty, and the beginning of the pullback of capital. If capital goes into hiding, we’re in serious trouble, Great Depression territory.
In the runup to our near future expect the demagoguery of all the Wall Street vs. Main Street blather to take center stage. The class warfare of J.D. Vance links rhetorical arms with AOC/Bernie Sanders. Is it all that inconceivable for our Vice-President to show up at AOC’s next “Fight Oligarchy” rally? One has to wonder. They might have to change the title to “Fight Wall Street”. Mmmmm, “Occupy Wall Street”? Are we there yet?
A simple economic lesson will be taught to our President and his palace coterie, while the rest of us live it. Wall Street and Main Street are as intertwined as Ford and its supply chain. They can’t occupy insular realms, bubbles, silos. A withholding of capital sets off dominoes that careen onto Main Street. Investors seek to avoid Trump-driven risks by not exposing their wealth (capital) to his whims. Following the inevitable chain of events, less capital means less maintenance and growth of enterprises which translates into less business for the diner and hardware store on Main Street.
It’s a lesson well understood by any economist worth their salt. Thank goodness Poland trusted theirs, led by Leszek Balcerowicz, and stayed the course. We, in America, would rather hitch our wagon to our erratic president, and his merry band of Fox News alumni, all adhering to his faulty presumptions. It’s great for Poland, bad for us.
RGraf
Sources:
1. Thanks to Dominic Pino of National Review for these insights in “The Stat: 2026” in National Review Magazine, May 2025, p.9.
Ford 2021 Bronco SUVs on the assembly line at the Michigan Assembly Plant in Wayne, Mich., June 14, 2021. (photo: Rebecca Cook/Reuters)
Sometime in early 2027, President Trump will probably be impeached . . . again. Why? When the party in power botches things, they’re normally punished at the polls — “It’s the economy, stupid!” Inflation, shortages, business closings, people thrown out of work, recessions/depressions, etc., won’t make for a winning message. That bodes ill for the already impeachment-prone Trump, leaving aside the question of the legitimacy of any effort to remove him from office.
People are already lining up to do the favor, or predicting it. The reliably extremist Democrat Al Green (the one removed for disrupting President Trump’s March 4 speech to Congress) announced in February (see #1), “This president is unfit.” Further in the well of the House he said, “I rise to announce that I will bring articles of impeachment against the president for dastardly deeds proposed and dastardly deeds done.” Longtime Trump ally Steve Bannon agrees. Four days after the November 4 election, Bannon augured (see #2),
“Hakeem Jeffries could be, will be, the speaker of the House in two years. And the first thing he will do in the early days of 2027 is move to impeach Donald Trump. Trust me. They’re gonna put $10 billion in back of him [to take the House]. They have nobody else.”
Trump is behaving in ways to prove them right. People vote their pocketbook. It’s more than a cliché. It’s true. Stake out a position that leads to harming the voters’ children and personal fortunes and they will send you packing. Biden and Kamala Harris, et al, are proof of concept. Trump is determined to join them.
I can’t think of a more politically self-destructive act than laying waste to a good portion of the economy just in time for the 2026 midterms. His tariff war – 10% across the board, 25% on our neighbors, potentially sky high on everybody else, and the concomitant uncertainty from all the flip flops – will wreak havoc on everything, maybe with the exception of most food processing. We’ll have food, but to hell with an affordable car, or truck, or SUV, or van, or 18-wheeler, if you can find one. Expect long lines at the grocery store filled with people holding food stamp (SNAP) EBT cards.
To bring home the consequences of the Trump foolishness, let’s just take a look at the rear undercarriage of an “American-made” SUV as it passes from the U.S. to Mexico, to Canada, and back to the U.S. The inputs for just the suspension strut towers go from Pennsylvania to Coahuila, Mexico, to Livonia, Michigan, for final assembly. The differential gearbox begins with aluminum from Quebec, then to casting in Coahuila, then for machining in Ontario, Canada, and then to North Carolina for assembly. The rubber bushings for the control arms starts with synthetic rubber from Monterrey, Mexico, and then to Iowa for their attachment to the control arms. The suspension’s cradle is from Kentucky, and other pieces such as the trailing blades and brackets emanate from Kentucky, Ontario, and Puebla, Mexico.
Assembly of the various parts into a rearend occurs at Vaughan, Ontario, and Detroit. Then it is rushed to Kansas City, Mo., Fort Wayne, Ind., and Windsor, Ontario, etc., for attachment to the final product. Under Trump’s tariff regime, the final product will be hemorrhaging blood from his tariffs. It’s insane.
Why the circuitous route? Doesn’t it seem unnecessarily complicated? Those questions would arise from your typically myopic and autarkic central planner, people like Peter Navarro and Donald Trump. This process pencils out in terms of value-added and cost-benefit according to the people with skin in the game. That’s what a market does when allowed to operate freely.
Why not just disentangle the various paths and make it all occur in the U.S.? Go ahead and try. Uprooting the suppliers and their plants will come at a terrible cost and take years. In the interim, people will be going to the polls to vote against the wreckage. The complexity of disentanglement was nicely expressed by Flavio Volpe, president of Canada’s Automotive Parts Manufacturers’ Association, when he compared it to an omelet: “You can’t unscramble it once it’s done.”
Trump is Don Quixote charging windmills. Biden wanted to shove us into very expensive golf carts masquerading as family sedans. With Trump, even that screwball option may not be available. I don’t know about you but I’m keeping my 10-year-old Tundra and 9-year-old Venza. Buying new ones is likely to be a nightmare. Expect the entire auto industry to pull back as well. Now that’s the making of economic hard times.
Will the Democrats finally succeed in adding Donald Trump’s scalp to their lance this time? Well, as they say, third time is the charm.
RGraf
Sources:
1. “Donald Trump Faces New Impeachment Bid After Speech to Congress”, Martha McHardy, Newsweek, 3/5/2025, at https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-impeachment-al-green-2039765
2. “Steve Bannon Warns of Potential Third Donald Trump Impeachment”, Aila Slisco, Newsweek, 11/8/2024, at https://www.newsweek.com/steve-bannon-warns-potential-third-donald-trump-impeachment-1983079
3. Thanks to Ryan Mills of National Review for his piece “North America’s Auto Supply Chain Took Decades to Build. Trump’s Tariffs Could Crush It” at https://www.nationalreview.com/news/north-americas-auto-supply-chain-took-decades-to-build-trumps-tariffs-could-crush-it/
President Donald Trump holds a “Foreign Trade Barriers” document as he delivers remarks on tariffs in the Rose Garden at the White House in Washington, D.C., April 2, 2025. (photo: Carlos Barria/Reuters)
“Lies and victimhood make evil possible.” — quote attributed to Dennis Prager
Well, maybe not evil, or maybe so, but lies and victimhood are certainly not a recipe for success. The Left has long been in the grip of victimhood. It’s the base alloy for its DEI, CRT, critical legal theory, and all its “systematic” ideologies that have plagued us since they became Democratic Party dogma in the 20th and into the 21st centuries. Now, the Right has its own version in MAGA. And as John Fogerty of Creedence Clearwater Revival sang, “I see a bad moon rising”.
Why the pessimism? The Right morphed from being a correction to the Left’s manias to a thoroughgoing embrace of one of their big ones, victimhood. It’s in the MAGA title – Make America Great Again – meaning that America is a victim of a dizzying array of charlatans and miscreants, foreign and domestic. It’s a recurring script, pathetic as it may be, nothing new in the history of the world.
In that sense, we are busy making ourselves not “exceptional”. It’s not inevitable. We choose to be that way by electing leaders and absorbing their dark frame of mind. Donald Trump’s tariff war on the world is a play on this depressing display of American victimhood.
What’s more, it is based on falsehoods. The villain is said to be free trade, whether under the initials NAFTA or TPP (Trans-Pacific Partnership) or GATT or WTO, and we are said to be chumps, patsies, and victims in the story. Yet, for allegedly being fools, we are outpacing the rest of the world. Trump’s “Great Again” schtick actually misses the boat, and is working feverishly to have us join the rest of the G7 in missing the boat.
Let’s count the ways. The UK, Germany, and Japan have flatlined in GDP growth for at least 5 years or more (three decades for Japan). China’s 30-year spurt of phenomenal growth is levelling off, which is not surprising since they started from essentially zero; they’re export reliant economy is highly cyclical; and the central planning of industrial policy is famous for spectacular highs followed by spectacular lows, like a meth addict. The Soviet Union had 80 years of it and it imploded in the course of a week in 1991.
As for “Great Again”, we are already great and getting greater as the others languish. So says The Economist in its October 2024 report titled, “The American economy has left other rich countries in the dust” (see #1). How so? At the start of NAFTA, we were about 40% of total GDP of the G7 countries. Today, we’re 50%. Globally, we were 21% of the world’s economy in 2012; today finds us at 26%.
Personal measures of wealth show us to be unsurpassed. Back to The Economist (see #1 and #2), “Average wages in America’s poorest state, Mississippi, are higher than the averages in Britain, Canada and Germany.” We’re also more productive per worker. Canada’s is 70% of ours. China is a third (and falling). If this makes us “chumps”, we should pray for the condition to continue.
So, Trump’s answer is a tariff war on the world and more caterwauling about our victimhood. Go figure. On April 2, he marched up to the microphone waving a piece of agitprop titled “Foreign Trade Barriers” as if any of it matters. Ironically, these alleged foreign government manipulations of trade haven’t made them any richer as we sailed past them. “Foreign Trade Barriers” is irrelevant in the big yacht race of life.
Trump and MAGA world can’t accept the fact that our economy is different, as different as our 1890 economy was from colonial times. Ag shrunk dramatically as a slice of the American economy back then, so an 1890 Trump and Peter Navarro (Trump’s sage of trade) would be running around pushing William T. Sherman’s “40 acres and a mule” as a plank in their “Make America Great Again” campaign. To heck with Rockefeller, Carnegie, Vanderbilt, and Ford; and to heck with 21st-century Navarro’s craze for manufacturing. It would have been stillborn if this dynamic duo had their way at the dawn of American global economic dominance.
Peter Navarro at the White House
21st-century America isn’t a manufacturing basket case. The value of our manufacturing is larger today than it was 1990. We just employ fewer people as we manufacture more higher-end goods. As Rich Lowry puts it in his piece (see #2), “As we have lost jobs in manufacturing (5 million since 1990), we’ve picked them up in services (nearly 12 million) and in transportation and logistics (more than 3 million).” More tech and aerospace and less textiles and shoes. Those service jobs don’t concentrate around the burger-flipper sector. If they did, they’d be the most expensive burger-flippers since Ray Kroc, since the birth of the Whopper, that is Wagyu-paddied Whoppers.
Trade barriers or no, the proof is in the pudding. But Navarro doesn’t eat pudding, at least not the kind of pudding produced by our economy.
Navarro, Trump’s buddy in protectionism, has always been a loud advocate of central planning, government management of economic activity, in its reincarnation in Democrat neo-socialist “industrial policy”, and more. Before he joined the Trump circus, Navarro was part of the emerging California Democrat “establishment” in the 1990s that would come to dominate the state down to the present day.
By 1998, the Democrat tone for California was set in the words of people like Navarro (see #4). Eco-manias and growth-control was the zeitgeist of his campaigns for elective offices in San Diego in the 1990s. He headed an activist group called “Prevent Los Angelization Now (PLAN)”, of San Diego, and pushed almost any measure at hand to restrict the housing supply, such as preventing migration into the city, growth-control ordinances, tight controls on sewer and water hookups, fees, fees, and more fees, etc. It’s a familiar story that began in Petaluma in the 1960s and spread up and down the state’s populous coastal plain.
Navarro was hip deep in branding the word “developer” as something akin to “child molester”. Without his type of apparatchiks at the helm of local government power, according to Navarro, developers “will leave air pollution, overcrowded schools, underpoliced streets, sewer systems bursting at their seams, and traffic jams that can (and often do in California) make grown men cry.”
Today, Californians are crying, despondent over their inability to afford shelter and having to flee to other states not so beholden to the California Navarros. California has a serious housing shortage, duhhh! Getting approval to nail two studs together is a nightmare in the state. Decades of hostility to supply has attracted some roosting chickens. The chronically constrained supply has propelled the median rent in the state to $2,850, 33% higher than the national average (see #5).
Navarro’s legacy is Democrat Assemblyman Corey Jackson of Riverside. Jackson recently proposed a bill that would allow college students to sleep in their cars because many can’t afford California rent (see #7). People that think like Navarro have engineered a housing market that has relegated students to their cars. Expect student parking lots to resemble homeless encampments. What Navarro helped to bring about in California, he promises for the entire nation when Trump assigned to him the role of influencer to tinker around in the nation’s economic relations with the world.
It’s not that Trump is unaware of Navarro’s inclinations. He agrees with Navarro. Trump and Navarro have a childlike zero-sum view of the world. Bill Fulton, former head of San Diego planning, noticed the symmetry between Trump’s view of trade and slow-growthers like Navarro (see #3): “More development creates losers as well as winners, so you’d better box out the bad development or at least make those developers pay through the nose.” A rising tide raising all boats, or a growing pie that unavoidably means bigger slices for everyone, is inconceivable to someone like Navarro. Thanks to Trump, Navarro has the opportunity to muck up the nation’s economy like he helped to do for the housing supply in California.
Steve Bannon
And he’s doing it along with another fellow traveler in MAGA world, Steve Bannon. Navarro wants to centrally plan trade with his beloved tariffs. Bannon wants to bash the rich with tax increases. Here’s Bannon (see #6):
“That’s why it’s so important to not extend the tax cuts for the wealthy and actually do more tax cuts for working class people. We do this, that is a fundamental shift politically that will cement in the foundational elements for a 1932-type realignment.”
Update to Steve Bannon (see #8): the top 20% of income earners pay 83.6% of federal income taxes. As for the bottom rungs straying into the middle and working classes, the bottom 20% only get money out of the system. Their income tax rate is negative, -4.3%. The next 20% from the bottom pays essentially 0% at 0.1%. What does Bannon want, out and out income confiscation? That would place him in the company of Lenin.
Why not just vote for Democrats? MAGA is associated with the wrong party. Bannon believes, like Navarro, like Democrats, that government can micromanage us into utopia. Bannon opines on the tips, overtime, and Social Security pandering while bashing other Republicans as follows, “He’s [Trump] furthering the economics of working-class and middle-class America, and it cements the fact that the Republicans are not the country club Republicans of the Bush junta.” So, according to Bannon and any other socialist who has graced the public stage, government is the fount of all good things, and no need to pull the rug back on a ravaged housing supply and American economy as they feed The Wealth of Nations and Reaganomics into the shredder.
Such is the nature of Populism. It is the repository of crackpots, of anyone who wishes to steer government bennies to favored victims, while making real victims of those seen in a lesser light. Now we see the real home of zero-sum and it is in city hall, the state capitol, Washington, D.C., and the myriads of agencies and government offices scattered across the fruited plain. A favored few demographics are rewarded at the expense of the vast millions. None of it works, and results in the loaded U-Hauls exiting California and thousands thrown out of work by enterprises starved for capital and nonfunctioning supply chains.
Senator Russell B. Long put it best when he said in 1973, “Don’t tax you, don’t tax me, tax the fellow behind the tree.” Welcome to the Populism of Peter Navarro and Steve Bannon, and the erratic and incoherent Donald J. Trump.
It’s more than Populism that ties them together. It’s the pathetic wallowing in victimhood. It blinds a person to a reality that isn’t as dismal as these lunkheads make it out to be. It heaps blame on others and diminishes personal responsibility. In a nutshell, it is as Dennis Prager put it, “Lies and victimhood make evil possible.”
Yes, the pity party is getting tiresome.
RogerG
Sources:
1. “The American economy has left other rich countries in the dust”, Simon Rabinovitch and Henry Curr, The Economist, October 14, 2024, at https://www.economist.com/special-report/2024/10/14/the-american-economy-has-left-other-rich-countries-in-the-dust
2. Thanks to Rich Lowry for bringing these insights to my attention in “Guess What? We’re Already Rich”, National Review, 4/15/2024, at https://www.nationalreview.com/2025/04/guess-what-were-already-rich/
3. “How San Diego’s housing wars helped Peter Navarro shape Trump’s trade wars”, Andrew Keatts, Anxios, 4/15/2025, at https://www.axios.com/local/san-diego/2025/04/15/san-diego-housing-war-peter-navarro-trump-trade-war-tariff
4. Check out Peter Navarro’s own words in his “Peter Navarro fights Lynn Schenk, Susan Golding, Nancy Casady to run for Congress”, authored in 1998 during his run for Congress, at https://www.sandiegoreader.com/news/1998/apr/23/san-diego-confidential/
5. “Rent drives up California’s cost of living”, Lynn La, Cal Matters, 8/2/2024, at https://calmatters.org/newsletter/california-cost-of-living-rent-increases/
6. “Republicans Weigh Raising Taxes on Highest Earners”, Audrey Fahlberg, National Review, 4/15/2025, at https://www.nationalreview.com/the-morning-jolt/republicans-weigh-raising-taxes-on-highest-earners/
7. “California Bill Proposes Letting Students Sleep in Cars On Campus”, KFI 640 AM, 4/14/2025, at https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/california-bill-proposes-letting-students-sleep-in-cars-on-campus/ar-AA1CTKhM
8. “Is it True the Rich Don’t Pull Their Weight When it Comes to Paying Taxes?”, Amelia Kuntzman and Sara Wagoner, Economic Policy Innovation Center, 4/14/2025, at https://epicforamerica.org/federal-budget/is-it-true-the-rich-dont-pull-their-weight-when-it-comes-to-paying-taxes/
9 Much thanks to Dominic Pino at National Review for his socioeconomic breakdown of tax receipts in “Top 40 Percent of Earners Pay Nearly All Federal Income Taxes” at https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/top-40-percent-of-earners-pay-nearly-all-federal-income-taxes/
President Donald Trump reacts as he delivers remarks on tariffs in the Rose Garden at the White House in Washington, D.C., April 2, 2025. (photo: Carlos Barria/Reuters)
In a career in the public eye, Donald Trump hasn’t hesitated to brag about his IQ. In 2013, he posted on Twitter (see #1), “Sorry losers and haters, but my I.Q. is one of the highest -and you all know it! Please don’t feel so stupid or insecure, it’s not your fault.” He’s repeated it often enough to not dismiss it as just a joke.
Which brings to mind Stephen Hawking’s quip about IQ braggarts (see #3): “People who boast about their I.Q. are losers.”
The fact of the matter is, no one, not even Donald Trump, knows his IQ. I can only conclude from his abundant public utterings that this is no “genius” at work. He may have some competence in a particular narrow field, but he is ill-informed or filled with coarse opinions outside of it. Typical of this form of Trump-speak is today’s jewel (4/7/2025) from Truth Social (see #4):
“Oil prices are down, interest rates are down (the slow moving Fed should cut rates!), food prices are down, there is NO INFLATION, and the long time abused USA is bringing in Billions of Dollars a week from the abusing countries on Tariffs that are already in place. This is despite the fact that the biggest abuser of them all, China, whose markets are crashing, just raised its Tariffs by 34%, on top of its long term ridiculously high Tariffs (Plus!), not acknowledging my warning for abusing countries not to retaliate. They’ve made enough, for decades, taking advantage of the Good OL’ USA! Our past ‘leaders’ are to blame for allowing this, and so much else, to happen to our Country. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”
Here’s a few takeaways. This is no “genius” at work. Declaring victory in his trade war against the world is a bit premature, only 4 days after he declared economic war on the world. Interesting side note: Where’s Congress as the president on his lonesome declares a trade war against the planet?
The purpose of tariffs is to punish foreigners and American consumers, not to rake in “Billions of Dollars” for subsidy boondoggles or to make the tax cuts and the tax-free tips, overtime, and Social Security pandering pencil-out for the Congressional Budget Office. As is likely, the overall economy will take a hit when the economic casualties from the trade war roll in: all tax revenue starts to slide, and business and personal spending begins to crater. Not more money but less is in the offing.
Littered throughout in this piece from the “genius” is the pathetic complaints of the constantly aggrieved, America as a victim of the entire world. If this came from one of my children, after the tantrum, I’d send the kid to their room after a serious come-to-Jesus moment. Instead, we make the guy president.
It says a lot about us, or does it? People vote for a person for any number of reasons. Nowhere, not in any pollsters’ surveys were tariffs on the list of most serious concerns of voters. It is for Trump, and they are a key to his understanding of the world. We weren’t necessarily bamboozled. We heard the tariff talk, but relegated it to the back of our mind, reminding ourselves of the pre-pandemic Trump I and the wreckage left by the Dems. We didn’t vote for Trump wreckage.
Trump may think himself a “genius”. Instead, what we got was your average, run-of-the-mill big blowhard. I’ve experienced such people throughout my life. You’ll find them in locker rooms, bars, among friends and family. We just happen to have one in the Oval Office. And he’s making us look pathetic. MAGA must be replaced with MAPA, Make America Pathetic Afterward.
RogerG
Sources:
1. This Trump IQ braggadocio can be found on X at https://x.com/realdonaldtrump/status/332308211321425920
2. More occasions for Trump’s bragging can be read at “Donald Trump’s IQ obsession, in 22 quotes”, Chris Cillizza, CNN, 10/10/2017, at https://www.cnn.com/2017/10/10/politics/donald-trump-tillerson-iq/index.html
3. The Hawking quote can be read at https://www.socratic-method.com/quote-meanings/stephen-hawking-people-who-boast-about-their-i-q-are-losers
4. This example of Trump braggadocio can be read from his Truth Social account at https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/114296287858068040
5. Thanks for the insights from the inestimable Jim Geraghty of National Review at https://www.nationalreview.com/the-morning-jolt/why-team-trump-is-so-gung-ho-about-tariffs/
Trump and his tariff executive order, April 2025Clash between Trump supporters and the radical Left in Washington, D.C., December 2020
Shakespeare wrote “Julius Caesar” around the turn of the century, 1599 or 1600. In a story that loosely shadows the rise and fall of Julius Caesar, the Bard of Avon presents a tale of hubris, sycophancy, cowardice, and vengeance. The timeline went from “crossing the Rubicon” to the “Ides of March” – “Et tu, Brute” – “Even you, Brutus”. The real story is one of overweening ambition for fame, glory, and power, a chief feature of the politics of the late Roman Republic. The Roman Senate had begun to neuter itself in destructive and self-negating factions. When it finally rose up, it was too late. In the end, after the ascension of Augustus, the empty shell of the republican form was kept, but the reality was an empire with an emperor, an emperator, an autocrat.
Was the rise and fall of Julius Caesar really the end of the republic? Actually, it could rightly be argued that the crisis had been building over the prior century in occasional civil wars and dictatorships. So, a single break point can be difficult to perceive. Murkiness is a constant problem in historical analysis. Nonetheless, a well-trodden path is discernable, and a superficial facade of government took shape. Are we there yet?
Emperor Augutus presiding over the Roman Senate
Appearances matter, but are false. Stalin’s Constitution of 1936 was an exemplar of consensual governance and personal rights, in print form only. The reality was clearly different, as exemplified by the NKVD, purges, and a vast gulag archipelago. Adolph Hitler ruled under the emergency provisions of Article 48 of the democratic Weimar Constitution. He had no other constitution. He combined the executive offices of chancellor and president unto himself under an Article 48 “emergency” (the 1933 Reichstag fire, the “Jewish Menace”, the “Red Menace”, etc.) and he was off and running. Are we there yet?
“Emergencies” abound in these scenarios, and are frequently conjured, or grossly exaggerated, for political gain. Is America following a similar arc? Our arc could be said to have begun with the rise of a political movement, Progressivism, with a lot of late 19th century Populism thrown into the mix. The “messiness” of real consensual government with its localism, smelly back rooms, federalism, separation of powers, and checks and balances was thought to be in need of streamlining by a strong chief executive and his administration of “experts”. Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson laid out the rationale and FDR raised it to an art form, followed by a host of Democrats from JFK and his “best and brightest” (mostly Ivy League grads), LBJ, Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, to Joe Biden. And, now, the Republicans add their own entrant to the list in the person of Donald Trump.
Congress delegated the tariff power to the president in “emergencies” – the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) – and sealed their fate by allowing him to define it. The seed was sown and our arc proceeded. A prior Republican president toyed with emergency-autocracy – Nixon and his wage-and-price controls in the “Nixon Shock” of 1971 – but none operated with such brashness and bravado, completely ignoring the legislative branch, as Donald Trump did in his edict of across-the-board tax increases, his tariff taxes on the world, literally the world. It’s breathtaking.
Congress is only left with a veto. But Congress is a shell of its former self, as the Roman Senate was in confronting Sulla or Julius Caesar. One faction, Trump’s fellow Republicans, have mostly fallen into Trump sycophancy (Caesar sycophancy?) and will prevent Congress from reasserting its Constitutional powers. A few Senate Republicans bucked the toadyism and voted with the minority Democrats to approve a resolution opposing the prior tariff edict on Canada. The House leadership, all Republicans, stonewalled the move to condemn Trump’s imperial decree. Thus, the proposal was relegated to irrelevancy. Evenly divided between Caesaristic sycophancy and neo-Marxism, Congress has cancelled itself.
The irony of it all is that the Democrats are not a responsible alternative. The picture resembles the street scenes of Berlin in 1920s Weimar Germany. Patriotic German war vets faced off against the Bolshevik-inspired Reds in street battles. Many vets were drawn to ultra-right rhetoric and its mythology of victimhood about the war (WWI) while the Reds were excited for headway in the international proletarian revolution. Today, the choice facing Americans is between neo-Marxism (the Democrats) and a mythology of perpetual American victimhood (the Trump Republicans).
The German Freikorps of the Right in 1920s BerlinThe Roter Frontkämpfer-Bund, the paramilitary of the Reds in Berlin, June 1927
The victimhood angle of the ultra-right in Germany – the “stab in the back” legend – strikingly parallels the trade victimhood of the Trump Right. Victimhood sold well in 1917 Russia, 1920s and 30s Germany, and apparently so in America of the 21st century’s third decade. Victimhood is embraced by both the left and right. Both have their competing oppressor/oppressed schticks.
History provides examples of these various appeals devolving into the leadership of a single person, the so-called cult of personality. The leader alone (Marx, Lenin, il Duce, etc.) are thought to possess the unique gifts of foresight to establish the “truth” and the “path forward”. Power accumulates in the hands of the leader and a select few around him. He is acclaimed to be the embodiment of wisdom.
Roman emperors carried the title of Augustus – exalted, venerable. Emperor was the reality, but they were construed to be the wise guarantors of the “rights” and “prosperity of the people”, and the nation’s “protector”. Their power need have no constitutional writ, but these suzerains still felt compelled to maintain the illusion of a republic.
At this point, the system falls victim to Hayek’s “knowledge problem”. Like all accurate insights into the human condition, it is rooted in human nature and thus a warning for all time. It’s a testament on how a professed victimhood can lead to a real and widespread victimhood. The movement’s scheme of centralized economic decision-making can’t work. Real functional knowledge is naturally dispersed among millions of actors in a free market. When that freedom is replaced by the “wisdom” of the one or a few, whether it be a politburo, a Soviet Gosplan, or handpicked toadies in the Council of Economic Advisers to reorder the entire world’s trading system, the wheels come off the cart. We’ve seen this play out time and time again. Well, here we go again.
Friedrich Hayek
The light hand of negotiations and trade deals is replaced by the heavy hand of Trump’s tariff Frankenstein. Your friends become cynical of you, and your enemies remain as they were, with a few more joining their ranks.
An examination of Trump’s tariff monster makes this clear. Who gets hit by Trump’s tariff truncheon? Everybody, friends and foes alike; well, no, not everybody, nor evenly. Friends get especially slammed because they are friends. We trade with them a lot and therefore they run the risk of having a “trade surplus” with us. The economic munchkins running the tariff show in Trump ll are fixated on “trade deficits” and “trade surpluses”. They are all that matters to these blinkered apparatchiks.
Their magic tariff formula is based on our “trade deficit” with that country, with a 10% floor, not that nation’s tariffs. So, the much-ballyhooed reciprocity argument is made mute. Others in the media, such as Hugh Hewitt, try to act as shaman of Trump’s brain like an ancient seer reading a flock birds before a battle, trying their best to make sense of Trump’s recklessness. Reciprocity was one angle. Then it was Trump implementing the Art of the Deal. When that couldn’t hold water, national security against the threat of the CCP jumped to the top of the shrinking list of rationales. Then the tariffs targeted the world, with or without the CCP, with no guarantee that they’ll be dropped, or if they’re negotiable.
That leaves my pet theory for Trump’s tariff fetish. Look no further than Trump’s 1990s dalliance with the Perot/Buchanan Reform Party and their fixation on Perot’s “great sucking sound” (jobs lost to Mexico). Vance alluded to it – self-sufficiency – in his recent verbal fusillade directed at RedState blogger Bonchie. The word for national self-sufficiency is autarky. The ancient, primitive drive for national or tribal self-sufficiency – autarky – has fueled the lust for conquest and empire for thousands of years. The peaceful trade to fill national or tribal needs and wants is seen as less ennobling than the thrill of military subjugation. The Mongols headed south to conquer China, then the Hun bands headed west to lay waste to Russia and the Hungarian plain, threatening the Roman Empire. Operation Barbarossa in June of 1941 was emblematic of autarky in the form of “lebensraum”. 19th century colonialism rode on its back. Don’t trade, seize, and in that way achieve self-sufficiency.
Attila and his Huns in their drive for autarky
For Trump, take the Panama Canal and Greenland, intimidate Canada into being a client state, and punish American consumers for preferring foreign goods while simultaneously terrorizing American firms from their overseas economic arrangements. Bring everybody home and lock up the country while expanding its territorial reach. Attila would be envious.
Autarky is a fool’s errand. Poor countries are self-sufficient. They never develop; they are stunted. Development requires freedom, not an empowered few implementing the errant beliefs of a hubristic leader and his claque. America under Trump is forsaking the decades-long web of peaceful and voluntary trade arrangements for the diktats of what has quickly come to resemble an imperial court. The spectacle would have been familiar to anyone given access to Attila’s tent.
The metamorphosis of the Right is shocking to behold. Former free traders when Reagan was around have morphed into full-blown protectionists in the reign of Trump. Take talk show host Hugh Hewitt. Yesterday, he announced his fealty to protectionism (4/3/2025), eliminating all pretense. The arguments are the same, old and worn out as those of 17th century French mercantilists (refuted by Adam Smith) and the central planners of the 1980s Democrats’ “industrial policy” (in opposition to Reagan’s tax cuts, free markets, and free trade). The Republican Hewitt is now a 1980s Democrat, or an acolyte of Louis XIV’s First Minster of State, Jean-Baptiste Colbert.
The operative catalyst of the flip-flop is the presence of Donald Trump. A mania builds around a person and others quickly fall in line. The Right and its media web are as busy discrediting themselves in their fealty as the legacy media in their fawning support of the Democrat Left.
Warning! Choose wisely the horse to hitch your wagon.
The big question remains. Are we now ruled by an imperator, a person powerful enough to dismantle with a single stroke of his pen the long-established and peaceful economic arrangements of millions of people? Are our choices limited to Caesarism or neo-Marxism? It seems to be so. It’s the 1920s Berlin street confrontations of extremists all over again. In such circumstances, can the republic long survive? I am beginning to have my doubts.
