Opinion
Trump fiddles while America burns
After markets crashed globally in response to Trump’s tariffs, slipping into bear territory on Monday before wobbling up, down and back up again, the White House issued a tone deaf slapback about Trump’s golf game, saying, “[t]he President won his second round matchup of the Senior Club Championship today in Jupiter, FL, and advances to the Championship Round tomorrow.”
As Americans watch their retirement accounts drop, Trump has spent one-third of his 76 days back in office on the golf course, indicating he couldn’t care less. No one from his administration has faced critical questions about his “Liberation Day” strategy, and it appears Trump used ChatGPT to generate the whole thing.
As of Monday morning, stock markets already had lost more than $6 trillion in value, a figure projected to worsen as the tariffs are applied. Under Trump’s plan, American consumers will pay an additional $8 trillion in taxes-- tariffs imposed on imported every day goods like lightbulbs and pomegranites-- over a ten year period. This amount, along with alleged savings from DOGE’s chainsaw attack on federal agencies, will be used to pay for Trump’s second round of $4.5 trillion tax cuts for the rich.
Economists note that Trump’s tariffs will result in a massive redistribution of wealth, a reverse Robin Hood strategy for taking from the poor to enrich the wealthy political donors who put Trump back in office.
Trump’s overly simplistic tariff chart
Trump has been praising tariffs for months. After jerking our best friends, trading partners and neighbors around last month, he almost had the beginning of a concept for a tariff plan last week. In true reality-TV fashion, Trump staged the announcement with great Rose Garden fanfare, calling a press conference to unveil his half-baked plan. He branded and marketed the “Liberation Day” event, but spent almost no time developing an actual policy.
As markets crashed the world over, it became obvious that the overly simplified tariff chart prop he showed the media was generated with basic online AI from ChatGPT. Multiple simple, online AI programs, including 03 high, Gemini 2.5 pro, Claude 3.7, and Grok all produced the same answers spit out on Trump’s tariff chart when commanded to “make easy tariff policy.”
Policy writer Steve Bonnell observed on X that, Trump advisors “asked ChatGPT to calculate the tariffs from other countries, which is why the tariffs make absolutely no f—cking sense. They're simply dividing the trade deficit we have with a country with our imports from that country, or using 10 percent, whichever is greater.” In other words, it’s an absurdly simplistic view of global trade economics.
Trump officials claim they calculated complexities they obviously didn’t
Trump officials repeatedly lied about the method used to calculate Trump’s tariff rates, claiming that for every targeted economy, “tariff and non tariff barriers” and policies were analyzed, assessed and quantified individually. What BS. As ChatGPT results prove, market and currency nuances were not quantified; nothing was considered other than macro-simplistic dollar amounts.
Decidedly NOT considered in Trump’s tariffs: currency variables, labor variables, VAT taxes, reciprocal licensing, subsidies, pre-existing and negotiated product-specific tariffs, geopolitical sanctions, transportation costs, etc., etc. Also excluded from consideration? The entire service sector, where American firms enjoy a huge surplus, now in jeopardy. Google AI reports that in 2023, the U.S. exported $1.02 trillion in services, delivering a surplus Trump didn’t recognize.
There’s no strategy here folks, it’s an across the board, moronic attack on the world economy executed by sharpie.
Fox News has to put lipstick on Trump’s idiotic Liberation Day pig
World leaders expressed their shock and outrage, and didn’t hold back about tarrifs so ill-conceived they look like sabotage:
·EU’s commissioner :“Uncertainty will spiral… consequences will be dire for millions of people around the globe.”
·China, after imposing retaliatory 34% tariff on the US: “There are no winners in trade wars, and there is no way out for protectionism.”
·Germany's Chancellor: “Trump’s tariffs are fundamentally wrong and an attack on a trade system that has created prosperity all round the world.”
·Australia’s Prime Minister: Trump’s tariffs were “not the act of a friend.”
· The penguins: WTF did penguins ever do to Trump? We’re only half black!
People who watch Fox News, now over half the country, didn’t hear, read, or see any of that. Last week, as world markets crashed, the folks over at Fox News focused on bathrooms, sports, and what’s in your neighbors’ underpants. They fawned over how strong Trump, the “New Sheriff in town” looked as he “warned” governors who “defy his orders.”
Mostly ignoring the stock market crash, Fox delivered its customary spin on Trump’s tariffs with the headline, “Secretary of State Rubio stands up to European leaders, says Trump is absolutely right.”
Fox propaganda aside, the world economy is in danger
Trump financial advisor said this morning that worries over a recession “are silly,” given that tax cuts for the rich are coming later in the year. JP Morgan doesn’t think they’re silly, and is now predicting a 60 percent chance of a recession by the end of the year, also noting that, “This year's 22-percentage tariff increase amounts to the largest tax hike since 1968.”
The Wall Street Journal predicts that market values will likely continue to fall. Neither Navarro nor Trump seem to understand that factory owners can’t switch their locations overnight; investment strategies aren’t that nimble and take years to develop. They’re also tone deaf to the fact that foreign and domestic corporations need the rule of law to invest safely, and are repelled by Trump’s hatchet attacks on judges, lawfirms and the judiciary.
Financial markets, predictably, are reeling. Despite Trump’s false messaging that “tariffs are tax cuts,” everyone outside the MAGA bubble knows tariffs are a regressive tax paid by working-class Americans.
By all indicators, Trump has not considered any of the complexities needed to develop a strategic trade package, and says he “couldn’t care less” about the price of cars. Like a child with a singular focus on his playmate’s toy, Trump has been so fixated on 19th century tariffs and 19th century imperialism that rational policy discussions have stopped.
What we’re left with is a child tyrant’s policies, putting our economic survival in jeopardy.
Sabrina Haake is a 25+ year federal trial attorney specializing in 1st and 14th A defense. Her columns are published in Alternet, Chicago Tribune, MSN, Out South Florida, Raw Story, Salon, Smart News and Windy City Times. Her Substack, The Haake Take, is free.
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'Woke': MAGA retirees shocked from slumber by Trump economy
Nick Anderson is a Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonist.
Trump’s trash talking costs Las Vegas
Lost in the focus on President Donald Trump’s tariffs is the economic impact his war of words is having on international visitation to Las Vegas. When the President of the United States tells people they are not welcome, could be detained, or even end up in an El Salvadoran prison, they listen and decide to go elsewhere. The result will hit Las Vegas hard with empty hotel rooms, vacant tables at restaurants and empty seats at shows. The President may cause a recession in Las Vegas from his hanging up the “not welcome” sign to the rest of the world.
International tourism is big business in Las Vegas, with over 5 million people estimated to have come last year. No country sends more people to Las Vegas than Canada. Canadians make up 30 percent of Las Vegas’s international travel. With domestic air travel to Harry Reid airport down almost 8% over the first two months of the year, Las Vegas can ill afford a sharp decline in international visitors.
Trump’s repeated insults to Canada have Canadians saying no thanks to coming to America. Air travel bookings from Canada to America for this summer are already down by 70 percent from last year. If that holds for Las Vegas, it would mean 1 million fewer international tourists to Las Vegas from Canada alone. Canada, Mexico, and England combine for almost two-thirds of all international tourists to Las Vegas, and while those used to be three of our closest economic and political allies, Trump seems to be doing everything he can to change that. Canada and England have issued new formal travel advisories to their citizens about the dangers of travelling to America
Las Vegas is the 6th most visited city in America, and like Orlando, the city whose economy is most dependent on travel and tourism. Other cities who host more foreign visitors have other main industries. Los Angeles has entertainment, New York has finance. But in Las Vegas travel and tourism are the core industries. Research I conducted at UNLV’s Brookings Mountain West with Ember Smith detailed how cities like Las Vegas that rely on travel and tourism fared even worse during Covid than those with core industries less directly impacted by pandemic related travel shutdowns. More than 40 percent of Nevada’s entire state GDP comes from tourism. Start hammering away at that and it does not take much to trigger a recession.
Trump’s trash talking of our allies is self-defeating in his attempt to reduce America’s trade deficit. Every dollar a foreign tourist spends in Las Vegas counts as an American export for purposes of counting our gross domestic product (GDP), and reduces our trade deficit. Economists think of it as America exporting the fun of Las Vegas to people living abroad. Promoting international visitation to the U.S. was part of President Obama’s successful campaign to double America’s exports and reduce our trade deficit. During my service on President Obama’s National Travel and Tourism Strategy we worked to make it easier for people to travel to America, creating jobs and growing our nation’s economy.
Trump campaigned with populist promises to win the votes of Nevadans like no taxes on tips and capping credit card interest rates at 10 percent. But he has governed as President quite differently, instigating a trade war, threatening Canada and Greenland with invasions, and praising Russian dictator Vladimir Putin.
America’s odds of a recession have shot up since Trump took office. Trump’s trade war, punitive actions against his perceived enemies, and attacks on the rule of law, along with Elon Musk’s slash and burn of government agencies have generated widespread business uncertainty, and shrunk consumer confidence.
The stock market’s crash on Trump’s tariffs last week could, in theory, be reversed should Trump walk back his tariffs. But the view that America is a great country to visit will be much harder to rebuild. More than one out of every ten tourists in Las Vegas comes from another country, with more from Canada than any other. When President Trump insults them, many will go somewhere else. That could push Las Vegas and all of Nevada into a recession more easily than people may realize, and it could last longer than whatever tariff rate is set today and changed tomorrow.
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The week the tide turned on Trump
I am not sure how you are holding up right now (I reckon I can guess), but from my sturdy perch here in Madison, Wisconsin, the past week has been one of the longest years of my life …
I hope you’ll give me a few minutes of your time today while I take you through it, because I do believe the battle against cancerous greed and deadly fascism was officially joined.
While Republicans, led by the grotesque anti-Americans Elon Musk and Donald Trump, were busy trying to blow our lights out for good, they were met with a hurricane of resistance that built in strength throughout the week, before finally making landfall Saturday at cities large and small across our country.
The huffing and puffing got started way back on Monday morning when I banged out Battle Cry:
“I’m typing to you today with my left hand on the keyboard, while biting the fingernails on the right one. The grotesque Elon Musk just left my state of Wisconsin after publicly handing out millions of dollars of blood money in a greasy effort to buy our Supreme Court.”
I meant it when I said:
“I honestly don’t know if we are going to make it in America, but I do know there are hundreds of thousands of people here in Wisconsin who understand the stakes, and as long as we do, we will never be beaten.”
Well, beaten was the last thing we were when a day later Judge Susan Crawford battered the candidate the despicable Trump and Musk bought and paid for in a disgusting attempt to rest control of our Supreme Court in Wisconsin.
In Not On Her Watch the following morning, I laid it out this way:
“By walloping Brad Schimel by 10 points in a state where razor-thin margins are the rule, the people of Wisconsin put the America-attacking Donald Trump on notice: You have gone way too far, sport. Back up now, or prepare to be flattened in the future.”
There had been a decided shift in the winds Tuesday evening, as the hurricane gathered strength, and if you stopped just for a moment you could feel it blowing through your town. Never forget, fortune favors the bold, and the patriots on the Left were finally strutting their stuff.
“What happened up here in Wisconsin Tuesday night, and with Cory Booker’s epic speech on the Senate floor in Washington, completely changed the playing field and how we patriots must look at things going forward.
Never underestimate your power as a United States voter, even if Republicans are doing everything they can to take that power away. Our representatives work for us. That has somehow been forgotten. I will expect the battle to be joined by all those gutless Democrats who ran for cover after November 5th. When we fight, we win.
And never underestimate the women in America. No surprise, all four liberal justices on our court in Wisconsin are women. Watching them on that stage last night gave me goosebumps. They-were-feeling-it. THEY DID THIS. They stood up to the patriarchy and all that damn dirty money, and showed them who was really boss.”
After getting some much-needed downtime Wednesday and part of Thursday, on Friday it was time for a reveal. That election had really taken it out of me. My worry had overwhelmed me ...
“By the time the clock had menacingly ticked toward exactly 8:08 p.m. just three evenings ago, I decided enough time had passed to check the results of the Supreme Court Election up here that was going to determine whether everything we had fought for the past 15 years was going to be incinerated by a political party that despises progress and human rights even more than it does the truth.
This was a cruel and unusual election because it simply asked too much from too many up here after that dreadfully close 2024 presidential election just five months before.
We had put our time and treasure on the line, as we knocked on doors, hearts on sleeves, only to come up agonizingly short when enough voting Americans decided they liked being constantly lied to by an American-attacking racist, and a larger group still, who had decided that going to the polls wasn't worth their time at all.
So I took a deep breath and walked the 20-or-so paces into my office, prepping myself — good or bad — to accept our fate as a nation. We simply could not afford to lose this damn election.
In addition to the catastrophe that would ensue here if the grotesque Elon Musk’s candidate won, it would also have emboldened the fascists’ nationally to move with due speed to burn 225 years of progress to the ground. They would have had a mandate for arson.”
That’s when my trouble started. That’s when early results showed that evil was trying to have its day.
That’s when the PTSD set in ...
“I had been at this very spot just 147 days earlier, when I saw in horror that the very good woman, who had done nothing with her professional life except serve her country, losing to the man who had done nothing with his miserable life except take from it, and attack it.
I pushed myself away from my desk, stood up, and walked slowly and unsteadily toward the direction of the kitchen, so I could get some water, and steady myself while I processed this newest straight-line wind of madness.
I was in shock, and simply not prepared for the terrible feeling of losing again.
Maybe the cause had literally become bigger than life. Surely there were thousands of others who were dealing with the severity of this condition ...
Since that terrible evening on November 8, 2016, when we learned again that our country was capable of doing both great and absolutely horrific things, this fight for what is most assuredly right has taken a terrible toll on too many of us.
As a veteran I am not going to tell you that this is like being on the raging high seas, or some battlefield, but I am going to tell you that the future of America is on the line, and the stakes have never been higher.
This war is being waged on our soil.
We try to go about our daily lives in as normal a fashion as possible, but trouble is everywhere. People are being disappeared and caged. Alliances are being torched. History is literally being rewritten. Our life’s savings are being inhaled by hideous billionaires. Books are being banned …
This is coming at us all at once, and even when we try to tune it out, we are but one news alert away from being knocked dizzy again.
When I regained my senses and was ready to brave the confines of my office 10 minutes after my event, I pushed my chair in tight to my desk and called up that website again.
That’s when I saw the tide had turned decisively. First Sauk County fell, and then Green, Door, and Brown. The swing counties were ALL swinging Left, and Crawford was positively blowing him out.
Here in Dane County, home to Madison, we were putting such an epic a---kicking on Trump and Musk’s candidate the final results would be in the neighborhood of 85%-15%.
A wave of relief washed over me, while I watched good overwhelm the forces of evil — if only for a night. I looked to the sky, and said, “thank you.”
Our mental health is nothing to play with, good people. A lot is being asked of us. Like a stalker, worry quietly follows us everywhere we go and is ready to pounce even when we think we are looking.
Worse, it afflicts only those who have the audacity to care …
We must find people we can lean on during these unsteady times, and I assure you, you will find them here.
After penning worry early Friday morning, by nightfall, Trump had completely wrecked the economy. So efficient was he with his dirty work and ghoulish preening that by the time the stock market had suffered its worst intentional crash in U.S. history, he was harrumphing around his golf course in Florida stiffing his caddies.
Yes, he went f------ golfing. But not before writing this to his cult on his nuclear-powered propaganda channel:
“THIS IS A GREAT TIME TO GET RICH.”
I learned long ago to never underestimate this guy’s singular talent for always going lower. Ten of millions of people are in severe financial distress right now precisely because of this slobbering grifter, who bankrupted SIX casinos while playing fast and loose with his daddy’s money.
This country has never seen a poorer excuse for a man …
When Saturday finally rolled around, like you I bet, I was in the ringer. There was but one more thing to do: climb the hill to The Square surrounding our capitol building to join the tens of thousands of fellow patriots who poured in from all parts of Wisconsin to completely give it hell.
We shouted, and defiantly stood against the forces of evil in this country. We smiled and hugged and threw our fists in the air because we knew …
We knew that after Booker’s epic speech and our stirring victory in the Supreme Court election Tuesday night, the wind was once again at our backs.
NOW READ: Trump voters are pretending like they were duped. Don't believe it.
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How to collapse America from the inside out
If Putin wanted to kill America, how would he best do it? Exactly like this:
— Install a puppet or ally inside the government; as Lincoln foresaw, a tyrant doesn’t need to invade. He just needs to rise from within. Trump has repeatedly echoed Kremlin talking points, undermined NATO, attacked Ukraine, praised autocrats, and created chaos at home. If Putin picked a candidate, it would be Trump — and the intelligence community has confirmed Russian efforts to help him win in both 2016 and 2020.
— Dismantle American institutions from the inside; Putin’s best move would be to encourage the erosion of U.S. government capacity: devalue science, underfund law enforcement, defund agencies, destroy trust in elections, and sabotage public health. All are happening as you read these words.
— Stoke internal division; a divided America is a weak America. Putin’s cyber and propaganda ops have long stoked racial hatred, anti-government sentiment, anti-vax ideology, and far-right extremism. Trump accelerates all of it. Musk’s X (Twitter) has become a vector for disinformation, propaganda, and fascist apologia.
— Weaken U.S. alliances around the world; Trump has repeatedly threatened to pull out of NATO, praised Putin’s invasions, and undermined Western alliances. Now he is threatening our allies with the possibility of invasion. This is textbook Kremlin strategy — divide the West, and conquer its influence.
Whether Trump and Musk are taking direct instructions from Putin or simply operating in ideological lockstep is a question of degree, not direction. The destruction they are today inflicting on America is strategic, not accidental; coordinated, not chaotic; and oligarchic, not populist.
And whether Trump and Musk are doing it on Putin’s instructions, acting out the Dark Enlightenment vision of a CEO America, or simply trying to wipe out any institutions that might challenge their exercise of raw power, that’s exactly what’s happening right now. The outcome is the same: the deliberate disempowerment of the American people and the dismantling of a liberal democratic order that has stood for 240 years.
These two men and their enablers in the Trump regime are quite literally taking apart our American government while, at the same time, doing away with our protections against wealthy predators and destroying our international alliances.
The Founders had this noble idea that, as I detail in The Hidden History of American Democracy, they’d largely borrowed from the Iroquois Confederacy and other northeastern tribes: people can govern themselves when power-hungry psychopaths are kept in check.
It animated George Washington when he wrote:
“As mankind become more liberal, they will be more apt to allow, that all those who conduct themselves as worthy members of the community, are equally entitled to the protection of civil government. I hope ever to see America among the foremost nations in examples of justice and liberality.”
And Abraham Lincoln, who rescued our nation from the fascist Confederate oligarchs who’d taken over the South and then dared try to bring down our democracy through warfare:
“At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us; it cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher.”
And here we are. So far, Trump and Musk have or are in the process of:
— Gutting the IRS so badly that the country will lose an estimated $500 billion to morbidly rich tax cheats
— Killing off the EPA, so polluters can run free and profit from giving us cancer
— Disbanded the Public Integrity Section that once prosecuted corrupt politicians
— Shut down the DOJ unit that was prosecuting violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act
— Moved the ATF under Kash Patel’s overview with the goal of neutering it
— Crippling the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau (CFPB) that stops big banks and insurance companies from ripping off average people
— Taking a hatchet to NASA, presumably to hand more power and money to SpaceX
— Dismantling the Department of Education to create more demand for private for-profit schools
— Paralyzing the Department of Health and Human Services that protects us from disease and pandemics
— Mutilating the National Labor Relations Board that protects workers’ rights
— Proclaiming their intention to end FEMA, so Americans are on their own when climate-change-driven disasters strike
— Tearing apart the Social Security Administration so seniors will have to rely on big banks for retirement options
— Demolishing the National Institutes of Health that develops new drugs and cures for disease
— Seizing control of the FCC so they can end net neutrality and dictate content of radio and TV programming
— Stripping NOAA of its workers so we’ll have to rely on for-profit companies for our weather reports and storm warnings
— Kneecapping the Department of Transportation to block new public transportation projects and deregulate big trucking companies and self-driving cars
— Ripping up the Department of Energy so it can’t fund any more “green” energy projects
— Wiping out the Department of Housing and Urban Development to prevent any new low-income housing projects
— Attacking the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to leave Americans defenseless
— Largely ending the ability of the Office of Civil Rights within the DOE to enforce anti-discrimination laws in education
— Defunded the National Institute of Justice that works against terrorism and far-right extremism
— Eviscerating the Department of Veterans Affairs and other programs that help our veterans (including shutting down the suicide prevention hotlines)
— Defunding the Department of Agriculture to gut food stamps/SNAP, school lunch programs, and supports for small family farms
— Paralyzing the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board (PCLOB) that oversees the executive branch to make sure anti-terrorism efforts don’t violate civil rights
— Weakening the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) so it can’t do its job of protecting minority or disabled workers and job applicants
— Firing scientists at the FDA, gutting oversight of drug manufacturers.
And that’s just a partial “so far” list.
Meanwhile, Trump is snatching students off the streets and transporting them to a brutal private for-profit prison in Louisiana with no due process whatsoever in clear defiance of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights; proposing changes to voting laws that will prevent tens of millions of married women from casting a ballot; and threatening to seize foreign, sovereign lands by force.
There are several factions at work here.
— First, there’s Trump himself, who’s so filled with hate against the government that once threatened to imprison him for his crimes that he’s more than happy to hand a meataxe to anybody who’ll make government workers squeal in pain.
— Next come Musk and the so-called PayPal Mafia of German, South African and homegrown billionaires who think women should not be allowed to vote, capitalism and democracy are incompatible with each other, and appear to have fantasies of ruling over a whites-only ethnonationalist state run like a corporation.
— And finally, there are the old fashioned rightwing billionaires who simply don’t want to pay their fair share in taxes or have their companies regulated; these are the guys who, for over 50 years, have been following the Powell Memo to build the infrastructure — media, legal, lobbying, think tanks, etc. — that has made all this possible today.
Americans are starting to wake up to the damage these men (the ones driving the process are all white men) are doing and this weekend millions of protestors will show up in the streets of every city in America to make their discomfort and anger known.
It’s a beginning. If public opinion becomes too strong to ignore, it’s possible some Republicans will decide that protecting our republic is more important than fearing a primary challenge funded by the richest man in the world; that could stop much of what Trump’s doing dead in its tracks.
On the other hand, it’s entirely possible that such demonstrations could provoke Trump to fulfill his previous threats to follow the examples of Putin, Lukashenko, and Erdoğan and declare a state of insurrection, mobilizing the military against the citizens of America.
At that point, all bets are off and the window to save American democracy will have shrunk to a matter of weeks or months.
Whether Putin is running this show — as those who point to his reportedly regular phone conversations with Trump and Musk argue — or it’s a homegrown effort to cripple our nation is almost irrelevant; the reality is that they’re well down the road in a way that may be irreparable, at least within a generation or more.
As my old friend Rob Kall points out over at OpEdNews.com, institutional knowledge is a critical resource for both companies and governments, and these mass firings are ripping it out of our nation’s systems of governance leaving a hole that will take decades to re-fill.
Thus, with Congress neutered and the courts half-paralyzed and moving slowly, it falls to us to stop this anti-American destruction spree. And that will require massive public expressions of outrage, demands for action, and relentless pressure on our politicians.
The key to mobilizing public pressure is to make clear to Americans exactly what Trump and Musk are really up to. To help people understand that this regime’s real agenda — which they are ruthlessly executing right in front of us — is to destroy the United States of America as it was and turn our country into something much more like Hungary or Russia.
And, to the extent that our corporate media is too timid or too bought-off to raise the alarm, that work falls to us, to me and you.
Tag, we’re it. Pass it along.
NOW READ: Enough with the gaslighting
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Trump supporters are pretending like they were duped. Don't believe it.
The Dow dropped 1,700 points on opening this Friday morning. Thursday, it closed after falling to its worst level since the covid era. JP Morgan Chase said it was raising the odds of a recession to 60 percent.
This is all in reaction to the decision this week by the president to put an average 22 percent tax on all imports. He called it “Liberation Day.”
As I’m watching this unfold, I can’t help thinking about something that may seem unrelated to trade, economics and the harms coming our way, but in fact is central to it all. I’m talking about resentment.
Resentment is usually associated with the right. Time and again, over the last ten years, we were told that the people who voted for Donald Trump are deeply resentful about the state of the nation: about immigrants pouring over the border, about men competing in women’s sports, about the “radical woke agenda.” The list goes on and on.
It was on the strength of this resentment that voters in this country chose for president a convicted felon and failed businessman who promised to hurt everyone in the name of making America great again.
And what I want to say this:
If you thought that was resentment, just wait.
Only five months ago, the head economist for Moody’s said the economy under Joe Biden was the best he’d seen. Mark Zandi said “this is among the best performing economies in my 35-plus years as an economist.”
- “Economic growth is rip-roaring, with real GDP up 3 percent over the past year. Unemployment is low, at near 4 percent, consistent with full employment.
- “Inflation is fast closing in on the Fed’s 2 percent target.
- “Grocery prices, rents and gas prices are flat to down over the past more than a year. Households’ financial obligations are light, and set to get lighter with the Fed cutting rates.
- “House prices have never been higher, and most homeowners have more equity in their homes than ever.
- “Corporate profits are robust, and the stock market is hitting a record high on a seemingly daily basis.
And now?
On March 30, before this week’s tariff news, Zandi said:
“I’m raising my odds that a recession will begin sometime this year to 40 percent, up from 15 percent at the start of the year. Last week’s economic data were disconcerting, including the slide in consumer confidence, punk consumer spending, and persistently high inflation. The intensifying trade war and DOGE cuts are behind all this and with last week’s announcement of big tariff increases on vehicle imports and the coming reciprocal tariffs, things are sure to get worse.”
How much worse?
The Financial Times: “one of the greatest acts of self-harm in American economic history. Tariffs’ will wreak untold damage on households, businesses and financial markets around the world, upending a global economic order that America benefited from and helped create.”
The Economist: “The most profound, harmful & unnecessary economic error in the modern era. Almost everything he said — on history, economics and the technicalities of trade — was utterly deluded.”
This is where we are, but never forget: this was a choice.
It was made by people who were so resentful about something something, for now it doesn’t matter what, that they didn’t notice they’re wages were growing, their expenses were falling and they had more power in the workplace than they’d had in their whole lives.
Everything Trump claims to be doing – bringing jobs back home, supporting domestic industries, revitalizing infrastructure and investing in the future — Biden actually did. Most everyone prospered, including all those resentful people. As the former president was fond of saying, Trump talks a good game, but never built a damn thing.
But that wasn’t enough because seeing other people doing well, that is, Black and brown people doing well, hurt their feelings, like something was being taken away from them, which added to the resentment they felt about a government trying to serve everyone and not just them.
The harms coming won’t be an accident. Their cause will be easy to understand. Vice President Kamala Harris saw them. She tried to warn us. Most people didn’t listen. And because these harms were a choice, it’s entirely reasonable for those who didn’t make that choice, but who are now living with the consequences, to be resentful of those who did, especially if they didn’t understand the choice they were making.
They believed an ignorant and stupid story about ignorant and stupid Americans who were resentful of being looked down on for the fact of their ignorance and stupidity. And I’m telling you, if they keep talking about that, they’re going to learn the real meaning of resentment.
Perhaps fear of being held accountable explains why we are now seeing a slew of Trump voters who are whipping up stories about how they had absolutely no idea what he was going to do, they are victims of circumstance, totally innocent, and how they are so disappointed, not so much for themselves but for the country they claim to love.
An anonymous writer at www.betrayedbytrump.com is a case in point. “I didn’t sign up for this. I wanted reform, not cruelty. Strength, not delusion. I’ve been a lifelong Republican, and I know I’m not the only one starting to feel this way. We need to seriously ask ourselves: is this what we voted for, or just what we’ve been sold? It is hard to not feel conned. And I’m angrier than I’ve been in as long as I can remember.”
Oh, you're angry, huh?
Imagine the anger of those who didn’t choose this but are now living with it – the jobs gone, the savings gone, the future prospects gone.
Imagine the anger of those who voted in your interest in the hope of saving democracy, and protecting you from your worst self, and then hearing you moan and groan about how you’ve been done wrong.
Imagine the anger of those who tried to tell you, to reason with you, as if you were a child who doesn’t understand a goddamn thing but who might snap out of it and finally act like a responsible grown up.
Just imagine.
The worst part is there are still some Democrats who are willing to tell the rest of us that we shouldn’t look down on the ignorant and stupid, because looking down on them only makes them feel more resentful, which pushes them further and further into the arms of Trump.
Worst of all is hearing some Democrats choosing not to hold them accountable for their terrible choices in the hope they might one day vote for a Democrat, so that there’s never any downside to being ignorant and stupid, and there’s never any upside to growing up.
Resentment is usually associated with the right. If there were any justice, that would change. Trump voters would be ashamed and take responsibility for their actions. They never will, of course, meaning no one will ever take seriously the lasting resentment the rest of us feel.
NOW READ: Trump voters got exactly what they wanted — so why are people complaining?
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Enough with the gaslighting
It’s hard to decide what’s funnier: the well supported theory flying around the internet that Trump used ChatGPT to generate his simpleton’s “world tariff chart,” OR how Fox News is bending itself into a pretzel trying to put lipstick on our dipshit president’s “Liberation Day” pig.
Under Trump’s new global tariffs, American consumers will pay an additional $6 trillion in taxes-- tariffs imposed on imported goods they buy every day like shoes and avocados-- over a ten year period. This amount, along with alleged savings from DOGE’s chainsaw excision of half the government, will be used to pay for Trump’s second round of $4.5 trillion tax cuts for the rich.
It is a massive redistribution of wealth, taking from the poor to line the pockets of the wealthy donors who put Trump back in office for that express purpose. When you consider that the people who can least afford it will suffer and pay the most under Trump’s moronic tariffs, none of it is really funny.
Trump used his idiot sharpie and drew himself a tariff chart with Chatbot AI.
Trump has been teasing tariffs for months. After imposing, then withdrawing, then imposing, then withdrawing tariffs on our best friends and neighbors last month, he almost kind of had the start of a concept of a tariff policy last week. To launch it, true to his reality TV roots, Trump set the announcement to great fanfare, calling a press conference to unveil his shiny new plan. He branded the whole thing, and spent more time marketing “Liberation Day” than he spent developing any underlying substance.
It shows. The simplistic tariff chart prop he foisted on the media looked like an after thought, likely because it was. I started getting text messages from colleagues when the clownshow started. “He generated that table with ChatBot!” one guy texted. “Good one,” I reponded. “No, I’m serious,” he said. “NFW,” I wrote. Then another colleague sent me basically the same thing.
The theory flying around the internet, supported by convincing evidence, is that Trump threw his simplistic chart together using basic AI from ChatGPT. When pundits commanded the program to “make easy tariff policy,” they got the same answers spit out on Trump’s tariff chart: 03 high, Gemini 2.5 pro, Claude 3.7, and Grok all gave the same answers to the question, “how to impose tariffs easily.” Political writer Steve Bonnell said about the ChatGPT chart, on X, “I think they asked ChatGPT to calculate the tariffs from other countries, which is why the tariffs make absolutely no f----ing sense. They're simply dividing the trade deficit we have with a country with our imports from that country, or using 10 percent, whichever is greater.” Writer James Surowiecki posted that he was able to reverse-engineer Trump’s exact method using a simple AI formula, describing it as “extraordinary nonsense” that offered a dangerously simplistic view of global trade economics.
Trump officials lied, claiming they calculated complexities they didn’t
Trump officials repeatedly lied about the method used to calculate Trump’s tariff rates, claiming that for every targeted economy, “tariff and non tariff barriers” and policies were analyzed, assessed and quantified individually. What BS. As ChatGPT makes clear, market nuances were not quantified, and nothing was considered over than the macro-simplistic dollar amounts.
Decidedly NOT considered in Trump’s tariffs: currency fluctuations, currency manipulation, labor variables, VAT taxes, reciprocal licensing, subsidies, pre-existing and negotiated product-specific tariffs, geopolitical sanctions, and transportation costs. There’s no strategy here folks, it’s an across the board, moronic attack on the world economy.
Trump’s First grade-level tariff plan overlooks the services sector
Worse than these foundational flaws, Trump’s tariff plan completely ignores the service sector, where American firms enjoy a huge surplus, now in jeopardy.
Google AI, when asked the question, “what is the US service sector trade imbalance?” reports, “The U.S. has a trade surplus in services, meaning it exports more services than it imports,” offering a more detailed breakdown:
·Services Trade Surplus: The U.S. consistently runs a surplus in its services trade, meaning it exports more services than it imports.
·2023 Performance: In 2023, the U.S. exported $1.02 trillion in services, up 8% from the previous year, and imported $748.2 billion, resulting in a service sector surplus of $278 billion.
·In 2024, the service sector surplus increased to $293.3 billion.
Its as if Trump and his clowncar cabinet of advisors don’t understand the role the US service sector plays in US and global economies, in legal, accounting, consulting, R&D, architecture, engineering, lending, insurance, technology networks, cloud computing, data storage, and software licenses.
Fox News has to figure out how to praise the falling stock market or blame it on Biden
Global markets expressed their outrage by delivering a crash that eliminated over $3 trillion in market value. World leaders continue to express their outrage over Trump’s economic suicide, sounding the alarm over tarrifs so stupid they look like intentional sabotage.
International scorn and derision were swift and unapologetic. China imposed a retaliatory 34% tariff on the US, stating, “There are no winners in trade wars, and there is no way out for protectionism.” EU’s commissioner said, “President Trump's announcement of universal tariffs on the whole world, including the EU, is a major blow to the world economy… Uncertainty will spiral… consequences will be dire for millions of people around the globe.” Germany's Chancellor Olaf Scholz said, “Trump’s tariffs are fundamentally wrong and an attack on a trade system that has created prosperity all round the world — itself an American achievement.” Australia’s Prime Minister said Trump’s tariffs were “not the act of a friend,” noting hat Trump’s tariffs singled out tiny, far-flung territories, including islands full of penguins but no people.
Fox viewers won’t hear, read, or see any of that. As world markets crashed and global leaders predicted catastrophic consequences, the folks over at Fox News focused on what’s in everyone else’s underpants, and how strong Trump, the “New Sheriff in town” looked when he “warned” governors who “defy his orders.” Not covering the actual news, Fox on Friday delivered these disinformation gems:
· Secretary of State Rubio stands up to European leaders, says Trump is ‘absolutely right’
· House Democrat admits his own party is moving in the ‘wrong direction’ on trade
· US economy adds stronger-than-expected 228K jobs in March
Enough with the gaslighting
Fox propaganda aside, JP Morgan is now predicting a 60 percent chance of a recession by year’s end, reporting that “This year's 22-percentage tariff increase amounts to the largest tax hike since 1968.” The report continues, “The effect of this tax hike is likely to be magnified, through retaliation, a slide in U.S. business sentiment, and supply chain disruptions... We emphasize that these policies, if sustained, would likely push the U.S. and possibly global economy into recession this year.”
They also warn that, “recessions are inherently unpredictable… sustained restrictive trade policies and reduced immigration flows may impose lasting supply costs that will lower U.S. growth over the long run.” The Wall Street Journal reports that Thursday’s loss of more than $3 trillion in market value will likely continue to worsen.
Financial markets, predictably, have the jitters. Despite Trump’s messaging that, “tariffs are tax cuts,” everyone else knows tariffs are a regressive tax, paid by consumers.
By all indicators, Trump still doesn’t grasp the complexities needed to drive a strategic tariffs and trade package. He still thinks tariffs are worth the economic damage because he doesn’t understand either end of the formula: the tariffs or the resulting economic costs, and says he “couldn’t care less” about the price of cars.
Like a toddler with a singular focus on his neighbor’s toy, Trump has been so fixated on 19th century tariffs he has silenced rational economic discussion. What we’re left with is a child’s tariff chart Alexis could have spit out, leaving economists with their heads spinning.
Sabrina Haake is a 25+ year federal trial attorney specializing in 1st and 14th A defense. Her columns are published in Alternet, Chicago Tribune, MSN, Out South Florida, Raw Story, Salon, Smart News and Windy City Times. Her Substack, The Haake Take, is free.
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Trump voters got exactly what they wanted — so why are people complaining?
This week, Donald Trump announced sweeping new tariffs that the Associated Press called “a historic tax hike that could push the global order to a breaking point,” and what I want to know is this:
Why are we still wondering what Trump voters want?
He promised. He delivered. What’s the mystery?
I ask, because our discourse seems to be invested in the idea that his supporters don’t really want this, and I don’t just mean his hardcore supporters. We tell ourselves that the last election was about inflation and the high cost of living, like the price of eggs, and that it doesn’t make sense for people who voted against that to welcome it now.
Resolving this tension is important. The Democrats believe that if they can show Trump voters what he’s going to do – how he’s going to make everything more expensive – then they can get some of them to see why supporting a Democrat in the midterms is good for them.
In doing this, the Democrats assume that Trump voters are motivated by their wallets. That’s understandable. The conventional wisdom is that inflation caused the electorate to burn up the incumbent party.
But the conventional wisdom also asks us to do something that we should not do and it prevents us from asking the hard questions. In effect, it treats Trump supporters as if they didn’t really understand what they were getting into, and as a consequence of not truly understanding, they can’t be held responsible for what they did.
It treats them like children.
We shouldn’t do that.
If we treat them as adults who have their way of understanding tariffs, we might ask ourselves what’s really going on, because what’s really going on isn’t about money, and because of that, it’s harder to beat.
Look at it this way.
Trump supporters are going to trust him no matter how incoherent, no matter how dumb. Indeed, the dumber and more incoherent, the more they trust. His choices trigger reactions, which in turn force his people to choose between trusting everyone who says tariffs are a tax, which they are in fact or trusting Trump, who says they’re a tax cut. (Evidently, the idea is that tariffs will bring such prosperity to America that the government will no longer have need for an income tax.)
Over the last 10 years, Trump has swept them up in a story about the cosmic battle between good and evil, in which the chosen people, free and innocent and pure, have been taken advantage of by “globalists” who are trying to replace them with foreigners with the intention of “poisoning the blood” of the country, leading to America’s destruction.
Of course, this story is about a white man’s country fighting to reclaim its birthright against multiracial democratic politics, which seeks to flatten the hierarchies of power. But it can be told in a way that appeals to anyone, even nonwhite people, and that’s why I keep saying the challenge isn’t just hardcore supporters. It’s swing voters, too.
Liberation requires personal sacrifice and “short-term pain.” So if supporters do end up recognizing that his policies are impoverishing them, they almost certainly will not attribute their suffering to him.
They will blame whomever he tells them to, including nations, as he said yesterday, that have “looted, pillaged, raped and plundered” the country. These foreigners are the reason he implemented tariffs in the first place, using emergency powers usually reserved for wartime.
Indeed, the more Trump supporters suffer, the closer they are likely going to bind themselves to the president. Their suffering will be taken as proof of their patriotism and devotion to the cause of justice, and because their savior will be the only one who can relieve them of it.
This cosmic story about a white man’s country fighting to reclaim its birthright does not make sense to those who can’t or won’t see the role of racism in politics. So they chock it up to just another conspiracy theory before looking for “the real reasons” why voters chose Trump. The Democrats, meanwhile, tend to accept this, which means their solutions to the problem are as phony as the problem itself.
I’ll conclude with this observation.
It could be that the last election was about money, but not in the way most people think. Fact is, the economy was booming. Inflation was down. Wages were up. Unemployment had rarely been lower. Joe Biden really did grow the economy from the bottom up and the middle out. And in spite of stubbornly high costs, most everyone prospered.
But that may have been the problem.
It’s not that Trump voters were mad at Biden, because he didn’t do enough about inflation. I think they were mad at him, because he did more than any president to expand the economic pie to include all those who are usually left behind, especially Black people.
Sad as it is, the fact remains that when Black Americans are doing well for themselves, too many white people in this country start feeling like something is wrong, something is being taken from them, someone somewhere is cheating them, even when they are in fact thriving. It’s white-power’s zero-sum. If America includes “them,” it excludes “us.”
The mainstream view used to be that the party that presided over boomtimes was the party that could expect to be rewarded. But for Trump voters who believe they are the real America, and that the real America has been “looted, pillaged, raped and plundered,” it’s likely that boomtimes meant something else – evidence they were right.
The Democrats tend to believe they can win over some Trump voters with economic politics that are designed to be in everyone’s interest. But it’s because they are designed in everyone’s interest that most Trump voters are unlikely to be won over. They want economic policies for them, not everyone. And if tariffs end up hurting them, they can take comfort in knowing Black people are hurting more.
Yes, these tariffs are the biggest tax increase of our lifetimes.
But that’s what they wanted.
He promised. He delivered. No mystery.
NOW READ: Why so-called men like Donald Trump are in deep trouble right now
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Another institution caves to Trump
I never worked for a big law firm and never wanted to. No matter their politics, large law firms breed conformity and impose a hierarchy, and chasing 60 billable hours a week in a suit is crushing.
But watching yet another big firm cave to Trump’s extortion scheme is demoralizing. That Doug Emhoff works for the latest firm to fold adds a special sucker punch.
Trump’s racket is illegal, and every lawyer at every law firm bending the knee knows it’s illegal. But instead of standing united, doing the world a solid with the most consequential class action of all time, large law firms are caving serially to Trump’s demands.
With the exception of a noble few led by Jenner & Block, big firms are picking themselves off one by one, putting money and their short-term careers over principle. They are modeling how, in Trump’s America, the law is whatever a malicious and intellectually stunted man says it is.
Nice practice you got there.Shame if something happened to it.
Trump’s executive orders attacking law firms that have opposed his illegal conduct are not law; Trump has no Constitutional authority to make law of any kind. An executive order is a written directive to do or refrain from doing something specific, but a president’s Article II EO authority is limited. A president can issue executive orders for the sole purpose of ensuring that existing laws are “faithfully executed.” He can’t issue them to challenge existing law, he can’t issue them to retaliate against firms that applied existing law, and he can’t issue them prophylactically to insulate himself from legal consequences in the future.
Trump’s illegal EOs seek to blacklist law firms that serve his political opponents by suspending security clearances for those firms. They also instruct federal agencies not to meet or ‘engage with’ (ie, talk to or correspond with) lawyers and personnel of targeted firms. They have restricted physical access to federal buildings for all attorneys and staff employed by targeted law firms, proving that Trump sees federal property as an extension of his own tacky pay-for-play motel, which is itself a glaring violation of federal emoluments law.
There is no legitimate legal theory under which Trump’s big law firm shakedown is Constitutional. A president has the right to select his own legal counsel, and has some limited degree of control over attorneys working under the executive branch. But in a delusional dictator’s wettest dream, that authority does not extend to controlling lawyers in private practice, private industry, or the judiciary. There is no legal scenario whatsoever where Trump’s EO authority trumps the First Amendment.
Trump is targeting adversarial law firms to undermine rather than ‘faithfully execute’ federal law. As such, his EOs are unauthorized and therefore illegal on their face, even without regard to the First and Fourteenth Amendments.
Like his ill-conceived tariffs, Trump is attacking law firms, throwing spaghetti on the wall to see what sticks. Instead of wiping it off with a class action any first year could write, firms like Milbank, Skadden Arps, and Paul Weiss, by agreeing to “pay up” tens of millions of dollars in legal work and adjust which clients they will represent, are eating it and asking for seconds.
The law is stronger, older, and wiser than Trump. Law firms should start acting like it.
It is beyond settled that government officials cannot try to “coerce private parties in order to punish or suppress views” the government disfavors. Just last year in NRA v. Vullo, where a New York government official criticized firms for doing business with gun rights organizations, the Supreme Court limited regulatory authority at the point where that authority intersects with free speech rights. Even the partisan federalists on the bench who appear poised to serve Trump are not likely to reverse their own First Amendment ruling just one year later.
The First Amendment protects the “right to associate with others in pursuit of a wide variety of political, social, economic, educational, religious, and cultural ends.” It has long prohibited government officials from retaliating against private actors for having engaged in this First Amendment-protected conduct. As cited in Jenner and Block’s well drafted complaint, filed last week, Trump’s retaliation against law firms that have opposed his politics is a “blatant and egregious form of content discrimination.”
These cases are well known; there is zero chance the firms capitulating to Trump’s demands are unaware of them.Even the notoriously conservative Wall Street Journal recognizes that Trump is attacking law firms in an attempt to intimidate them, seeking to deter “elite law firms from representing his opponents or plaintiffs who challenge his policies.”
Lawyers, of all people, must stop the deference
Trying to put nationwide firms out of business because they represent, or have represented, Trump’s political opponents is a direct assault on freedom of political speech and association. It is also an authoritarian attack on the rule of law.
Under the American system, every person in the nation, every organization, and even every criminal, including Trump, is entitled to legal representation. Trump’s pettiness and vindictiveness notwithstanding, he doesn’t get to decide who gets legal counsel and who does not.
As Constitutional scholars and pundits have written repeatedly, Trump hates the rule of law because he wants to stay in office for life, and law is the only thing blocking him.His fawning reverence for Roy Cohn, Putin, Xi and Jong-un aside, however, we are not a banana republic where Trump gets to decide what the law is. Large firms need to remember this basic truth.
To the next blue stocking partner Trump threatens to put out of business: Sue the bastard and honor your oath to the legal profession. It will work out better for you in the long run than throwing it under the bus.
Sabrina Haake is a 25+ year federal trial attorney specializing in 1st and 14th A defense.Her columns are published in Alternet, Chicago Tribune, MSN, Out South Florida, Raw Story, Salon, Smart News and Windy City Times. Her Substack, The Haake Take, is free.
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Why so-called men like Donald Trump are in deep trouble right now
“I’ve got to tell you, as a little girl growing up in Chippewa Falls, I never could have imagined that I’d be taking on the richest man in the world for justice in Wisconsin — and we won.”
-Judge Susan Crawford Tuesday night after being elected in a landslide to become Wisconsin’s next Supreme Court Justice
In the wake of that stunning election here in Wisconsin, I reckon there will be a lot of people telling you not to over-read the results of just one state election. Those people will be dead wrong when they do it, but before I address their faulty assumptions, let’s talk briefly about a few of the gigantic things Crawford’s win does for the people of Wisconsin — all with associated affects on America:
- It protects women’s right to choose. Had her opponent Brad Schimel won, you could have expected Republicans to drag women by their hair and back to an 1849 state law here heavily banning abortion. And no, that’s not hyperbole.
- The semi-fair political maps that were finally drawn last year abolishing the most gerrymandered maps in the nation, would have been incinerated by Republicans. And I say, semi-fair because the new maps still favor right-leaning voters who are at best 50 percent of the population here. I will be pushing for truly fair maps in this space in the future, but I’m too damn happy to do much grousing about anything right now.
- It protects the recent restoration of collective bargaining rights for Wisconsin public workers and teachers unions that were lost under Republican control in 2011.
Like I said gigantic.
It also restores what has become a blurry notion of right and wrong in this country, because there is no damn way a grotesque billionaire slime ball bombing into our state and passing out money for votes is anything but wrong.
In fact, it is criminal.
By walloping Schimel by 10 points in a state where razor-thin margins are the rule, the people of Wisconsin put the America-attacking Donald Trump on notice: You’ve gone way too far, sport. Back up now, or prepare to be flattened in the future.
Democrats around the country got the fuel-injected boost they so badly needed, because they finally got around to listening to their voters instead of cowering in the corners, and conceding the floor to these odious Republicans. You feeling me right now, Chuck Schumer?
Because at almost the very moment the Democrats’ new national leader, New Jersey Senator Cory Booker, was finally giving his 25-plus hours of good trouble a break, the race here in Wisconsin was being called for Crawford.
If you didn’t feel the earth shift after that one, you weren’t paying attention. And if you weren’t paying attention why in the hell not?
Everything changed in the past 24 hours, and it is the people on the Left, and not most of our damn politicians who we can thank for that. Booker said as much during his heroic speech, and immediately after in a must-see interview with Rachel Maddow:
“I do really credit constituents, who were impatient, who were demanding, who were scared, who were angry, and, very understandably, taking that anger out on Democrats, who have to take some responsibility for being where we are in American history right now.
“But I suddenly realized that I have just got to do something myself. I have got to try to prove worthy for my constituents that I’m willing to step out and step up in some way and hopefully be able to share their stories that were so hurtful.”
And before I continue here, a lot of us have caught a lot of crap for trying to hold Democratic politicians into account since that ghastly election November 5th. Knuckleheads like James Carville have even suggested we stand down. If I had a dollar for every time somebody told me to “stop beating up on your own” I’d have enough money to buy some election.
But if you still somehow didn't feel the switch in the political winds last night, let me tell you who did: the racist Trump.
Something that got very little mention in the run-up to this crucial race in Wisconsin was the absence of the serial liar in the state. Say what you want about the economy-crasher — and don’t stop — but facts are he has won two out of three times he’s run up here, which is a pretty good batting average for a bunt-hitter.
While Trump did throw his support for Schimel, he made sure to do it from the safety of his nuclear-powered social media accounts. There were none of his unhinged cult rallies in the state, where literally anything would come out of his trashcan of a mouth.
Trump’s absence in Wisconsin did all the talking for him. He knows deep in his empty, black heart that he is failing, and people aren’t at all entertained by what he has been serving. Markets are crashing, food prices are going up, national security is at risk, and benefits like social security are no longer safe.
Human beings are being disappeared.
Never underestimate the vanity of a guy who paints himself orange, and tapes dead ferrets to his head each day before going off to berate the public. He wasn’t going to be seen anywhere in the vicinity of this state, if losing big up here was a possibility.
So the despicable bastard needed somebody to blame for his potential failure — a scapegoat.
Enter oily Elon.
As I was spiking the football in this column, I got this alert from my friends at Raw Story: Trump says Elon Musk will be out of the White House 'soon'
See? Everything that went wrong Tuesday night was Elon’s fault.
Nobody in history has been better at recycling one-time supporters into trash than Dumpster Donny, but Musk presents a unique challenge. How does he say, “Sure I’d love to take gobs more of your money, Elon, but is there any way I can see you less?”
The answer to that question is, no. Musk completely owns him, even if Vladimir Putin would disagree.
Trump is now being dragged around the world by Putin and here at home by Musk, and the good people on the Left need to be pointing this out every other minute.
What happened up here in Wisconsin Tuesday night, and with Booker’s epic speech on the Senate floor in Washington, completely changed the playing field and how we patriots must look at things going forward.
Never underestimate your power as a United States voter, even if Republicans are doing everything they can to take that power away. Our representatives work for us. That has somehow been forgotten. I will expect the battle to be joined by all those gutless Democrats who ran for cover after November 5th. When we fight, we win.
Never underestimate the women in America. No surprise, all four liberal justices on our court in Wisconsin are women. Watching them on that stage last night gave me goosebumps. They-were-feeling-it. THEY DID THIS. They stood up to the patriarchy and all that damn dirty money, and showed them who was really boss.
Ya know, I dig around in a lot of the corners here in the powerhouse of Madison, Wisconsin, where we voted for Crawford to the astonishing tune of roughly 85% to 15% over Schimel. Let me tell you who you will find knocking on the doors, making the phone calls, working the polls, opening their homes, and fighting back with a vengeance at our one-after-another rallies in this city: WOMEN.
Damn, I am proud to stand with them. And damn I am one happy dude right now.
Forward!
NOW READ: Finally, a Democratic Party leader who will treat us like adults
D. Earl Stephens is the author of “Toxic Tales: A Caustic Collection of Donald J. Trump’s Very Important Letters” and finished up a 30-year career in journalism as the Managing Editor of Stars and Stripes. You can find all his work here, and follow him on Bluesky here.
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America First takes leap into jaws of recession
Nick Anderson is a Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonist.
Finally, a Democratic Party leader who will treat us like adults
If I don’t get a full night’s sleep, I can’t function. I’m a wreck for the next two days. Yet Cory Booker, of New Jersey, stood on the floor of the United States Senate to give a speech that lasted 25 hours. He broke Strom Thurmond’s record, a feat made sweeter by the fact that Thurmond was a Dixiecrat who was trying to stop Black people like Booker from having a say in democracy, much less being a US senator.
It was a heroic achievement that, according to MSNBC columnist Hayes Brown, is lighting up the Democratic base. There has been “a maddening thirst for leadership from Democratic political figures,” Brown said today, with one poll showing a huge majority of Democrats – almost two-thirds – is tired of the party's compromises with Donald Trump. The question now, Brown said, is whether the congressional Democrats “can keep this energy going beyond this specific moment.”
“We need to see the party do this when there’s an inflection point, that is, when there’s a time where Republicans are demanding they move aside and they instead throw themselves upon the gears of the federal government,” he said. “It makes little sense to engage in such a protest when the stakes are lower and not do so when they’re much higher.”
Cory Booker suggested that he shared this view about Democratic leaders doing too much following of public opinion and not enough leading. The conventional wisdom in the party’s dominant faction, which is Chuck Schumer’s faction, is that the way forward is appealing to voters who are alienated by Trump’s economic policies, but only after his polling has fallen sufficiently. Twenty hours into his speech, however, according to Aaron Rupar, Booker said: “I'm not going to be a politician that's going to say 'we're going to do more for you.’ I'm going to be a politician, a leader, that demands more from America."
I cheered when I heard that. (I didn’t see the whole speech; like most people, I watched clips.) What he’s talking about is something I have called customer-service politics, in which Democrats force themselves to bargain with voters, especially white voters, in terms favorable to their greed, arrogance and stupidity. A multiracial democracy is good in and of itself, but Democrats tie themselves into knots arguing that it’s good for the economy and, therefore, in everyone’s self-interest. Most voters couldn’t recognize their own self-interests if you slapped it out their mouths. The sooner the Democrats drop that, the better.
While Booker’s comment can be read as a criticism of the party’s leadership, it could also be read as a criticism of the party’s base.
Here, context matters. He was talking about needing a new generation to redeem the promise of America. He said Trump “wants to divide us against ourselves, wants to make us afraid, wants to make us fear so much that we’re willing to violate people’s fundamental rights. … Don’t let him do that. Don’t become like him. … We can overcome this.
“Our American history is a perpetual testimony to the achievement of impossible things against impossible odds,” he said. “We are a nation that is great … I don't want a Disneyfication of our history. I don't want a whitewashed history, I don't want a homogenized history. Tell me the wretched truth about America, because that speaks to our greatness.”
It was in this context that Cory Booker gave voice to a less poetic but equally potent variation of John F Kennedy’s famous line: “Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country.”
And it was in this context that I suspect some liberals and Democrats may have missed a finer, more profound point, which is that America is great, not in spite of “the wretched truth,” but because of it, and as a consequence of that, no matter how bleak things may seem, greatness is within us, all of us. It’s already there. We just have to activate it. Why is there a “maddening thirst for leadership”? You are what you seek.
This may seem like pie in the sky, but it’s not.
It’s hard liberalism.
Soft liberalism doesn’t make demands of individuals. It treats politics as entertainment, status-signaling, fashion. Citizens are not agents of democracy. They are buyers of things. It’s satisfied with complaining about unfairness and hypocrisy. It is happy to wait and wait and wait for public opinion to turn, all by itself, as if it were an act of God. It’s deeply morally ambivalent, free to indulge in pleasure-seeking and “leaving politics out of it,” as the material outcomes of elections are almost always felt by others. Evil isn’t really evil. It’s just ignorance or a misunderstanding. Soft liberalism is many things, but mostly, it’s easy.
Hard liberalism is the reverse in every sense. It makes high moral demands of individuals while sweeping them up in a story about the nation’s character. It asks them to fight injustice, uphold goodness, venerate community and respect competing views, even when, or especially when, there is disagreement. It asks us to take responsibility for the republic, if necessary to the point of personal sacrifice, as the late Congressman John Lewis did. (Booker referred repeatedly to Lewis and his choice to allow himself to be beaten nearly to death for the sake of liberty and justice for all.) Evil is evil and all you can do with it is fight it. Hard liberalism is many things, but most of all, it’s hard.
It’s soft liberalism that can be found in the first part of Booker’s quote: “I'm not going to be a politician that's going to say 'we're going do more for you.’” He’s not going to be like previous generations of Democrats who treated voters like consumers and bought into the idea that the customer is always right, even when the customer, especially the white one, is clearly greedy, arrogant and stupid.
It’s hard liberalism that can be found in the second part of Booker’s quote: “I'm going to be a politician, a leader, that demands more from America." He is part of a generation of Democrats that’s going to treat Americans as citizens and that inspires us into believing that we do not need a leader’s permission to act righteously. But most of all, he’s not going to be a leader who expects others to follow blindingly. You don’t need me. You already have greatness within you. Now act like it.
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support@rawstory.com
.