"Trumpian Incompetence will provoke a counterreaction, which will prove to be an opportunity and rebirth. When that happens people will be ready to hear the truth that Trump will never understand—that when you turn America into a vast extortion machine, you will get some short-term wins as weaker powers bend to your gangsterism, but you will burn the relationships, at and abroad, that are actually the source of American’s long-term might.” David Brooks NY Times
I quoted David Brooks last week because people will be ready to hear the truth when they realize that Trump’s “vast extortion machine” won’t lower inflation but raise it, won’t eliminate waste and fraud but slash essential governmental services instead (such as social security), and cut regulations that actually prevent financial markets from crashing.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent must therefore find excuses why inflation is still rising and the Trump/Musk administration isn’t finding much fraud, but tearing out the guts of government that make it work.
This is why Treasury Secretary Bessent is hinting at a recession in making excuses for their incompetence, because “The market and the economy have just become hooked, and we’ve become addicted to this government spending, and there’s going to be a detox period. There’s going to be a detox,”
It will take time for people to hear the truth because Trump’s executive orders are an attempt to stay ahead of the law and public media he reviles as they are uncovering his administration’s lawlessness and incompetence.
Trump believes such tactics will make him the autocrat and law unto himself he has always wanted to be; but only if the tariffs cause other countries cave in to his demands without retaliating for which the US will protect them militarily and favor them economically.
It is why Trump keeps repeating that he wants to corral Greenland, the Panama Canal, Canada and even Mexico into his new “extortion machine”.
The craziness of his intentions shows tremendous ignorance of economics and history. We haven’t done very well in protecting anyone militarily since World War Two. Even the Korean War was a stalemate after our strategic withdrawal from the Yalu River when China entered the war.
Vietnam ended with a complete withdrawal. The Afghanistan exit may have been the most humiliating retreat after our 20-year occupation, and the Iraq war ended up strengthening Iran’s influence by eliminating Saddam Hussein, its arch enemy.
Trump’s history also reveals that he has never cared about most of those that voted for him. History ProfessortimothTimothy Snyder has said his real constituents that he wants to please are fellow autocrats and dictators Russia’s Putin and China’s Xi Jinping.
Musk’s incompetence is also damaging our national security. Heather Cox Richardson reports “Sharon LaFraniere, Minho Kim, and Julie Tate of the New York Times reported that cuts to the top secret National Nuclear Security Administration have meant the loss of critical employees—from scientists and engineers through accountants and lawyers—at the agency that manages the nation’s 3,748 nuclear bombs and warheads.”
Musk is damaging our financial security as well. Judd Legum of Popular Information has reported in various interviews that an internal memo from the Social Security Administration, written by acting deputy commissioner Doris Diaz, called for requiring beneficiaries to visit a field office to provide identification if they cannot access the internet to complete verification there.
This is while they are closing Social Security offices. Diaz predicted “service disruption,” “operational strain,” and “budget shortfalls” that would create increased “challenges for vulnerable populations.”
Tariffs won’t balance the budget and take away the need for other taxes (like income taxes) either, because the targeted nations are already retaliating. The modern world is far more complex. President Mckinley’s first Gilded Age that Trump so admires used tariffs because we needed them to protect our young steel and manufacturing industries.
The first Gilded Age ended because massive corruption was unearthed during Teddy Roosevelt’s trust-busting progressive era, which led to creation of the Federal Reserve, income taxes and eventually FDR’s New Deal to protect us from future Robber Barons.
Karl Rove as GW Bush’s campaign manager and Republicans also openly yearned for a return to the McKinley’s Gilded Age. Tariffs have worked in developing new or better industries, which is why the Biden administration used them to protect our computer chip industry, which is a national security priority.
The president’s tariff authority is based on the need to protect our national security, whereas Trump wants to use it to protect his own grandiose ideas, as the authoritarian ruler he has always wanted to be.
David Brooks is right. The American public will eventually see the harm Trump's extortion machine will cause Americans as well as our friends and allies. And that by leaving the alliances that protect US—not only NATO, but the World Health Organization that protects against more pandemics, the Paris Accord where nations have agreed to bring down greenhouse gasses—we will be less secure.
Please to God this happens before we must go through another recession, or pandemic, or both.
Harlan Green © 2025
Follow Harlan Green on Twitter: https://twitter.com/HarlanGreen
No comments:
Post a Comment