44 Comments
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Eric Kruse's avatar

I will not believe Trump is in trouble until the feckless GOP turns on him.

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CLS's avatar

Yeah... I don't get them at all. The GOP congress seem like zombies to me, slowly marching to the cliff with their eyes closed. When are they going to wake up and realize there are far worse things that could happen, not just to the country but to THEM, than 'being primaried'?

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Kathy Davis's avatar

Seriously, to me this might be the craziest thing about the last two months. GOP reps just sit there and watch their country, constituents, finances, and careers get fucked over and they do NOTHING. It’s unreal

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CLS's avatar

I know!! They're acting as if somehow, magically, they and their families won't be affected by any of this. It's just crazy.

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Tony Brunello's avatar

Punks, cowards, idiots and opportunists. Some are all four.

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Callie Palmer's avatar

exactly. Until he is in handcuffs and being incarcerated.

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Lisa's avatar

There is so much of this to unpack but here’s the tell his cult should think about. He claimed that 70+ countries came to him begging for deals but he won’t release the names of the countries. His whole career has been built on bragging and a desire for power. If this list was real (spoiler alert: it’s not), he’d make multiple copies of that list that would be sent to everyone so he could gloat and assert his “business acumen.” As Lovett and Vietor said on Pod Save America, he blinked and we are the marks.

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Susanna J. Sturgis's avatar

Trouble is, cults don't think. That's part of what makes a cult a cult: its members don't ask questions.

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Grace Kennedy's avatar

It’s another of his “Sir” lies.

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Michelle Gasparovic's avatar

You always know when he is lying when his 1940’s bread line “please, sir” comes out 🙄

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skip's avatar

"If the tariffs had continued with the ensuing economic damage, Trump’s presidency might have collapsed within a month."

Dan, I'm genuinely interested to know what you see or mean by his presidency "collapsing". I'm confident you wouldn't be one of the April 5th protesters shouting, "Trump must go!" since we all recognize that he *is* the president and Congress is way far away from conducting impeachment hearings, let alone successfully removing him from office.

So what is a collapse, exactly? (Again, genuine question...)

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Michelle Gasparovic's avatar

Wondering the same. Has Dan been here on comments recently? I don’t know if I have seen any replies.

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Jane's avatar

I suspect what Dan meant by this is that his approval rating would crater to below 32%, meaning that the MAGA base has turned their back on him and thus providing the permission structure for Senate and House Republicans to reign in Trump's power. A long way off from a total collapse, but a good start to turning Trump into a powerless lame duck.

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Beth M's avatar

The current president wasn’t elected IN SPITE of all the things that are terrible, cruel, and lawless about him. He was elected BECAUSE of them. His followers LOVE his criminality. They will spin this as a win and frankly, it was. He demonstrated that he can demolish the world when he lifts his pinky finger. So now he’ll do whatever he’s done with Congress and apparently now the Supreme Court, and get the rogue influencers to fall in line and the next time he lifts his pinky finger, the world will fall in line. But also, let’s be clear that the world economy’s health currently rests on the whims of a handful of bros who talk into microphones. That doesn’t feel like a win for anyone. And one last thing, don’t forget, this is a reality show. Everything musk is doing and saying is performance art. And if he leaves the administration, it won’t be because trump got tired of sharing the limelight or whatever it is we’re saying now. It will be because his work there is done. He will have hacked the system, placed the bugs and changed the code so that he will now be carrying the technological equivalent of the football.

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Christina's avatar

I too wonder what kinds of 'backdoors' Musk is leaving in the systems he and his teen tech brats have had complete access too 🤦🏼‍♀️

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RCThweatt's avatar

That the Bernie/Hillary split is still alive and well was shown by the intra Democratic squabbling about how to message against the Trump tariffs. It was not only "recovering Republicans" like Bill Kristol and Tim Miller who were aghast at Gretchen Whitmer and Shawn Fain for being being "nuanced" in their position. There was general mockery of the idea that Americans might want certain manufacturing jobs, or that they could do them and produce products at an affordable price. This despite the fact that both conditions are within living memory.

There was as "everybody with any sense knows" posture.

What you didn't hear nearly enough was, "Biden was doing it right, this is insane. Biden tariffed Chinese EVs,Trump is tariffing penguins". Which is the actual case. Far too many Democrats have internalized, and no longer question, what is, in fact, free market/neoliberal dogma relentlessly promoted for fifty years. Biden didn't buy it, we shouldn't either. It's going to matter in upcoming elections. A lot.

"Tariffs inherently bad" is just neoliberal shillery.

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Grace Kennedy's avatar

I think the fact that these tariffs weren’t targeted or even strategic is the insanity. Of course it would be smart to make manufacturing here better and cost effective. But those things take years and millions in infrastructure. You know, like Biden’s plan. These guys seemed to revel in the pain this was/ is causing. That’s madness.

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TLO's avatar

Good point. I was also thinking that Xi will not back down. While Trump doesn’t actually care about the suffering of Americans, he doesn’t have the full authoritarian package in place as Xi does in China. He won’t care too much about hurting his own people; he repeatedly does so and pays no price. so while they may hurt a lot, Xi is a real “strong man”. Trump is a paper tiger.

The tragedy of all of this is that congress still has the power to stop Trump in multiple ways, but they won’t. Look at the House yesterday, voting to stop judges powers to halt any of Trump’s orders, regardless of legality.

Dems…. you need to be yelling about this. They are dismantling the rule of law in this country. And then, then Trump or any President will have the full authoritarian flair of a Xi.

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RCThweatt's avatar

Trump is a sadist. Always a factor. The other factor that is constantly operating is, he's Reality TV star, and is putting on a show in which he has to be the star. That's not only his core competency, it's his only competency (other than f'ing with people).

So, the way Biden was doing it was b-o-r-i-n-g. Donnie had to have his "Big Reveal" (now, wtaf is next?).

As is probably obvious, I've been paying att'n to Michael Wolff, who says, 'Donald wakes up thinking about one thing-how do I get the next headline?'.

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PamC's avatar

Trump misused Professor Brent Neiman’s model for Tariffs. See The Guardian’s article on the formula misused by Trump and team. (Brent is at the University of Chicago Booth School and is indeed an expert on tariffs and international trade).

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Tom's avatar

I saw lots of nuance saying exactly that tariffs have a place. Heard Warren say it on PSA, Newsome on his podcast, Booker in an interview. Several others on NPR.

What was universally criticized was Trump’s ignorant and ham-fisted approach.

I did not see anyone much praising Biden. A few did. Naturally enough, as Joe, for all the other good he did, handed the election to the GOP.

And may I point out that Bernie is not a Democrat? He’s caucuses with Dems and so is useful at those times. When he’s not urging people to run as Independent and otherwise more explicitly shitting on the party.

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Tony Brunello's avatar

These Democrats feel a need to cover their tracks because rightly and wrongly, many of their constituents (e.g. Whitmer in Michigan) believe global trade has left them behind. Even so, our greatest threat is the inequality here at home. Trade imbalances are small potatoes and complicated--and truly--most Americans don't want to work for starvation wages in factories making widgets. All the same, Democrats hedge their bets, and cover their tracks. Not great. My greatest grief is the diluted message on immigration and the illegal actions of the Trump regime. There is a right and wrong here. But--Democratic leaders are afraid to get caught explaining themselves.

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CLS's avatar

Agreed! It almost feels like nobody is able any longer to see that reality is not black-and-white.

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Carrie's avatar

The fault is in the framing and vocabulary.

There is a big difference between framing that validates Trump or uses (or even echoes) his slogans, and saying that tariffs should be used like a surgeon with a scalpel but Trump is using them like a mad man with a chain saw.

Whitmer, Fain, Slotkin, et al spoke in the dead language of Schumer-ese while Booker, Schiff, et al spoke like members of a serious opposition party.

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Sherylb's avatar

How about all the damage done with our image and losing all our allies and forcing other countries to forge alliances? We cant undo that because the trust in America is gone.

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Tom's avatar

I believe in Trump’s list of countries that are begging to negotiate to the exact same degree an earlier generation believed in Joe McCarthy’s list of “150 State Department employees who are card-carrying members of the Communist Party”.

In other words, not at all. The problem is there were nuts that believed it until the day they died. That same kind of nut now numbers about 25% of the country.

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Tony Brunello's avatar

Yes. He is lying. What's new? You know he is lying because his lips are moving.

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Madam Geoffrin's avatar

Mark my words, the craven GOP will do nothing until they ram through their greedy, irresponsible tax cuts for the wealthy. After that, only time will tell. Trump’s usefulness to them will be diminished and if significant enough, knives will come out. Deplorable, incompetent, contemptible lot of flesh if ever….

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Chris Hocker's avatar

Why are you saying he "surrendered"? There are still 10% tariffs across the board on every country, not to mention the tariffs on China, steel, automobiles, etc.

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Christine Siracusa's avatar

Uh oh. Am I a Ben Shapiro fan now?!?!?

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Sarah Clark Stuart's avatar

My concern is that Trump is so addicted to the attention (which he reveled in when he crashed the stock market), he will come up with some other crazy idea to keep the high going. What's next, start a war?

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Andrea Chasen's avatar

This is such a misleading title--trump didn't surrender--he is just waiting things out to create more havoc--any thought that this man and his minions are done wreaking our lives, our economy, the world, needs to readjust their eyeglasses and crystal balls.

So change course and tell us that he is taking a long golfing expedition until the next horror show.

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David Lehnherr's avatar

Hilarious. trump crashes the stock market and the right-wing nuts call it a "dip." They were oddly touting the chance to "buy low," as though Americans have enough money to play the stock market to any significant degree (playing the stock market is stupid, anyway). Then, yesterday, the stock market went up some and the wrong-way media touts "a historic bounce." Well, sure, considering how much the market had fallen, and where it was headed until trump blinked, anything in the opposite direction was going to be a bit historic. I hope Canada, Mexico, China and the EU form a trading partnership that puts trump in his place. Unfortunately, the United States is going to be left behind as a world leader. Someone else gets to be "exceptional" now.

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Meg Berlin's avatar

As many have said: it’s when Trump’s actions hit the people who voted for him (raising prices on groceries, declining investments in their retirement accounts, in ability to replace their cars or refrigerators) that they will turn on Trump. But who would have expected that he’d have gored the ox of the billionaires so soon?

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Paul G's avatar

It’s hard to see Democrats taking full advantage of this, though. The party’s protectionist wing is in the ascendancy and has sympathy for tariffs. While the trade wing does not seem inclined to openly split from the protectionists, it will never so much as hint that it supports tariffs except under closely delineated circumstances (e.g., as response to unfair trade practices such as dumping).

As a result, Democrats will once again be unable to coalesce around a unified message. Activists will react predictably, although the problem has nothing to do with the familiar complaints of mealy-mouthing spinelessness.

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Megan Shapley's avatar

Again, I desperately want Democrats to stop talking about Trump and his followers as if they play by the same rule book as the rest of us. The idea that this will in any way hurt him or do lasting damage is naive. Portnoy immediately kissed the ring once the tariffs were paused. They are never going to turn against him and neither will congressional republicans. And even if they do, what will that matter? He’s already won, he’s in the White House.

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