Sunday, August 18, 2024

What Are the Odds He Believes This?

 

This isn't how tariffs work. People have been pointing out this is not how tariffs work. The benefits of tariffs are mixed. But if consumers are concerned about high prices, tariffs are not going to do anything about them. Economists say it would result in Americans paying more--it is a tax on us. Trump's concept of a trade war against foreign countries is just not how things in a global economy work. The answer--inflation. 

I'm not 100% Trump understands what his immigration policy would do to supply chains here in the US, and I'm relatively sure that if he hasn't got the tariffs thing right in his head, he definitely doesn't understand how devaluating the dollar is also terrible for consumers.

But you or I might be thinking about things from the point of view of people with "normal" incomes. We do things like work for a living or have a "fixed" income from a pension. We would actually feel those costs--the people who help set Trump's economic policy and the people who can afford Trump country club memberships would not. I don't think it matters whether Trump understands these policies, I think it's that he does not care and will say absolutely anything to be elected.

He's still "banking" on the idea that people will thing because he's a businessman, of course he knows things about the economy. He was an objectively shitty businessman, and his one term in office was not great. Some would say both careers are evidence of a con. (Me. I'm the one saying that.) His policies aren't for the "little people" as Leona Helmsley once called folks who aren't really, really rich.

I'm still working out what I think about Kamala Harris' economic proposals and will try to address them a little later. I like what I'm hearing about boosting the middle class and providing opportunities to be financially freer from debt. 



Ah, well. Donald Trump will always have his looks to fall back on, I guess. And he does not either sound desperate, like he's having a narcissistic breakdown, or like he's just plain weird. 

6 comments:

Ten Bears said...

I think he's trying to lose. The wheres and whyfors are moot, everything he's done for the past month ... hell, the past year, has been so batshit crazy as to (theoretically) at least appear to turn off just about everyone.

And it's not working ...

Vixen Strangely said...

Trump does things that should kill his chances with regular people, but the media hasn't figured out how to contextualize him. He's going to a town in MI associated with the Klan to talk about crime as a kind of counterprogramming to the DNC. I have never heard him discuss crime without hearing racial undertones (fuck--overtones, even). Like planning a rally in Tulsa on Juneteenth or his Waco rally, you kind of know there's a message, and if most people were listening--they'd be appalled.

What he does is deliberate. But his core audience is not sane, and they aren't most people. If he wanted to shake them, maybe he'd call them dumbass toothless rubes and marks to their faces. He'd probably just start a market for "Dumbass toothless Rubes for Trump" shirts, though.

Grung_e_Gene said...

I think you're correct. Traitor Trump doesn't want to inconvenience of being in the White House again, he wants to be in Merde-A-Lardo running a shadow Presidency (as he has done recently meeting foreign dignitaries) and running his mouth about having the elections stolen from him.

Dan Kleiner said...

i don't think he gives one rat's ass what the final vote total is, what the electoral college says or anything of the sort. i'm pretty sure he and his goons are planning on fucking with the certification process and hoping to drive the cases created to favorable judges up to and including the suborned six on the supreme court who will then hand him dictatorial power.

...and i'm not sure there's anything biden or harris can do about it if they go that route.

Joseph Max said...

I think he *thinks* he wants to win, if for no other reason than to stay out of prison. Prison terrifies him (no shame in that, it would terrify me too.)

Anonymous said...

Another lie. Tariffs are an incredibly regressive form of taxation

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