Last week, Donald Trump tossed out a bombshell: he would impose massive tariff hikes against Canada and Mexico unless they addressed immigration and fentanyl to his liking. This produced a flurry of attention, including a phone call with Mexico's president and a visit from Canada's prime minister. Then the whole thing quickly disappeared.
This week Trump suddenly threatened to impose massive tariffs against BRIC countries if they tried to promote their currencies in foreign trade as a replacement for the dollar. This didn't even make sense, but it produced another satisfying round of attention and op-ed thumbsuckers.
This is likely to be a harbinger of the next four years. Trump will constantly toss out unexpected bits of lunacy and watch with satisfaction as everyone scrambles to respond. Then he'll drop the whole thing and move on. I can hardly wait.
Yep, you nailed it.
Trump isn't interested in real solutions, and he probably isn't intelligent enough to recognize one. He's interested in getting Narcissistic supply from his peeps, and in humiliating his many enemies.
Unfortunately, his antics are quite profitable for the news industry, so they are going to breathlessly report on Every. Single. Thing. that he does or says. For as long as he is alive, and in office.
You got it. And tens of millions of MAGA voters will be pathetically grateful that at last they have a president who gets things done. They're already gibbering that Trump's done more already than Biden did in four years, and he hasn't even taken office yet.
Trump's second term promises to be a shock-jock presidency. His intentions and cabinet picks are those of a deeply insecure man justifying to himself his own conduct and false beliefs. Normally a man doesn't get the opportunity to alter the fate of a nation in the process. Thanks, Trump voters.
These are public policy "bombshells." Kevin, you may be right that he'll keep doing this because he seeks attention, but his real agenda is revenge, and I think he will pursue that seriously. He will fire, hound and humiliate anyone he thinks tried to obstruct him the first time around. I expect him to use the federal government to go after even people who bothered him in his private life, like the guy who told us he cheats at golf. An FBI investigation here, an IRS audit there -- it will be easy and fun for him to destroy people he has it in for. Public policy? That's for losers.
All bark and no bite. He wants to appear tough. Underneath the bluster and bravado lies a coward.
Hear me out: what if Congress claws back tariff authority for itself? Or at least makes the POTUS emergency power contingent on the POTUS being able to explain what tariffs are & how they work.
Hahahahahahaha!!! Good one.
A little OT but maybe not so much: hasn't he been violating-- in the sense of shredding-- the Logan Act pretty much non-stop and in plain sight these days? Until January 20 he doesn't speak for anybody but his own sorry self, and yet here he is horning in and trying to conduct our foreign policy.
And yes, I agree it'll be just one geyser of purest bullshit after another popping out randomly over the media landscape, just like the first time, and just like then, our primo media figures will be happily zeroing in on each new one to pontificate weightily about it, then scurrying off after the next one. Just like Harris did to him when they debated, he puts down the laser dot and they're powerless to resist chasing after it.
The Logan Act is a dead letter now that Biden's pardon of his son has comprehensively destroyed the rule of law in America.
Don't ofrget the part where the target of Trump's lunacy promises to keep doing what they were already doing and then Trump brags about what a great negotiator he is.
Then, he drops it and moves on.
The average person will never find any advantage at all in thinking about a promised tax credit. Even if they end up getting it it will always be meaningless to them. If you sent this credit to them as a physical check in the mail it might start making them think about it, but otherwise a tax credit will sound almost insulting. It sounds like a fake answer to a maybe a problem, and mostly for someone else.
But the average person will be really interested when you punch a guy in the face, so that's all they want to see from a president.
The way to deal with this is to ignore the noise and hold Donald Trump to the many promises he made during the campaign.
I'd like a daily appraisal of how we're doing in cutting energy costs in half (within 6 months, did he promise?), for instance.
Then there's not taxing tips -- in other words, increasing the take home pay of tipped workers by some percentage. Etc etc.
Let him squirm as he fails to make America great again.
"Trump suddenly threatened to impose massive tariffs against BRIC countries if they tried to promote their currencies in foreign trade as a replacement for the dollar"
BRIC includes Russia and there is no way Trump would do anything to annoy Putin.
Unless he thinks Putin is in his way.
And, isn't he?
Hasn't Trump proven, conclusively, that blackmail isn't going to work on him?
"Hasn't Trump proven, conclusively, that blackmail isn't going to work on him?"
Not sure how he's done this, but OTOH I don't think anyone believes for a second that trump would *stay* bought once they've bought him. Least of all Putin.
In fact I'm sorta thinking that one aspect of the relationship with Elmo is that Musk is a kind of counterweight sugar-daddy he's sought for, to give him an alternative to always coming back to Putin as the authority figure. Putin, though, has his psychological hooks in so deep that trump can never escape him, plus trump and Musk are too much alike to be able to co-exist comfortably for long. So trump's continuing psychodrama is our accelerating nightmare.
Not sure how he's done that? What shame does he exhibit, what significant consequences has he faced? Blackmail can only work if you care.
I saw somewhere that once Fred Trump became debilitated with Alzheimers Donald was happily abusive toward him. It can work the same way with Putin and the Ukraine war.