CSotD: Queries and Inquiries
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This may seem a trivial place to start, but stick with me.
Tariffs are not hard to understand. When a country wants to discourage people from buying goods from another country, they can require a tariff, so that the person who is importing the product has to add an additional cost to the foreign product, which the consumer then pays.
High school economics in a functioning nation.
But Dear Leader keeps saying the tariffs are paid by the exporting nation, which is a stupid thing to say, or, at least, it’s a stupid thing to say by accident. Anybody who took five minutes to look it up would quickly discover that importers, not exporters, pay tariffs. And anybody who had been paying attention in high school social studies wouldn’t have to.
Part Two of this foolish delusion is the administration’s claim that “maybe” importers will pass along the cost of tariffs to consumers. Maybe? You mean like, maybe if the cost of materials doubles, they might raise prices?
In what possible fantasyland does somebody incur an additional cost and decide to be a nice guy and just eat the difference? If the cost of gasoline goes up, the guy who plows your driveway is going to want more money. Why wouldn’t the nice folks at WalMart and Target operate on the same principle?
And then the guy who says a hundred stupid things before breakfast announces that he’s going to give each of us a check for $2,000 and you can hear the scrambling of his advisors trying to invent ways that might sort of probably possibly happen when it definitely isn’t going to.
And speaking of a hundred stupid things before breakfast, Weyant is being awfully kind with this made-up presidential schedule. Dear Leader’s day doesn’t even start until 11 a.m. or noon, in part because he sits up all night tapping out nonsense on Truth Social.
You don’t have to analyze it. You just have to pay attention. He calls press conferences and then falls asleep during them.
He drifts off in front of live cameras because he was up all night circulating insults about “Sleepy Joe” Biden.
In a sane, functioning world, the worst job would be that of the person who has to decide which unpredictable, irrational, dysfunctional president to trot out this time.
But the people who think he’s falling apart already think he’s falling apart, and those who trust him think he’s just fine and that they will soon be getting $2,000 checks paid for by foreign governments.
Point being that, if they’re willing to be so completely gullible about something so obviously foolish, how can you expect them to make intelligent judgments about more complex things?
The wisecrack, which I first heard from a police investigator, is “If he tells you it’s raining, you’d better look out the window.”
But if Dear Leader says it’s raining, it’s raining, regardless of what appears to be happening outside. If you see sunshine, it means you hate America.
A large part of the problem is that these MAGA faithful are siloed in a media diet limited to Fox, Newsmax and OAN, so that they never hear real debate of the policies and scandals surrounding the administration. It’s not hard to remain a True Believer when you are constantly bathed in one-sided coverage.
However, it goes farther than that, and, back in his first administration, it might have been worth questioning whether Trump believed the groundless, impulsive things he said.
But in that first administration, he had a few people who would explain the significance of Pearl Harbor to him, or perhaps suggest he stop throwing paper towels at hurricane victims, or that he isn’t really allowed to shoot protesters in the legs.
This time around, Bagley is barely exaggerating the love feast at each cabinet meeting, as his departmental secretaries vie to deliver the most nauseating little speeches praising Dear Leader.
Doris Kearns wrote “Team of Rivals” about the disparate characters in Lincoln’s cabinet, and how he wanted to hear their disputes and evaluate their differing viewpoints. A book about Trump’s cabinet might be titled “Team of Toadlickers.”
And the idea of separating what he says from what he really believes is a fool’s errand. This is a man who watched a Clint Eastwood movie and decided to reopen Alcatraz, and who heard rumors of violence in Nigeria and didn’t bother to dig any deeper before announcing his conclusions. Now he’s used the Power of the Presidency to get Paramount to release “Rush Hour 4.”
Dear Leader wants to slaughter people in boats because they might be carrying drugs, but then he pardons a dealer who brought 400 tons of cocaine into the country.
This disparity is readily explained by class loyalty and an overwhelming sense of greed. Hernandez was, after all, a head of state, and thus could do no wrong, and, even if he wasn’t, there’s no accounting for the loyalties and affection of a man who — back when he still did rallies — often praised “The Great Alphonse Capone.”
Karoline Leavitt keeps insisting that this is the most transparent administration in history, and I’m inclined to agree with her.
Juxtaposition of the Day
There appears to be little doubt about the war crimes being carried out in the Caribbean, which I say not because they’re being honest about it, but because they’ve started shifting the blame to the Admiral who resigned after one of the first murders.
They haven’t explained how he was then responsible for the other killings, but I’m sure they’ll think of something, particularly since not only is Congress sniffing around but one of the fishermen’s families has filed a lawsuit.
Molina suggests that invoking MAGA racism is expected to cover a mountain of scandals, and I guess we’re going to see.
We’re going to deport all our Afghan allies to their deaths because one guy went nuts. I’m old enough to remember when Cuban refugees broke into the Watergate, yet somehow Florida hasn’t been emptied out, has it?
We need to stop asking why and start asking what we plan to do about it.
I ain’t dying for Chiquita Banana.
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