A Wet, Grumpy Saturday Morning

 I overslept by two hours. Probably the better for it, if I did not have things to do. The laundry, some cleaning, some research might have been started in the past 90 minutes, if I had not started on thinning out the email. That just made me grumpy after reading Sheila Kennedy's Will Obvious Insanity Be A Turning Point?, who dissects a Paul Krugman piece. Krugman always makes sense of economic issues, and Kennedy and Krugman point out the illogic of Trump's own rhetoric of tariffs. I felt reassured that my own sensibility was on the right course.

But what got me grumpy was the first comment to Kennedy's post, which asks a few questions about Trump's supporters that I will restate here, with more emphasis.

So why did half the country apparently not see Trump's insanity? 

Could it really be that such a large segment of the population saw a reflection of themselves in Trump and liked what they saw? 

Did they see Trump making them “winners”…. potential “winners”?

Did they see Trump as someone with their own principles, standards, morals? 

Did they see Trump as someone whose behavior they could excuse because they had never taken responsibility for their own? 

Did they see Trump as a rich, successful version of themselves?

No one directly asks MAGA these questions. American journalists fail us.

Not everything that glitters is gold, Trumpists: 

All the talk about owning the libs speaks volumes about the lack of seriousness in American voters. The same with the professional wrestling thinking. People will die, they will be ruined economically; the country will be shamed and alone and disgraced. All that thanks to your decadent, weak-minded, superficial thinking. We need a better people.

I have a nephew who I spoke to only once since my return from prison; he told me he was very much for Trump. He has never explained why. He married a Mexican woman - he loudly, proudly declared she had come in the right way. They have two children.

I wonder what he would like about ICE descending on a school and taking Hispanic-looking children out of classrooms: Welcome To The Gulag (Sheila Kennedy, again).

No, probably not that, to my great sorrow.

My oldest sister says she is a conservative as if she were declaring a religious faith. Never has she explained why; nor have I asked her. Some things are needed for familial peace. I do not think she sees anything needing torn born out of Trump:

The Statue of Liberty was a welcome sign. Now the U.S. vibe is 'stay out' - Los Angeles Times

The best I can see is that a plurality of Americans are weak-kneed, weak-minded sheep willing to see strength in the bellowing of an idiot, and protection for their resentment at failing to achieve what they think of as entitlements, which are actually the rewards for talent and energy and ambition, so they follow him into a new pasture where Trump will fatten them for his dinner table.

Strange how the Republicans used to trumpet the need for responsibility to the poor back in the days of Bill Clinton. That they always excused their irresponsibilities and hypocrisies even then (yes, I am thinking of Newt Gingrich) seems forgotten. Rush Limbaugh accusing his opponents of being sheeple made sheeple of his own listeners. The slaughterhouse calls for all of us now.

Trump’s tariff strategy is a surefire loser - Los Angeles Times

We let grown men with the mentality of toddlers drive the car. 

What is Trump trying to achieve with tariffs and does Smoot-Hawley have any lessons? (Fortune)

Columbia professor Brett House argues there’s another motive to Trump’s action, exemplified by the fact that the White House has implemented both individual and blanket tariffs. He told Fortune: “The president loves creating a situation where other countries or individuals have to come and bargain with him. By setting out different tariff rates on a country-by-country basis, it creates a situation where every country then has to supplicate and beg and negotiate with the White House on an individual basis. 

“This is the essence of the kind of power that a bully and an autocrat tries to create by dividing people and ensuring that it is very difficult for them to unite and negotiate with a single voice.”

Did none of the Trumpists manage to stay awake during their history classes? That reality is not owned by one man, even bullies cannot fight reality?

Trump's agenda grapples with political and economic reality (BBC)

The president, it seems, is willing to wait out the tempest created by his tariff plan. He appears confident that his economic vision of a rebuilt, job-rich American manufacturing sector protected from foreign competition - a vision he has closely held for decades - will ultimately be proven right.

And if it all goes wrong - as the non-delusional, non-MAGA cultist experts think will happen - what will Trump do? Blame everyone else. The delusional do that. His cult will follow him into the slaughterhouse. 

Did they not notice that what made us safe was our allies, and how we treated them?

Tariff troubles overshadow US olive branch at NATO – DW – 04/03/2025

DM wrote me just now:

Interest rates for 10 yr treasury fell from >4.3% to <4.0% just this week;  His real estate might be in trouble.  I heard one market analyst/investor predict the rates could get to 3.5%

The Daily Reid: Burning down the house

When are the Spanish bombs going to start falling on us?

Are you Trump voters getting what you wanted?

How Trump's tariffs rollout turned into stock market mayhem (CNBC)

A brain drain away from America? Europe to burned American scientists: We’ll take you in (POLITICO)

The Affordable Car Is About to Go Extinct in the US (WIRED)

Making us small and mean-spirited is not the way to lead the world:

Rubio dismisses criticism over US response to Myanmar earthquake

Lesotho, a Small African Nation, Expects a Big Hit From Trump’s Tariffs - The New York Times

 And if we are not leading the world, how have you made America great again?

And if we are going to war against the world, why should America see greatness in America?

And if you want to be a serf to plutocrats, how is that making America great?

I can think of nothing less American than serfdom.

Everything about MAGA will destroy America's greatness.

Time the Democrats got serious; time for serious American  stand up.

Twenty years ago, a former friend who was a dedicated follower of the Republican Party said that China would never attack us because it held so much of our bonds. I did not buy that logic then, and I think his argument is even less viable now. The same is true now of the rest of the world. Where our blunders and stupidities could once be written off against the profitability coming from being allied to us, we have now become red ink. Have we forgotten that we are not the whole of the world?

I think I will walk in the protest march today. Screw the dishes and laundry.

It is now the afternoon, I have spent the morning working on this post. I remain grumpy. Have I spent too much time on this to make the march?

sch