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Does This Make Any Sense?

                                                                                                                                             Junious Ricardo Stanton

            Looking at the early events and developments of Trump’s second term we can see several alarming trends and patterns emerging. First his bombast undermines reality. It is one thing to say you are the greatest, that everything you do is going to be fantastic and you will usher in a new American renaissance but in reality what you are doing is creating confusion and anxiety. It is readily apparent Trump doesn’t learn from history including his own experiences, mistakes and missteps.  For example, during his first term he instigated trade and tariff wars with Canada, Mexico, the European Union and China which backfired and blew up in his face; especially his dealings with China who refused to be bullied and went elsewhere to find new markets or expanded the ones they already had in Europe, Latin America, Africa and Asia. Trump’s actions helped China spur its Belt and Road initiative with the rest of the world!

            In addition to not learning from his own mistakes, Trump makes moves that are illegal which in due course will cost him. Already his approval numbers are falling. Some of his actions other than the securing the border are quite unpopular and upsetting. Right now, Trump and the Republicans enjoy slight majorities in both houses of Congress, but even with the Democrats in total disarray, some of his moves are boomeranging back on him. For example, DOGE. While it is admirable to want to cut the massive deficits, regain fiscal sanity, reign in government spending and address the humongous government debt, how he is going about it are both illegal and reckless.

            DOGE is not a government department even though the word Department is part of its name. It was not created by Congressional legislation. At best it is an executive advisory committee that doesn’t have the authority to fire personnel, disband government agencies nor halt appropriations passed by Congress! His plans to cut taxes while increasing military spending are going to blow up the deficits. Cuts in Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security are not going to bring the budget in line nor balance it! Evidently Trump fails to grasp the fact this did not work well under Rondal Reagan or George W. Bu$h; both of them cut taxes and simultaneously increased spending which resulted in massive deficits and government debt!

            Trump’s on, off, then on again tariff threats are making him look foolish, indecisive and wishy-washy. Again, by not being a student of history Trump and his advisors if you can call them that, fail to realize that in the past, trade and currency wars and tit for tat tariff retaliation have led to major shooting wars and military conflicts. His tariffs are not going to solve America’s trade imbalances which are self-inflicted. These massive trade imbalances are not the result of the rest of the world ganging up and cheating the US! That is utter nonsense designed to dupe the American people and place blame on foreigners when the culprits are the financers, corporations and their bought and paid for elected officials who legislated and cosigned the offshoring of capital, factories and jobs to Asia in the 1980’s.

They called it Globalization. Globalization was the shift of capital, technology, factories and jobs overseas in exchange for much cheaper labor, available raw materials and less regulation and humongous profits! This closed US factories, sent well paying US jobs overseas and hollowed out much of the US industrial infrastructure. The Owners and Controllers of Globalized Financial Capital (OCGFC) major contributors to both political parties, transformed the US from an industrial titan into an economy of gig and service workers, a debt-based system of myriad financialized casino-Ponzi boom-bust scams. CEO compensation soured while workers’ paychecks stagnated and declined.

This happened in the 1980’s and early 90’s and we are reaping the whirlwind of these disastrous decisions. The factories that left are not coming back no matter how high Trump’s tariffs are simply because OCGFC will merely transfer their capital, technology and factories to some other country where they can exploit their cheap labor. Trump should know this.

            Although in 2016 he campaigned on draining the D.C. Swamp, promising he was going to lock Hillary Clinton and her ilk up, he did neither. Business went on as usual. In 2024 Trump campaigned on peace, saying he would resolve the situation in Gaza, bring the Ukrainian war to an end and establish better relationships with Russia and China within days of his inauguration. Well, here we are going into five months into his second term, and the situations in those places are worsening! Does any of this make sense?