Perhaps if you read your own deep thot tweet you'd realize that Trump is is on the same idiotic page as Pelosi, Obama, Biden, and Bernie Sanders https://t.co/0BQhMQ47hw
— David Burge (@iowahawkblog) April 4, 2025
So why does the left not simply claim that its prior support of tariffs was wrongheaded? (See the now-ancient denunciations by Nancy Pelosi and Bernie Sanders of Bush-era “free trade,” deindustrialization, globalization, and lost jobs.) Now, the left supports… what exactly? Mini-tariffs? No tariffs? Reciprocal tariffs?He has a number of other observations, to which we might return, after considering the comic relief. Reason's Eric Boehm sees everything but coherence. "This isn't about reciprocity or lowering trade deficits or encouraging businesses to move supply chains away from potential adversaries. It is just pointlessly, mindlessly destructive." In another article, he notes, "Trump seemingly lacks any awareness about the economic costs of his tariff obsession, and he does not have a strong sense of intellectual consistency. At this rate, American businesses and consumers should prepare for four years of uncertainty, higher costs, and logical contradictions." And Noah "Noahpinion" Smith has discovered Trumpy officials sounding a lot like the self-styled progressives with their "nobody needs" assertions. "[S]ome Trump officials have even resorted to telling Americans to suck it up and accept lower standards of living — Treasury Secretary Bessent has declared that 'Access to cheap goods is not the essence of the American dream.' (This would come as news to many Americans.)"
Power Line's John Hinderaker fears that the tariff imbroglios will undo Trumpy successes elsewhere.
Trump’s heart may be in the right place, but his tariff policy is utterly incoherent and can only be destructive. Let’s hope he uses it as a starting point for negotiation, as he did in 2017, and gets himself out from under this albatross. If he doesn’t, the great work his administration has done in other areas, most notably the border and government waste and corruption, will be at risk.Without Congressional action, that secure border is one Obama pen and 'phone away from being insecure, and a more realistic budget, rather than yet another continuing resolution, is still due by late September.
Mr Hanson is more positive toward the tariffs, and yet, fretful.
Either acknowledge, however reluctantly, the good that has already been done in the first ten weeks. Or, if one feels the border should be open, or the war should be accelerated in Ukraine, or the campuses were just fine until 2025, or women just need to get over losing to transgendered men, then just say so.Although it is true that whatever cannot go on, will not go on; it is also true that "This is Doing Something" does not, of itself, establish a less destructive course.
Or if one believes huge trade and budget deficits and unsustainable national debt are no big deal, then argue just that.
Or, if the rub is that Trump is addressing these existential and long-neglected crises in the wrong way, then please present alternate plans for quicker and better resolutions or better messaging.
Should he limit tariffs only to those nations with deficits and asymmetrical tariffs? Should he speak more quietly and mention more frequently that he was moved to act only by a half-century of neglect? Could he emphasize more that the $3-4 trillion in promised foreign investment will ignite job growth within a year?
But if there is no alternate agenda, no constructive criticism, then why would anyone listen to those who either helped to get us into this mess or have no clue about its solutions?
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