The Dumbest Economic Policy in Modern History(theatlantic.com)
theatlantic.com
The Dumbest Economic Policy in Modern History
https://www.theatlantic.com/economy/archive/2025/04/economic-policy-trump-tariffs/682369/
8 comments
https://archive.ph/ZhY3y
What I don’t understand is that we already tried this plan 8 years ago in his first term, and back then it didn’t work, his economy was down. He got voted out because he’s not a good politician or leader.
So why is everyone entertaining the idea that it will work this time?
So why is everyone entertaining the idea that it will work this time?
Several reasons. Nonexhaustively:
- There's a large contingent of people who just do not accept that even though Trump is the president, he does not actually have a genius master plan. Not all of these people even voted for him.
- There are plenty of people who genuinely believe that significant protectionist tariffs are good policy.
- Lots of people who have voted red all their lives simply support and believe whatever Their Side says and does.
- The major mainstream media publications are all owned by extremely wealthy people, who a) have a vested interest in ensuring that the Republicans stay in power, so they can continue to push for more and more and more and more tax cuts (for themselves), and b) are very scared right now that they will personally be targeted by Trump if their publications speak against him.
And, of course:
- Plain old wishful thinking.
- There's a large contingent of people who just do not accept that even though Trump is the president, he does not actually have a genius master plan. Not all of these people even voted for him.
- There are plenty of people who genuinely believe that significant protectionist tariffs are good policy.
- Lots of people who have voted red all their lives simply support and believe whatever Their Side says and does.
- The major mainstream media publications are all owned by extremely wealthy people, who a) have a vested interest in ensuring that the Republicans stay in power, so they can continue to push for more and more and more and more tax cuts (for themselves), and b) are very scared right now that they will personally be targeted by Trump if their publications speak against him.
And, of course:
- Plain old wishful thinking.
Pretty simple to understand. Creating new things is the single hardest thing to do. But destruction (in all forms) is the easiest thing in the world to do that shows tangible "results". And when the reality of your "results" don't matter at all to the people who support you, they simply need to exist as a framework to build collectively agreed upon lies around.
From the title, I thought this was going to be about Canada[1]. The tariffs are bad, but they're not the only bad economic policy out there.
[1] https://www.bcbc.com/insight/oecd-predicts-canada-will-be-th...
[1] https://www.bcbc.com/insight/oecd-predicts-canada-will-be-th...
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