Chaos vs Stability or Predictability - Pick One

Chaos vs Stability or Predictability - Pick One

“[The image of the United States] has changed from liberator to great disrupter to a landlord seeking rent.” 

 Singapore’s Defense Minister

“The U.S. is no longer prepared to underwrite the global order. This makes the international environment far less orderly and predictable.” 

Singapore’s Senior Minister

“My absolute priority will be to strengthen Europe as quickly as possible so that, step by step, we can really achieve independence from the USA. I never thought I would have to say something like this. … But after Donald Trump’s statements … it is clear that the Americans, at least this part of the Americans, this administration, are largely indifferent to the fate of Europe.” 

Friedrich Merz, probably Germany’s next chancellor

I am among the legions of political and economic writers convinced that when the bodies from the Musk/Trump agenda drop in sufficient numbers, that nascent wake-up to sufficient Trump supporters will, if we indeed have a full and fair midterm election, decimate enough GOP candidates who seems to have made a “till death do us part” to Donald Trump and his policies. You can see Trump’s demise building among US corporations, now quite the topic even of Fox news and business channels. Not only does corporate America fear the loss of government contracts, there’s a scream from them against Trump’s obsession with tariffs.

In the early years of the United States, long before income and estate taxes, the federal budget funded the government. Trump believes that can work again. But those early tariffs supported a federal government that represented 2% of our GDP; today those expenditures are approximately 35%. In short, Trump’s concept is dead way before arrival. When tariffs are introduced to protect US companies, they often become reliant on that status quo and become uncompetitive. The 1930 Smoot-Hawley tariff as a GOP solution for the Great Depression only made the economy much worse. And yes, they absolutely do increase prices for consumers… and almost always invite retaliatory tariffs that decimate American farms and companies that rely on exports. Other than Trump loyalists, there are very few credible economists who have not reported a significant risk or a recession of worse.

The other insanity is Musk’s slashing and burning the federal government with an axe, worrying about the consequences later, all to prepare for the huge tax cut (and will send 95% of the benefits to the richest Americans), with a dismantling of IRS so that they do not have the personnel for complex audits (typical with the rich). The majority of the federal workforce are veterans, and along with Musk’s plan to cut 80,000 VA jobs, Trump is rapidly alienating his once-loyal military voters.

The necessity of cutting Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid is equally unworkable. Musk is correct that the system would go bankrupt soon without massive cuts or… change the funding mechanism (based on a huge labor force and a very small body of retirees in the 1930s when Social Security was enacted) to reflect a much greater body of older beneficiaries and relatively smaller workforce. That cannot happen when your elected representatives prioritize cutting taxes for the rich. If Medicaid is underfunded, hospital emergency rooms will be flooded and thousands of nursing homes will close.

Putting Musk in charge with no discernible government knowledge or skills. The only cars selling at big discount are Teslas, and the share price has fallen to about half. His last two SpaceX launches have blown up. Those were tests of the proposed rescue rockets that were supposed to take two US astronauts stranded on the space station. Talk to former Tesla or SpaceX worker when Musk came around. Without a shred of sensitivity, he would fire people, sometimes an entire department, on a whim. Workers stopped meeting with him if they could avoid the contact.

The rest of the world is wide awake, but the trigger for tangible action began when the world outside of Russia (and her allies), Israel and the United States witnessed Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s ambush in the oval office. Despite a rise in rightwing parties in Europe, there is a new realization both that the US NATO commitment will either significantly reduce or simply. While China is preparing to take Taiwan in the near term, they no longer fear that US will come to that island nation’s aid. Japan and South Korea are beefing up their military and looking for trade alliances that no longer depend on the US. I we continue to alienate foreign markets, I predict a gravitation to an EU reserve currency, away from the dollar. Arrogance is not a defense against that move.

Trump still plans to annex Greenland “one way or the other” and sees Canada as a willing 51st state, his bully arrogance just plain smells bad. You can ascertain international reactions to Trump’s policies from the above quotes. And while a new NATO coalition could be sufficient to back Ukraine – the offer from Europeans cannot replicate the intelligence supplied by the US, now suspended. The UK and France can pledge a nuclear deterrent, but they only have a small stockpile of strategic (big boom) nukes and no tactical (targeted boom) capacity. With dependence on Musk’s satellites for much of the available intelligence gathering and strategic communications, Ukraine no longer gets that information… as their death tolls accelerate.

For Dems wondering what to do, I suggest defocusing on pushing those “woke” policies, that alienate Trump supporters, and drill down on the bread-and-butter issues (not just the price of eggs!). While I believe we must protect the vulnerable (like LGBTQ+ individuals), the Dems have to be elected to do that… and dwelling on that in the campaign will move some key voters to MAGA candidates. The rest will build on the sour Trump results; that that difficult transition period he predicted seems unstoppable and that US credibility is down to zilch… nobody trusts us anymore.

For Republicans, assuming full and fair elections, Trump/MAGA is delivering pain, not solutions. Do your appointed job and stop worrying about Musk’s funding your primary opponents… which could be the kiss of death for their campaigns anyway.

I’m Peter Dekom, and since Trump toasts his allies sooner of later, Mr Putin, do you really want Trump’s America as a partner?