Trump-Musk Efforts Tank Stock Market and Invite Retaliatory Tariffs

Trump-Musk Efforts Tank Stock Market and Invite Retaliatory Tariffs

But CNN and NBC Polls Released on March 16th Show Dems with Higher Disapproval Levels

PETER ON THE WRITERS’ HANGOUT PODCAST!

“Never forget, the press is the enemy. The establishment is the enemy. The professors are the enemy. Professors are the enemy. Write that on a blackboard 100 times and never forget it.” 

Richard Nixon in 1972

Throughout history’s darkest days, societies have felt threatened by novel thoughts expressed by the seers of the day. From Socrates (in 339 BCE, hemlock, anyone?), the Scopes trial over the teaching of evolution (1925), the above quote from Richard Nixon (1972), repeated by then GOP Senate Candidate JD Vance in his November, 2021 keynote speech at the National Conservatism Conference entitled “The Universities Are the Enemy.” Yet somewhere between 60% and 75% of the top universities in the world are located in the United States. Think our progress is an accident?

But as the Trump administration slashes its own internal research agencies and staff, they are also severely curtailing research grants to research universities (where 2/3 of their research grants come from the federal government), particularly disallowing a fair market allocation for the allocation of space, construction and equipping of the underlying university basics that enable research in the first place. Research and invention are the ultimate job creators and engines of growth since the New Deal of the 1930s. FDR’s program resulted in the overcapacity of hydroelectric power generation, without which WW2 would have been lost. We manufactured the engines of war that defeated Hitler and supplied our allies with munitions to victory.

In 1957, after the Soviet Union had developed their own nuclear weapons and were the first to launch a satellite into space (Sputnik), Republican Dwight Eisenhower called for a scientific/ educational wake-up call, and with Congressional help, poured money into education, research and infrastructure. Soon, US primary education was the best on earth (today, somewhere between 19th and 38th), and the GI bill produced a spate of engineers to lead the US as the once-sustainable economic powerhouse it was… until… a new president began to disassemble those aspects of the United States that make it great.

If you look at the regions of the United States that have led American prosperity, they are anchored by great research universities: Stanford/Berkeley enabled the Silicon Valley tech explosion, Duke fostered the biotech power of North Carolina’s Research Triangle, MIT/Harvard made Massachusetts a technology center, Northwestern and U of Chicago gave a technology advantage to the Chicago area, U of Texas (Austin) fired up the explosion of innovation in that state, UCLA, Cal Tech and USC made Southern California a hotbed of innovation, U of Washington accelerated Microsoft and Amazon to new heights, to name just a few.

You’d think an administration that has destroyed trillions of dollars in US assets (the market loss), is overseeing a global trade war that pretty much pits the United States against almost every other developed nation on earth, and that embraces an effort to befriend Russia that undercuts and continues to undercut “all things American”… would be wildly unpopular. If only the Democrats would stop emphasizing values that have now slipped down to secondary or tertiary status – notably DEI matters – and focus on what pissses off Americans most: economic instability, the continuing increase in the cost of living by a government that seems only will to foster billionaire values as the expense of the middle and below classes. What Musk calls “the parasite class” because they rely in whole or in part of Social Security, Medicare and/or Medicaid.

But under the guise of gutting left wing colleges and universities, pretending to act to root out antisemitism, the Trump Administration is killing the same research and student support that we need to grow and prosper. Hey, if we truly do bring mundane manufacturing back to the United States, the manufacturing that will gain the most: assembly line robots! Wake up, America! Want to grow jobs and prosperity, embrace what has always worked: education, innovation and research!!!! Jobs, baby, jobs! And that green energy necessity has to be cast as one of the most powerful job creators this nation has.

OK, the Trump administration is on the warpath against students fostering pro-Palestinian beliefs, interpreted uniformly by the government as “antisemitic” behavior. Stating that this is only the first of many such efforts, Trump has focused on Mahmoud Khalil, a Columbia University graduate student, who had legal residence (a green card) in the US. There is no evidence that Khalil did anything more than speak his mind, even tried to mediate the protests, but Trump’s henchmen closed in, revoked his green card, and placed him in detention facilities far from NYC.

With signs saying, “not in our name,” a large crowd of Jewish students invaded Trump Tower in support of Khalil’s 1st Amendment rights – and yes, even as a green card holder, those rights apply to him as clearly established by the US Supreme Court. The Trump administration pulled all sort of grants to Columbia, saying that university would not be entitled to any federal funding unless they materially altered an array of course material to conform to anti-woke Trump requirements. The easier button would be to encourage and enable universities to promote non-violent speech from all perspectives… but Trump and his base want revenge, not good policy. Trump has successfully shunted much of voter negativity to the mush-hated Elon Musk… so… yeah!

There are some issues in the “stop the waste” quest, mostly in the overregulation of building and inventing. The NIMBY disease that pits homeowners against housing shortage solvers is one symptom, as is the excessive timeline for FDA approvals (which are absolutely necessary). Dems need to understand that where “reasonable regulation” has left the building, they need to take the lead to take it back, before the Trump administration makes that impossible. Pragmatic Democrats with hope and a clear path to a better future, it’s time to take over your party!!! Trump/Musk are not doing the nation any favors by crushing the 1st Amendment and gutting our finest college and university research programs.

I’m Peter Dekom, and without some clear messaging that provides a viable path to resuming our success, lots of town hall meetings, the Democrats are simply repeating the same mistakes that lost them the presidency last November.