Summary
White House aides are anxious ahead of Donald Trump’s “Liberation Day” announcement on Tuesday, expecting new “reciprocal tariffs” but lacking clear details.
Even key figures like VP J.D. Vance and Chief of Staff Susie Wiles remain uncertain. An insider told Politico, “No one knows what the f–k is going on.”
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and adviser Kevin Hassett said tariffs would target 10–15 countries, but Trump contradicted them, claiming all countries would face tariffs.
The confusion and internal contradictions have sparked fears of economic fallout and political backlash.
The speedrun into economic and social collapse continues as scheduled…I never thought I’d be alive to see the (very much self-inflicted) downfall of the country I was raised to love. This truly makes my soul ache.
I think those outside the US figured it was only a matter of time. The US voting population has only become more disengaged and the country has created and is the epicenter of most social media misinformation campaigns.
The US pulled itself out of the great depression first through regulation via the new deal and then by selling military equipment to allied nations during WW2 (essentially leveraging its geographical isolation during the war). Its been addicted to making and selling military equipment since then, in part due to the cold war but I think we can all agree there have been a few wars along the way that were essentially treated as test runs.
Hoover’s nearly 50% tariff on agriculture stretched the depression out by a few years. If we take history as any indication, tariffs are typically either a buildup to complete economic collapse or to a public bailout. One of those seems more likely than the other now. What would a 21st century ‘New Deal’ even look like?
It could look identical to the original. Restore the capital gains and high-income tax rates. Do all the infrastructure investments over again with modern tech (high speed and light rail, renewable energy, desalination, etc)
Fair labor standards 2.0, with 32 hour workweek, guaranteed leave, triple the minimum wage, and medicare for all. The last one should save small business more than enough money and administrative overhead to pay for the rest, but tax incentives for small businesses will help too.
Reinforce the national labor relations and social security acts. Create the political transparency act to overturn citizens united. Throw out the parties and the political bribery entirely if you can, if you can’t, limit and publicize it. Tax 1-5% of all political donations over X dollars, and feed all of it into social security and medicare. All of federal legislature, executive, and judiciary now gets their salary from social security and their healthcare from medicare.
This wouldn’t really save the world, but it should be enough to keep the US going until we find better answers. Obviously there’s no guarantees we could find the political capital to get any of this done, even in the Great Depression 2: electric boogaloo.
Infrastructure spending, upgrading and repairing our crumbling roads in the Midwest, green energy installation, massive expansion of high speed rail, higher corporate tax rates with tax credits available to incentivize manufacturing plants be built in the US.
I agree, but FWIW those crumbling roads are entirely due to state governments. There’s a reason Oklahoma’s roads are so terrible. You literally feel the difference in governmental priorities at the state line.