Being an old fart I grew up getting to enjoy those classic Saturday morning cartoons. The iconic Bugs Bunny stuff from the (for this) aptly named Looney Tunes included episodes with the character Yosemite Sam. Ole Sam was a crazed ‘Rootin Tootin gun-slinging cowboy’ that blasted his twin six guns all over the place creating havoc. He had a ridiculous look to him with the crazy hat and bright red insanely long mustache (think too long red ties) with a crazed look about him. Sound like anyone we know? Anyway the bigly news is that as so many have been hoping Trump has started looking for a way out of the mess he’s caused with his insane China Tariffs Trump of course is spinning it as a HUGE victory but once again Rupert Murdoch’s flagship publication is calling out Trump by telling the truth on him!
As this article from HuffPost tells us the Wall Street Journal’s Editorial Board highly approves of Trump’s efforts to back away from the China Front in his disastrous Trade Wars. All of the tariffs have created enormous problems of course but Trump chose to REALLY turn trade with China into the ‘mother of all showdowns’ with his 130% tariff on items imported from there. China calmly said go screw yourself (after slathering on MORE orange paint to your stupid face) and the effects are already being felt. Ports are suddenly empty of container ships. Port workers and those from trucking companies are suddenly jobless, and store shelves are emptying out.
In addition prices as you know are rising on lots of things. If all that wasn’t bad enough things have been headed towards becoming far, far worse. Trumpty loves him his tariffs. The current idiotic trade war he initiated with the rest of the world isn’t his first time trying to use tariffs as a weapon of what he believes is ‘necessary payback’ for every other country ‘ripping us off.’ That belief is no more fervent than with China as far as Trump’s concerned. Unfortunately he’s got equally stupid people he too often listens to egging him on. Like some fight managers pushing a lightweight teenager into the ring with a heavyweight like Muhammed Ali in his prime shouting ‘Hit him! Deck him!’ However some are rooted in the real world and have been trying to get Trump to back down.
Then there’s Wall Street. The markets and big financial institutions, corporations, major retailers and the freaking Chamber of Commerce begging Trump to find a way out. And even prior to now the good ole Wall Street Journal, owned by his onetime most important cheerleader and major benefactor Rupert Murdoch. Trump has claimed he has “A very fine brain” but he’s an idiot and always has been. However, he’s been a dangerous one because he’s had power (and no more so while in the Oval Office) and as the saying goes ‘Doesn’t know what he doesn’t know.’ Worse he’s got zero interest in learning. However, even Trump can understand the Dow average. Even he has been able to see the swings of the market (as well as the S&P and Nasdaq) nose-diving at news tariffs are being implemented but recovering when it’s announced they’ve been put on hold.
That’s where we are with China right now. China returned Trumps tariffs with a bring it on attitude and everyone but Trump knew he’d dealt himself a losing hand. Trump also has some comprehension of poll numbers and he can publicly scream FAKE NEWS all he wants he’s got numbers to look at he knows are accurate. Those numbers tell him he and the GOP are in deep sh*t because HE dove into it and pulled his Party with him. He’s now even underwater on the economy! Right now he’s in positive territory on only one issue – trans people’s participation in sports. That’s a whole different topic I won’t get into here. What matters is that Trump barely got elected, and even at his high mark didn’t have great approval ratings both overall and on specific issues/policies. And with that one exception it’s ALL nosedived.
Trade and tariffs and how it’s hurting Americans (both at the individual and family level and small business to corporations) is the issue at hand however. This is the WSJ’s bread and butter. It’s always had a conservative lean. When Murdoch gained control there were fears he’d turn it into a newspaper version of Fox News Channel. While there’s been some stuff along those lines for the most part the paper, at least at the editorial board level has maintained its gravitas. And boy have they been sticking to Trump’s idiocy in his second term in the WH. Wall Street itself is the financial nerve center of the world which gives the WSJ Editorial Board tons of influence.
They’ve been withering in their criticism of Trump’s tariffs all along. However they are now cheering about Trump seeking a way out. They started out with relatively (given what was to come) mild chiding of Trump’s claim of a ‘bigly win.’ They called it ‘more of a surrender than a victory.’ By itself that would be more than enough to get Trump worked up. However the Editorial Board was just clearing it’s throat. There’s more than one ‘money quote’ that will have them reaching for the knockout shot and a straightjacket for Trumpty starting with:
“Rarely has an economic policy been repudiated as soundly, and as quickly, as President Trump’s Liberation Day tariffs—and by Mr. Trump’s own hand,” wrote the newspaper, whose board has been a fierce critic of Trump’s second-term trade policies, particularly his tariffs.
A “tragedy” of Trump’s “shoot-America-in-the-foot-first approach,” said the paper, “is that he’s hurt his chances of rallying a united front of countries against Beijing’s mercantilism.” “By targeting allies with tariffs, Mr. Trump has eroded trust in America’s economic and political reliability,” it lamented.
It’s that “Shoot-America-In-The-Foot-First” comment that jumped out at me, and I’ll bet Trumpty too! It’s what prompted me to again think of Trump as a real life and evil Yosemite Sam. (Anyone else remember Trumpty not knowing how to pronounce Yosemite? He said YO-Semite!) That’s plenty right there but the WSJ wasn’t done. They took Trump to task for his entire strategy as noted above, but couldn’t resist rubbing it in:
But the possible “silver lining,” said the Journal, is that markets have forced Trump “to back down from his fever dream that high tariff walls will usher in a new ‘golden age.’”
“The age didn’t last two months, and it was more leaden than golden,” it added.
For “Bling-Master” Trump who obsesses over gold even more than the fictional James Bond villain Goldfinger, who tricks out his home and even the Oval Office with ‘gold, gold, more gold and more gold after that.’ It’s a desperate attempt to convince people HE is ‘pure gold’ that crack of “More leaden than golden.” THAT is going to wound him worse than Stormy Daniels publicly calling him a (not even) ‘five minute man with a smaller than average dick!’
Well, any time I know Trumpty is suffering from serious butt-hurt I enjoy the hell out of it. We all need something given that even if this truce holds and the U.S. and China work out a face-saving deal for the long-term a lot of Americans are going to suffer because of the damage already done. Trump by god deserves to share in the suffering.
***Zoomers, we are always in need of donations. It’s been an especially rough month and my own health has not been great these past few weeks, which just adds to the frustration. Anything you can spare will be immensely appreciated. And thank you to all who have donated generously already. Ursula***
Ooooo I *loved* reading this! Anything that smack the Cheeto Prophet around makes me damn near ecstatic with happiness! Thank you, Denis!
And just maybe, Trump is screwing the markets up and down so that his sons can make some exclusive buys and sells for his own personal profit. It sure wouldn’t surprise me making the whole country suffer for his financial gain would be about the speed he runs that
Count on it. Back in the wayyy past…the early seventies…there was a comedy group called Fireside Theater, who put out comedy albums of skits. They did a skit called Name That Disease. It sounded and was run like them all. The game had contestants, and the game was: they gave you a disease that would kill you quickly. You had to guess the disease in a set amount of time in order to get the anecdote. Dark comedy, as the crowd cheered even when the contestant died. Trump is playing that game. He creates the disease, and shoves it up our collective asses. Then he gives a tiny amount of anecdote to keep us going. We still have the virus…it’s located in the White House. I wonder how long before Dr. Strangelove becomes our reality?
Are you referring to Firesign Theater? Having older sisters by the time I was in Jr. High I heard a couple of their albums. I Think We’re All Bozos On This Bus in particular comes to mind. In one skit there’s a machine that serves as the President. I think it was a parody of Nixon. After a couple of questions and nonsensical non-answer answers to ordinary folks questions a smart-ass asks “Why does the porridge bird lay its eggs in the air” and all sorts of weird and incoherent rambling ensues. And the line from an onlooker “HE BROKE THE PRESIDENT!”
Of course Trump’s onetime average mind was broken decades ago.
Leave it to you Denis and all the irrational Trump haters to be so short sighted as to sign on to this “Trump caved” narrative. He stated from the beginning that the main goal is to get countries to the negotiation table & work out something fair & mutually beneficial. He’s doing precisely that. He’s in the middle east securing trillion dollar investment deals,(although I’m sure you’ll have something negative to say about that tomorrow). Have you seen the comments that the Chinese delegation said about biden & that pathetic administration? They knew that they could ignore biden because he’s weak”
Trump is winning. Nothing happens overnight especially when you’re fixing what biden broke, but we will Make America Great Again
Mark, you point out YOURSELF that Drumpf is a fraud. “Nothing happens overnight” and yet, Drumpf PROMISED–ON DAY ONE OF HIS TERM–that he would bring down gas prices and bring down egg prices and even impose these tariffs. But, on the matter of the tariffs alone, he CHANGED his (syphilitic-ridden) mind for several “30-day waiting periods” during which NOTHING REALLY HAPPENED.
And, I find it hilarious that you bring up that STUPID motto. Drumpf promised to “make America great again” the FIRST time he was in the White House (I still find it incredible that you MAGAt morons fell for that nonsensical line–even YOU know that a Democrat who’d used that as a motto would’ve been roundly criticized as being blatantly un-American). All Drumpf did the first time was BREAK America; the ONLY people who benefited were the billionaires who got PERMANENT tax breaks while the “regular MAGAt guy” got a 10-year break–set to expire this year and the GOP rubberstampers in Congress are trying to extend them again (think about this: If Drumpf had actually won in 2020, he’d be out of office now just as those tax cuts expired and do you think he’d give two cow patties about how their expiration would hurt “his” people?).
His penthouse looks like it was designed by Antoni Gaudí
I call his taste “White Trash Versailles”