If you hear something shocking once, you’re shocked. If you hear it 100 times, you stop noticing. The media covered Trump’s shocking behavior over 100 times, and the initial shock subsided and made it easier to vote for him. He won. Now he’ll shock again. But this time they’ll be nobody in his unqualified and sycophantic cabinet to control him, and the shocks won’t abate.
The danger of Trump lies in his pattern of making decisions out of anger and impatience. You don’t have to look further back than this week to see it. Trump’s VP J.D. Vance claimed on “Fox News” that those who committed violence on January 6 shouldn’t be pardoned. Trump nevertheless, losing patience during an internal debate about targeted instead of blanket pardons said: ‘F – it: “Release em all” and he pardoned 1500 felons convicted of January 6,offenses, including the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers. You heard him say he might multiple times. Either you didn’t care or believe him. So now he has his private gestapo that he can call into action against his “enemies” at any time.
He never followed the protocol for processing pardons through a Pardon Attorney in the justice Department who reviews pardon applications, starts necessary investigations, prepares a report and recommendation for the President, and acts as a liaison with the public during the pendency of a petition. The Pardon Attorney was never involved.
In the last month of his Presidency, Trump had to be stopped by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff from resorting to America’s nuclear arsenal out of anger from losing the 2024 election. And that he wanted to bomb Russia with a plane bearing a forged Chinese flag? Do you wonder who will be there to stop him next time. An alcoholic Fox News sex offender? Do we really want Trump anywhere near the nuclear button?
He sprung his 2017 tariffs out of outrage over Hope Hicks’ testimony about Russia’s election interference and the treatment of his son-in-law by his Chief of Staff. Trump offered no vetted explanations for his tariffs, no plan to alert foreign trade partners, Congress or the Departments of State, Treasury and Defense.
For years Trump called for the repeal of Obamacare, not because it doesn’t work, but because he wanted to punish Barack Obama for making fun of him at a press event. Now, with majorities in Congress, Trump could repeal it, and 21 million Americans will lose their health insurance and no one would be covered for pre-existing conditions.
But his intention to repeal Obamacare has been reported over and over again for years, and become even boring, and you stopped paying attention, even though many of you will be among the 21 Americans million who can’t find insurance or have or have to pay unaffordable premiums for it.
It was also extensively reported that Trump started sabotaging Obamacare as President. He cancelled a provision that lowered premiums and halved its enrollment period. He made it harder to apply. 2.3 million people including 700,000 children, lost their health insurance. Millions more lost their employer’s insurance when they lost their jobs during Covid. Maybe you should have paid more attention and wouldn’t have risked your health insurance.
How many times have you heard him tout his tariffs? So now you the risks are benign, and maybe you didn’t notice that Sixteen Nobel Prize-winning economists warned that they would “reignite’’ rampant inflation, or that the Peterson Institute predicted his mass deportations will lead to a labor shortage that will increase wage inflation and drive consumer prices up by as much as 9% from nearly the 2% that they plummeted to in 2024. But you paid no attention and you’ll bear the brunt of higher prices.
Nobel Prize-winning economists warned that that his tariffs will pressure US profit margins, lead to job loss, weaken wage growth, and lower consumer spending – all classic causes of a recession. They also risk renewed trade hostilities that will attract retaliatory tariffs.
Worse, Trump could mismanage a recession into another depression. We came close during the Great Recession of 2008, but Presidents Bush and Obama had Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson (previously Goldman Sach CEO), Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke, and NY Fed President Tim Geithner , all qualified and experienced advisers who saved us from another depression. Every one of them had extensive experience in US and international monetary and economic policy.
They convinced Congress to pass a $700 billion bank bailout and an economic stimulus package, and coordinated the major central banks to cut interest rates by 50 basis points at the same time. Even China joined in. The Fed also coordinated five foreign central banks to create a dollar liquidity facility to facilitate trade.
Do you remember Trump wouldn’t say he wants Ukraine to win, but did say he’d “encourage Russia to do whatever the hell they want to NATO members?” You should have worried before you voted that, given his adoration of Putin, he’d give him a green light to invade NATO members, which would threaten the existence of all Western democracies?
If you’re following Trump’s nominees, you’ll see that Trump tossed experience, expertise and integrity to the wind in choosing his cabinet, and replaced them with inexperience, loyalty and obedience to himself. It would be the least qualified in American history compared with cabinets going all the way back to President Reagan. Compare them for yourself.
But you voted for Trump, maybe because you were gulled by the pernicious disinformation spread by Fox News whose viewers are the most uninformed – even less informed than people who didn’t watch any news at all, and less informed than the viewers of every mainstream news outlet, Or you were misinformed by social media, which is bound to get worse given that Mark Zuckerberg has kissed Trump’s ring and Elon Musk controls twitter and may be headed to buy Tik Tok.
Maybe you believed that Trump will never commit these catastrophes. But are you willing to take the risk. But they won’t hurt Trump because he is psychologically incapable of feeling the pain inflicted on others, and he always comes first.
