The Coming Reckoning

 So, even before the tariffs have really taken a bite out of the economy, we have entered an economic retraction. Trump inherited a great economy and through several forms of bad policy making (the policy itself was bad and the way he went about it was perhaps worse) he has driven the economy off the road and into a ditch.

Paul Krugman (who links today's NY Post's hilarious headline) notes that Trump is going to try as hard as he can to blame this on Biden. This is, of course, insane. However, what is coming into clearer focus in Trump 2.0 is the reliance the movement has on outright falsehood.

Trump obviously lies all the time, which is par for the course for a malignant narcissist. However, his ability to get his base to believe those lies has - I think - surprised even him. In fact, they seem to glory in the very absurdity of their lies. As Ann Coulter (!) of all people noted, why is every Cabinet meeting something from North Korea? When Pam Biondi says that the amount of fentanyl they have seized has saved the lives of over 200,000,000 Americans...I mean, she can't believe that. They may have inflated the amount seized, then divided into a certain number of lethal doses and then made the case that they saved exactly that many lives. 

It's nuts, but that seems to be the point. First, normal people will point out how absurd that number is, which gets us talking about that rather than the Trump Administration's rebuke in Court over the seizing of Mohsen Mahdawi. Second, it simply normalize the lying as a litmus test. How much can you lie? If you can't really commit to the craziest of lies, do you really deserve a Cabinet position?

Finally, they desperately need to destroy the idea of objective truth. First, because the loyalty needed as noted above. Second, because objective truth is coming for them. 

Since early February, Trumpists have been trying to prepare the ground for the coming economic hard times. Now, we have Trump saying people should prepare for fewer toys for their children. 

Sure, yes, the Cultists won't mind. Shit, pretty soon they will probably stop giving their kids toys out of fealty to their Orange God.  Most people are not OK with this crap. 

I heard some idiot Trump voter talk about how at least Trump is "getting stuff done" even if maybe not all of it is great, because Biden didn't get anything done. In fact, Biden did a LOT of really impressive stuff! Inflation was real, however, and he paid a price for that. Trump is going to crater the global economy and there is no amount of Faux News spin to hide that fact.

Pacific Coast ports are already empty. That means longshoremen and truckers are about to feel the hurt first. Those are Trump people. Let's see what happens.