Trump's Own Goal

 In the face of the Supreme Court actually upholding the Constitution, Trump had doubled and now tripled down on his tariffs. As Elliott Morris notes, this is deeply unpopular. Despite the economic illiteracy of the median voter who helped re-elect him, people ARE capable of learning. With tariffs front and central in the news since April, people have learned that tariffs are, in fact, inflationary. If they are unhappy about prices (they are) then tariffs piss them off. By a margin of 19 points, people don't like tariffs. The only issues he polls worse on are government funding and health care and prices/inflation. All of this overlaps.

Defying the Supreme Court - even if technically he's using a different statute - is also unpopular. Even 82% of Republicans say he should obey Supreme Court rulings. SCOTUS offered Trump and off-ramp from his tariffs, which were already unpopular. Instead of taking it, he's attacking the Courts and being a whiny, petulant pissant. Only 23% of Americans disapprove of the striking of those tariffs, which is below the floor I projected for Trump. 

As Krugman relates, Trump is turning the laws on their heads - laws designed to reduce barriers to trade - to justify "shit he wants to do because he's the boss." It is always helpful to remember that Trump spent his whole career running a business with about ten employees, because he was doing shady shit and wanted no obstacles to his actions. He had no Board to answer to. The President is supposed to answer to the other branches and to the American people. Trump's latest tantrum shows he's not learned the basic civics lessons we teach middle schoolers. 

A sane politician - someone who was practiced in winning small bore elections - would retreat. Trump has run in three elections that basically functioned as "beauty pageants" based on vibes and latent misogyny and a poor grasp of the actual stakes by many voters. He responded to his only electoral defeat by trying to overturn democracy in America. He is incapable of understanding that he's lost and will continue to lose on this issue.