Snitz fires up the Voldemort report card? How badly is he f-cking up?
Easy on the gas. The Dark Lord has been in office 58 days. It’s a marathon not a sprint. Way too early to judge his performance, despite the best efforts of the lathered-up media. Of course, that’s not going to stop me from pontificating.
Most people either despise Donald or love him. Few in the middle? Honestly, both extremes are probably “off”. I’ll try to bring some prudent analysis to this.
Step 1: Pay homage to Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman. Never heard of these guys? They're Nobel Laureates who coined the concept of “negativity bias”? What?
In short, people pay attention to/remember bad shit more than good shit. Their research indicates the impact of one bad event is equal to between 5-6 good events. Forgetting the leaning of legacy or social media, folks who earn a living from “engagement” are far better off peddling scary content. Ergo, if it bleeds, it leads.
Despite what’s coming across your media windshield Voldemort has done some "good" stuff. Like getting the border back in order (that rhymes). Quickly reducing inefficient business regulation, along with stimulating oil/natural gas production. Encouraging Europe to pay for its own defense (getting off the US nipple). Suspect the Ukraine war will come to an end. That bad? These aren’t small things…I could go on.
The media firehose however seems to concentrate on the Tariff Wars and DOGE which are poorly understood…that is until you continue reading!
Tariff-geddon (tempest in a teapot): The strategy of using tariffs to force China to play fair isn’t a bad idea. Nor is coercing the EU to join us. Actually, they're good ideas. The opening tactics which include assaults on Canada and Mexico, however, are stupid (very stupid). Stupid or not, is this sheet going to continue for more than 5-6 months? Nope (probably less)! Someone will blink and a more fair trade agreement will result. Yes, the stock market will sink and businesses will flounder around in the short term, but the odds of this not reversing course I deem as slim. Verdict: Good strategy, bad initial tactics, rough sledding leading to a neutral or perhaps positive result.
BTW, the problem with tariffs, in theory, is they lead to inflation. That has yet to happen, suspect the impact will be zero or modest.
If the stock market correction sticks it's likely because stocks have become expensive in historical terms (high P/E ratios), not because of tariffs.
DOGE: Is a great shiny object obscuring the fact that Trump will increase our national debt just like Joe. Forgetting some smart cost savings and ridiculous disruption/morale loss in our federal workforce, I suspect the yearly cost savings will be maximum in the range of 3-4%. Great but insignificant. Great media sound bites, little real substance. Hope I’m wrong (& Musk surprises)…
At the same time Trump is proposing some aircraft carrier-sized tax cuts that will move the dial. A lot! Like making social security payments to seniors tax-free, exempting tips from income tax and further reducing corporate tax rates; while increasing defense spending. Ergo, Trump’s DOGE efforts are a diversion to mask a government spending train continuing out of control. I place this in the top four real problems facing this country (which has been conveniently swept under the rug).
Want to understand this well? Jessica Riedl recently appeared on the Freakonomics podcast. She’s a slightly right-leaning prof at the Manhattan Institute who plays it down the middle (fairly attacks both parties) & is perhaps the nation’s best expert on explaining this stuff.
Snitz score: I think Voldemort will end up producing generally favorable outcomes while running up America’s massive federal debt…leaving those inevitable problems to his successors. As for Donald’s narcissism, he wants to be thought of as a great leader…ergo, his goals are not necessarily incongruous with the country’s.
As for his growing dictatorial power, we have the progressive left to thank for that. We’d all be well served with some reasonable moderates running the Dems to provide competition.