Everything Trump Touches Turns to Shit

Sadly, he has his hands on the nation.

Not too long ago, I wrote a post about how it looked like President Trump was driving us off a cliff and into a recession. I want to revisit that concern in light of the passage of the Big Beautiful Bill, and connect it to some other Trump regime signature initiatives like trade, immigration and foreign policy.

Way back in April when I wrote the first piece, I cited the inflationary impact of tariffs, the contractionary impact of haphazard and potentially illegal reductions in government spending, the reaction of the bond market pushing up the interest rates the US had to pay to get people buy our debt, the reduction in the labor force through deportations and restraints on immigration, and the impact all of this would have on consumer confidence and business spending.

Here we are a few months later, and the economy has not tanked. We have not seen massive layoffs. Indeed employment and unemployment have largely held steady. US Treasury interest rates have come down a bit. The stock market is up. And, while Trump has increased tariffs a lot, he hasn’t increased them as much as he threatened, and has postponed much of his tariff imposition, pending the negotiation of “trade deals” with literally every other country. Consumer confidence is down, but up from lower levels in April and May.

It would be very Trumpian to look at these past few months, and declare victory. Indeed that is one of Trump’s salient qualities. He borrows from the future to be able to declare victory today. This is why he has entered bankruptcy over and over again. Tomorrow does eventually come, and he can’t cover the checks he wrote. But he lives for today.

So Where Are We Now?

The acronym TACO for Trump Always Chickens Out, started apparently on Wall Street, and has gained some purchase in our culture. The basic idea is that Trump is full of bluster, but that he ultimately doesn’t implement the economy crushing policies that he says he will. This meme allows us to live in denial, and act as if Trump is a normal President and will be a normal steward of the economy and the nation.

I think this is self-deception, and that there is nothing normal about Trump, and like a reverse Midas (ironic for a guy who likes gold so much) everything he touches turns to shit. Look at what he is doing.

• He has whipped congress into passing his Big Beautiful Bill, an utter abomination of public policy. Among other things (H/T Steve Beschloss) this bill kicks more than 12 million people off of Medicaid; forces the closing of hundreds of rural hospitals; reduces food assistance for more than 40 million people (including 16 million children and 8 million seniors); destroys nearly 6 million jobs and increases the national debt by at least $3.3 trillion

• What do we get for this? We give the richest Americans and corporations more tax breaks and particularly increase funding for Trump’s mass deportation plan carried out by masked, unaccountable men.

• Notwithstanding claims that he will back off certain industries where immigrant labor is critical, Trump continues to allow ICE to arrest people at their place of business and deport them (with the tacit approval of the Supreme Court) to any random country that will take them.

• These arrests are being carried out, in part, by masked, un-marked men, without warrants or badges, in some cases who are sub-contractors, and not even government agents. In some cases, the arrests include bona fide American citizens.

• He has attacked Iran without legal basis, i.e. Congressional approval, a UN resolution, or anything else.

• He has reduced or withheld weapons promised to Ukraine.

• He has failed to impose sanctions, or really do anything to counter Russian aggression.

• He has given RFK Jr. free rein to undermine public health based on insane pseudo science claims, with the threat of another virus looming.

Trump only chickens out when there are short term consequences that he fears he may have to face. In some of the items above, there may well be short term consequences — ugly ones. But surrounded by idiots and sycophants and possessing limited abilities diminished by age, he doesn’t see, or thinks he can ignore these short term consequences.

What are the Consequences?

As anyone who has seen the John Wick movies knows, actions have consequences. So let’s look at the consequences of Trump’s actions:

Inflation

There are at least two different pressures which will act to raise prices. The first is tariffs. Trump has already imposed significant tariffs and despite his claims that it will be easy to cut deals, a lot of deals remain to be cut. This will disrupt the global supply chain, creating shortages of certain goods, and driving prices up. In addition, to the extent that tariffs remain imposed, those costs will be added to the price of the goods when they are sold in the USA.

Trump seems to think that tariffs will generate revenue for the US government, and that the prices on imported goods will not rise. This is only true if there are credible domestic sources that the importers are competing with. In many, if not most cases, these domestic sources don’t exist, and if the tariffs create incentives for someone to build them, remember that 1. It will take time; and 2. If Trump removes the tariff, they are screwed. Would you invest money relying on Trump’s constancy?

Recession

There are so many things Trump is doing that will contract our economy.

• In response to tariffs we impose, other countries could impose reciprocal tariffs on exported US goods or services. This would make those US exports more expensive and act to reduce sales. Contracting the economy.

• By reducing government spending, Trump is contracting the economy.

• By reducing or eliminating the health insurance of millions of Americans, increasing mortality rates, and forcing expenditures that would have gone to other things, into health care, Trump is redistributing and contracting the economy.

• By massively increasing government debt, Trump increases the supply of that security in the marketplace, at the same time as he decreases the quality of that debt by being an inconsistent steward. Buyers will require a higher interest rate to own this debt. Higher interest rates will contract the economy.

• Throwing government employees out of work will contact the economy. Especially to the extent they were engaged in research that could lead to new inventions. Its like eating your seed corn.

• Reducing the population of the US by closing off immigration, and increasing deportations, will mean less people participating in our economy, acting to contract it.¹

If you are wondering if I am exaggerating my concerns, take a look at this:

The dollar is down over 8% from a year ago, and nearly 15% from six months ago. The charts are basically the same for the British Pound, the Japanese Yen, and the Canadian dollar. Clearly investors are selling US dollars and buying other currencies.

International Chaos

Trump is upending NATO, one of the most successful diplomatic achievements ever. A reasonable argument can be made that NATO members were relying too heavily on US military spending to maintain the peace, but blowing NATO up to achieve greater spending by our allies makes the world less safe, and ignores the benefits we had by being the dominant partner in NATO.

Trump’s trade negotiations with foreign countries are random, and potentially a cover for massive corruption. Is it a coincidence that the Trump organization announced a 1.5 billion dollar golf course project in Vietnam, and the United States government just announced a new trade agreement with Vietnam? I don’t think so.

But really, the potential for the most chaos lies with Iran.

Nobody wants Iran to have the bomb. Indeed, even in Iran, this goal had mixed support. Some elements in Iran felt nuclear capabilities were essential to maintaining Iranian security. As I pointed out previously, nobody is bombing or invading North Korea. Other elements in Iran wanted to have a credible path to a bomb, but use their forbearance as leverage for a diplomatic solution that lifts sanctions.

I have seen nothing that suggests that Iran was suddenly rushing to build a bomb, although Netanyahu says they were. The US intelligence community disagreed with Netanyahu, but Trump says the US intelligence community is wrong. Of course Trump was also negotiating with Iran too, trying to reinstate an agreement similar to the one Obama concluded, which Trump in his first term cancelled. An agreement that by all accounts was keeping Iran further away from the bomb than any military action short of invasion could do.

So… Iran was divided on whether to build a bomb or not. It was enriching but not super-enriching, and not building the trigger mechanism and a few other required pieces. Iran was not fully complying with the agreement Trump pulled out of, but inspectors were still in Iran, even in the underground facility designed to withstand nuclear assault. Regardless, Israel (which does have the bomb) attacks. Israel lures Trump into attacking Iran too, and Trump does! Once! And what did that accomplish?

Apparently a modest amount. Iran was set back, by some reports a few months, according to others longer. Intercepted Iranian conversations suggest the few months assessment is the more accurate one. But the Iranians are not idiots. Iran moved its enriched uranium around to protect it. So Iran still has some concentrated Uranium which could be further concentrated to form a weapon.

And here is where it gets really stupid. Trump claims that the US attacks obliterated Iran’s nuclear capabilities. So there is nothing more we need to do! Iran can rush now to build a bomb, secure that Trump would have to admit failure if he wanted to stop them. Trump never admits failure.

The US attack accomplished exactly the opposite of what we want. We disempowered the side that was arguing in Iran against building a bomb and we showed Iran that negotiations with the US are worthless. The surest way for the current Iranian regime to protect its sovereignty is to rush to build a bomb. Well played!

Iran launched a very calibrated response to the US bombing, which Trump stupidly mocked. It remains to be seen what comes next. If Iran feels like it has nothing left to lose, it could inflict a lot of pain on the world, attacking Saudi oil fields, shutting down the Straits of Hormuz, deploying increasing numbers of terrorist actions. If that isn’t chaos, I don’t know what is.

Domestic Chaos

It is really hard to gauge the scale of public outrage, but it does seem to be building. When does it boil over? When does the combination of losing your health insurance, paying more for basic subsistence, enduring layoffs, having your friends and neighbors carted off by armed men wearing masks, and feeling like the government is being run for the super-rich and nobody else, lay enough tinder that the inevitable spark sets it all ablaze?

I honestly don’t know.

But I worry about it. And I worry what Trump’s response would be. I can imagine him being very violent. I can also imagine him using it as an excuse to cancel elections. And then what happens?

Where is the Opposition?

We are facing very dangerous and chaotic times. Where is the opposition leadership? The recent Democratic primary for NYC mayor is a message that people are fed up and desperate for a change. And yet Minority Leaders Hakeem Jeffries, and Chuck Schumer, both New Yorkers, have yet to endorse the winner, Zohran Mandami. Nor were they able to provide any support or value to Senator Murkowski to keep her from being bought off and vote in favor of the Big Beautiful Bill, or just a few moderate GOP house members who could have derailed it. Instead they seem content to let the pain be inflicted on the American people, and hope the Republicans bear the brunt of the displeasure. I am sorry, but that kind of cynicism doesn’t deserve to be rewarded.

I have said this before, but where is Barack Obama? Where is George W. Bush? How can they justify silence in the face of what is happening to our country. How can they stay on the sidelines when Trump is turning everything to shit?

1. If people were just numbers on a spreadsheet, then logically you could take the fired government employees and put them to work in the jobs that used to be done by people who have been deported. But people aren’t just numbers. on a spreadsheet.