When the Trump administration was tearing apart families, most of corporate America said nothing. When Trump supported white supremacists, most of corporate America said nothing. When Trump made clear everyone was either with him or against him, most of corporate America flattered and bowed like 18th-century French courtiers.
Now that Trump is carrying through his threats of tariffs and seems unfazed by the possibility of an outright trade war — “Holy shit! The man is ignorant, autocratic and quite possibly crazy! Somebody do something!” Sorry you’re late to the party, boys, but you have some serious pain to endure if you want to catch up.
I’m not sure they can take it, considering how they’ve blanched at the example His Nibs is making of Harley-Davidson, which deserves all it’s getting for hugging him back. Corporate America is like the torture victim who starts talking as soon as he sees the washcloth and water bottle. My favorite part of his idiotic tweet against the company this morning was that he cited its 7% decline in sales in 2017 as evidence that its popularity declined this week. And we thought the last GOP president was unedumacated.
What changed the hive mind of the business tycoon branch of the GOP? The fact that, as Paul Krugman notes, even the “winners” of the tariff fights would face serious disruption to their businesses, meaning there’s no upside here in real-world terms — even the people he’s supposedly trying to help would be hurt.
I’m paying no attention to the game show Trump is making of choosing a Supreme Court justice, but it appears the existence of a short list has given the liberal opposition lots of time to prepare for the confirmation fight. That’s because I assumed from the moment of the Kennedy announcement that the seat was lost. Democratic opposition amounts to a show for the base, which needs the fight for morale-building reasons.
The centrist rot that has descended upon Delaware under Democratic Party rule is not unique — in fact, it’s not even the worst example of what happens when “Democrats” decide conservatism is where the money is. Up in Rhode Island, the state Democratic Party endorsed a Trump-supporting kook over an incumbent progressive lawmaker, apparently because she said on the radio that an “insane amount of drinking” went on in the statehouse. Well worth reading for a reminder that it’s not just Delaware where the Democratic Party has not been the answer.