We should probably talk about the madness Trump unleashed this afternoon. As someone on Bluesky said (the actual author is now lost to endless flow of my timeline), the question of whether a nation could more thoroughly punch itself in the groin than the Brits did with Brexit has now been answered with a resounding “Yes.”
I’m completely buried in book stuff–trying to finish a rapid turnaround short work on vaccines while promoting the almost-here tome on the history of germ theory (which has become waaaaaay too timely thanks to RFK Jr.)–if anyone’s in the neighborhood, I’ll be talking at the Oxford (UK) Literary Festival, on Sunday afternoon; love to see any UK Jackals. So I’m not going to add my gloss to the disaster we’re about to enjoy.
Instead, let me give you a random sample of Bluesky reactions as prompts to start the chat here. Have fun inventing invective of the ferocity Terry Pratchett would have placed in the mouths of Commander Vimes et al.
To add some grist to your mills, here’s an excerpt from a note Paul Krugman just posted on his Substack:
But you know that having once claimed that Europe charges tariffs more than 10 times as high as reality, Trump will never drop that claim. I don’t know how many people noticed, but he’s still claiming that we’re subsidizing Canada by $200 billion a year. Aside from the basic mistake of claiming that a Canadian trade surplus means that we’re somehow subsidizing Canada, he’s inflating the actual trade surplus by a factor of three. Many, many people have pointed out the error, but Trump is sticking with it, the same way Musk is sticking with the millions of dead Social Security beneficiaries thing.
If you had any hopes that Trump would step back from the brink, this announcement, between the very high tariff rates and the complete falsehoods about what other countries do, should kill them.
With that, this thread is open–but I rather hope it stays focused on the matter at hand.
*That outcome is now wildly overdetermined, to be sure.
Image: Angelo Bronzino, detail from Venus, Cupid, Folly, and Time, 1540-1545
Tariffs and the End of the American Century*Post + Comments (251)
