We’re waking up to this headline: A Devastating Trade Spat With China Shows Few Signs of Abating - The New York Times.
And this one: Apple, Nvidia Score Relief From US Tariffs With Exemptions.
Who saw this coming? Other than every economist, classical liberal, free market conservative, and student of history? (I wrote about the “communism of pelf” back in January, when this chaos and rule by fear and favor was merely a gleam in Donald Trump’s eye.)
Happy Sunday.
On today’s “To the Contrary” Podcast, I’m joined by Amy McGrath and Denver Riggleman to talk about tariffs, tyranny, and whether there is a market for sanity. We also talk about their new center-right/center-left podcast: “Truth in the Barrel”… which you can also watch on YouTube.
Amy and Denver are both military veterans, political junkies, and whiskey lovers who sit on opposite sides of the aisle but have one thing in common: they love the United States of America. “Truth in the Barrel” was born of Amy & Denver’s commitment to country, the Constitution, and a well-curated collection of the world’s finest bourbon.
Happy Sunday
Your daily reminder that you are not the crazy ones.
You may disagree with me from time to time (and I expect you will, because I’m not promising you a safe space here). But I’ll always try to give it to you straight.
We’ve been here since the beginning, so you know we won’t surrender or bend the knee.
To the Contrary is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. (And I’m immensely grateful for your generous support.)
Some highlights of our conversation
Trump’s fixation on the military
Norms vs. laws
The damage Trump is doing…
A few words from our subscribers
Nota Bene
Matt Labash: America Has Become Trump's Battered Wife
Which is why my relative, along with Trumpfluencers, remind me of everything I’ve ever read about battered-woman syndrome. In fact, I just Googled up a checklist from Healthline, and here are some telltale symptoms:
- Denial. The person is unable to accept that they’re being abused, or they justify it as being “just that once.”
- There will be a temporary “honeymoon” period, where the abuser is on their best behavior, luring their partner into thinking that they’re safe and things really will be different.
- Being afraid to leave.
- Be afraid and never know what side of their partner they’ll see that day — a loving partner or an abuser.
- Having frequent bruises or injuries they lie about or can’t explain.
- Believing that if the abuser loves them, it’s OK, and they can change the behavior.
- Abuse occurs, starting the cycle all over again.
But hey, maybe it’ll all work out. Maybe he won’t hit you/us again. Maybe he’ll choose sanity and stability over conflict, turmoil, ego-feeding, emotional violence, and perpetual disruption. But if I were a market player, and that was a commodity future, I would short the hell out of it.
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Walter Olson: In New Orders, Trump Targets Foes of His Stolen-Election Claims | Cato at Liberty Blog
His order against one of these targets, his first-term cybersecurity chief Chris Krebs, also escalates the stakes in a scary way. It orders the Justice Department to investigate Krebs, who vocally and forthrightly defended the integrity of the 2020 election at the time, even though Krebs has not been plausibly linked to any legal offense. (A second order commands that Miles Taylor, a former senior official at the Department of Homeland Security, be investigated.)
Trump’s April 9 revenge order against law firm Susman Godfrey has been widely associated in press accounts with Susman’s role in pressing a series of defamation lawsuits on behalf of client Dominion Voting Systems against right-wing media outlets such as Fox and NewsMax, along with Trump allies, for spreading luridly false claims about Dominion’s supposed involvement in 2020 election fraud. While Trump has thrown around language in earlier penalty orders about law firms’ responsibility for unfounded or vexatious claims, what seems to bother him about Susman’s Dominion work is its success in winning favorable rulings before judges and hefty settlements suggestive of defendants’ very real fear of large adverse verdicts.
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Matt Levine: Safe Havens May Not Be - Bloomberg
And Bloomberg reports that the Retail Industry Leaders Association decided not to bring a lawsuit over the tariffs, “even though the group’s research indicated a legal case had a good chance of succeeding on the merits,” in part because of “the potential challenge of finding law firms willing to bring suits over tariffs in light of Trump’s attacks on some of the biggest names in the legal profession.”
I guess I would summarize the position as “we all agree that the president is doing something that is both illegal and bad for the country, but we are afraid to say that publicly.” Seems bad!
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So You Want to Be a Dissident? | The New Yorker
Now is the time to clean up your life—your digital life and even, perhaps, your personal life. Dissidents describe a pattern: autocrats and their cronies use even the most minor personal scandal to undermine the credibility of activists and weaken their movements. “You have to be a nun or a saint,” a prominent Venezuelan political activist, who asked not to be named, told us. “If someone wants to find dirt on you, they will find it, so give them the least dirt possible.”
That includes deleting old social-media posts and using only trusted encrypted-messaging apps. Sadly, cleaning up might mean swearing off dating apps—or at least going the extra mile to verify that potential suitors are who they say they are. The right-wing activist James O’Keefe has been advertising on Facebook and X for people who will use matchmaking platforms to meet with targets and secretly record them. In January, he nabbed a Biden White House staffer, and last month his former organization, Project Veritas, used a similar technique against a U.S. Education Department worker.
Sunday dogs
I’m just basically their chauffeur.
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