Trump's Fake Populism

And rethinking the 10 Commandments

I wanted to pass along my latest piece from The Atlantic on Donald Trump’s screw-the-little-guy economics; and offer a modest suggestion that we might want to re-think this whole Ten Commandments thing.

But as we await the Supreme Court’s long-delayed ruling on presidential immunity, how about some serenity now? What better way to start the weekend than with this actual photo of a Wisconsin sunset (and some dog pictures)?

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Lakes are, of course, all about the boys.

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Flashback: Three dogs. Moses, Auggie, and Pete.

The Flimsy Fraudulence of Trumponomics

“When’s the last time you had a substantive discussion about policy instead of politics?” Brian Klaas wrote back in March. “Everything is now about horse races, political rhetoric, scandals—but rarely about how to solve real problems.”

Because of Trump and the full-blown, profit-seeking news industry embedded within the frenetic pace of American life, the United States is ground zero for the destruction of serious political discourse. We’re dopamine-addled consumers of snippets of information, delivered in digestible sound bites. Everything is BREAKING NEWS, but rarely is there a deep dive about why society is broken—or how to fix it.

So, I felt the need to walk on the wonky side, by taking Trump’s latest musings about tariffs and taxes both seriously and literally. (If you want the wonkiest and deepest dive, you should read The Dispatch’s Scott Lincicome.: “Terrible economics aside,” he writes, “there’s simply no possible way it could work.”)

True. But Trump’s latest brain bubble offers an extraordinary glimpse in the void that is the former president’s mind; and exposes the rank phoniness of his faux populism.

This is what I wrote in Thursday’s Atlantic Daily (where I occasionally fill-in for the irreplaceable Tom Nichols):

Economists are warning that Trump’s reported idea to eliminate the income tax and replace it with massive tariffs on imports would cripple the economy, explode the cost of living, and likely set off a trade war. And because the math doesn’t come close to working, it would also tremendously increase the national debt.

In other words, Trump’s latest notion is both economically and fiscally illiterate. “If a 20yo interviewing for a House internship suggested replacing the income tax with a massive tariff, they’d be laughed out of the interview,” Brian Riedl, a conservative budget expert, wrote on X.

The politics of Trump’s latest scheme are perhaps even worse, because this plan exposes the hypocrisy of his faux populism. Indeed, what’s striking about the idea is just how regressive and non-populist it is. Replacing the income tax with tariffs would result in massive tax cuts for the ultrarich—at the expense of middle and lower-class Americans. Brendan Duke and Ryan Mulholland of the left-leaning Center for American Progress estimate that Trump’s proposal would raise taxes by $8,300 for the middle 20 percent of households, if American consumers end up bearing the full brunt of tariffs on imports.

Working Americans would be hit first by the higher tariffs and then by the inevitable economic fallout as businesses that rely on imports are crushed. Those same workers would also see the downstream effects of the inevitable retaliation from America’s former trading partners, which would likely result in a global trade war.

How would this look? This is a chart compiled by the American Progress Action Fund:

So much for Trump’s insistence that he is the tribune of the forgotten common man.

Even a more modest version of Trumponomics—imposing a 10 percent tax on all imports and a 60 percent tax on all imports from China, without trying to replace the income tax altogether—could result in a $2,500 annual tax increase for the typical family. Duke and Mulholland estimate that this plan would slap a $260 tax on the typical family’s electronics purchases, an $160 tax on its clothing purchases, and a $120 tax on its pharmaceutical-drug purchases. Middle-class families would pay more for gas and oil, along with toys and food. That’s because, as any economist will tell you, a large portion of increased tariffs are ultimately paid by consumers, not by the companies importing the goods. Republicans used to understand this concept, but now they seem desperate to deny it: Anna Kelly, a Republican National Committee spokesperson, recently insisted, “The notion that tariffs are a tax on U.S. consumers is a lie pushed by outsourcers and the Chinese Communist Party.”

This is bullshit on steroids. But then… so is Trump’s whole plan, which relies on completely made-up math.

Abolishing income taxes would create a multitrillion-dollar hole in the federal budget. As The Washington Post’s Catherine Rampell points out, “The entire value of all the goods we import each year is itself about $3 trillion. Not the tariffs, mind you, but the goods themselves.” In order to make up for the lost income-tax revenue, Trump would have to impose a tax of 100 percent on the value of everything we import. In other words, the cost of everything we import from abroad would more than double.

In the real world, this huge new tax would suppress demand for imports, which would in turn drive down the revenue from the Trump tariffs. The result: massive deficits as revenue falls short, even-higher taxes on the remaining imports, and draconian cuts in spending, including the entitlement programs, such as Social Security and Medicare, that Trump has promised (if somewhat inconsistently) to protect.

Then, of course, there is the possibility of a global trade war.

Historians and economists regard the 1930 Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act—which dramatically boosted tariffs on imports—as a disastrous miscalculation that deepened the Great Depression. Trump’s tariff tax is Smoot-Hawley with its hair on fire.

Trump seems to have heard some of this criticism, but once again demonstrated his extraordinary ability to unlearn or ignore the lessons of history.

My exit take:

All of this might explain the skepticism of the otherwise friendly CEOs who talked to Trump at a recent meeting of the Business Roundtable. “Trump doesn’t know what he’s talking about,” one CEO reportedly said; the CEO reportedly added that Trump failed to explain how he planned to implement his policies. Some of the executives apparently seemed surprised by the realization that the former president’s economic ideas were nonsense.

Maybe they should start paying closer attention. But so should Trump’s base. Despite Trump’s insistence that he is the tribune of the forgotten common man, the former president’s economic incoherence could prove devastating to the very voters he claims to champion.

You can read the whole thing here. (And you should definitely subscribe.)

Re-thinking the 10 Commandments: A modest proposal

Of course, what Louisiana just did is unconstitutional. Here’s David French: “Thou Shalt Not Post the Ten Commandments in the Classroom.”

There is a certain irony in the bravado about the Ten Commandments from Gov. Jeff Landry of Louisiana. On Saturday he told attendees at a Republican fund-raiser, “I can’t wait to be sued.” Clearly, he knows that the Supreme Court previously ruled against mandatory displays of the Ten Commandments in the classroom. In a 1980 case, Stone v. Graham, the Supreme Court struck down a Kentucky law that required the posting of the Ten Commandments, purchased through private donations, in every classroom in the state.

A Louisiana law requiring the display of the Ten Commandments in every public classroom in the state defies this precedent, so, yes, the state will be sued.

And, yes, the state will lose. (BTW, Kevin Kruse has a fantastic newsletter on the Hollywood roots of the push to post the commandments, It’s very much worth your time.)

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Let me, however, offer a contrarian thought, because I doubt that many of the most strenuous advocates of the Commandments — including the Golden MAGA Calf Himself — have actually read them.

I mention this because some of the fine print in the Mosaic injunctions are more than a bit awkward for TrumpWorld. There is the bit about coveting your neighbor’s wife; the prohibition against lying and fraud. And the rather clear ban on having other gods before God. In other words, a bunch of things that MAGA would find problematic.

Thou shalt not murder. [Or hang the vice president.]

Thou shalt not commit adultery. [With porn stars or others.]

Thou shalt not steal. [Or commit massive fraud.]

 Thou shalt not testify or bear false witness against your neighbor. [Self-explanatory.]

Thou shalt not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, nor his male servant, nor his female servant… [See above.]

As I said: Awkward. My modest suggestion:

Forget posting them in schools.

Instead, lets require that the Commandments be posted at all local GOP offices.

And read aloud at the RNC.

Imagine hearing Trump Himself recite them at Thursday’s debate.

I could live with that requirement.

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BONUS: John Dickerson raises a great question:

Nota Bene

Nicholas Grossman has a piece that is after our own heart: Election 2024 Will Be Intense—Take A Break This Summer If You Can

The campaign will be intense, and no matter the electoral outcome, the aftermath probably won’t be smooth. So if you follow American politics and world events, if consuming the news is a regular part of your day, and especially if you participate in online discourse—and if you’re reading this, there’s a good chance you do—then try to find some time this summer to take a break.

I just did, and highly recommend it.

This is the fourth year I’ve cut myself off for about two weeks. I check email—deleting any political newsletter without clicking—but never open social media. Notifications are off. I keep up with sports and tv/movies, but avoid any news or commentary website. I unsubscribe from political podcasts, so I don’t automatically download new episodes. It takes a couple of days of willfully not checking, then settles into a period of ignorance-is-bliss. 

I look at my phone less. I’m more present, my thoughts less divided. Life feels slower, and less demanding. I do things I’ve been meaning to, like home projects, and things I usually don’t have time for, like reading fiction. 

BONUS: Pete!