Trump’s Tariffs Target Top Three Sources of U.S. Imports
This is not incompetence. It’s an attack. Creating economic chaos is fundamental to the authoritarian playbook.
Day: November 26, 2024
After Running against High Prices, Trump Warns Americans That He’ll Raise Prices Across the Board The chaos is the point
In Shock Doctrine, her seminal work on the rise of authoritarnism in the contemporary world, Naomi Klein shows how fascists undermine democracies in order to replace them with authoritarian states by creating and exploiting economic chaos. In the disruptions that ensue, they seize power.
In advance of his inauguration next month, Trump is saying plainly that he is very intentionally bringing economic chaos on day one. As Maya Angelou said, “When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time. People know themselves much better than you do.”
Salon.com: Donald Trump, who won in part due to inflation that peaked two years ago, campaigned on a policy of making everything from vegetables to televisions more expensive, suggesting a plurality of voters either did not understand tariffs — and the rippling economic impact of raising taxes on imported goods — or simply did not believe the Republican candidate would follow through.
In a Monday evening post on Truth Social, the president-elect reaffirmed that yeah, he’s serious.
