zlacker

I wish I knew. Nothing I hear from that crowd makes any actual sense except one thing: they have developed such a seething hatred for more than half of their fellow citizenry that they're willing to destroy the entire country, including themselves, just to hurt them.

But that also makes no real sense. So I don't know.

>>JohnFe+(OP)
> they have developed such a seething hatred for more than half of their fellow citizenry that they're willing to destroy the entire country, including themselves, just to hurt them.

That is the people following (speaking very generally). The leaders are leading people in that direction for a reason.

>>mmooss+T1
Yeah, I agree. But what is that reason?

>>JohnFe+U4
Ruling out money - though domestic companies can cash in from the lack of competition, and it fits the current model of building businesses with large 'moats' so you can enshittify charge rent-extracting prices.

The other usual option is power. I think it's clear that these people will do anything, go to any extreme for power. What is the path from these tarriffs. It's also possible that they made a mistake.

In a different thread I speculated that their plan is to blame their enemies and objects of hatred for the results: >>43575061

But it seems like they need a positive result from this?

>>JohnFe+U4
I'm not sure I buy it, but this is one theory:

https://bsky.app/profile/chrismurphyct.bsky.social/post/3llu...

>>sender+eb
Seems reasonable to me. He'll pick and choose who to give relief to depending on how they bend the knee. It's still going to crash the economy and ruin the country though. In sane times, congress could take the toys away from the executive branch which is obviously abusing its powers. However, we're not in sane times.

>>JohnFe+(OP)
The bloviation on manufacturing is cargo-culting. It's a promise of a better time for an electorate that's being squeezed by ever increasing precarity. It's a rose-coloured version of 1950, when people with a high-school diploma could walk into a giant General Motors factory and get a job that paid enough to raise a family, own a house, and retire at 60 with a pension. Obviously, this was based on the US being a dominant manufacturing power.

(They neglect that what made it the dominant manufacturing power was a war that killed tens of millions and sidelined most other industrial nations, but perhaps that's plan B when this doesn't work)

As for using tarriffs to deliver the factories, they assume the US market is so vast and desirable, that it's worth building plants and full supply chains specifically for it. I'd expect that any firm that believed that had onshored their factories years ago due to plain economics, without a comical tarriff regime to spur it. (I'm thinking of how "foreign" automakers sprinkled plants all over the South making models that largely fit US preferences)

Conversely, I suspect you'll see a lot of firms say "we'll just skip the US entirely" -- the factory you built in Viet Nam or Germany can still sell cheaply to a hundred and fifty countries, and together that adds up to more than even the US can offer.

>>spacem+zn
Congress would need a vet-proof majority to take the toys away now, which is essentially impossible in modern times. The only way this can be resolved in is if SCOTUS rules that the executive does not have the power to tariff like this, and Trump actually stops rather than just ignoring the court order.