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Culture War Roundup for the week of April 21, 2025

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I think it is obvious now that he has a mild form of dementia.

Scott Alexander wouldn't accept that Biden was senile but it was clear to me early on. It is not professional to diagnose people online, but from the other hand it has to be done for political persons who could cause a lot of harm.

Biden could function because he was surrounded by reasonable people. It does not appear to be the case with Trump. Trump should be removed from the office for reasons of mental incapacity.

  • -15

You might be right, but it sounds like so much special pleading.

Biden could function

Really? It didn't look like that to me. It looked like he couldn't function, and he was surrounded by liars who propped him up and did their best to hide and deny any lapses.

Biden should have been removed for reasons of mental incapacity, and he was forced to abandon his already-won primary nomination when he couldn't hide it any more. Trump isn't as bad as that guy, so recent in our memories, so why should I care now? Applying the standard to Trump is just another way to try to take him down, and not a genuine concern about the mental capacity of the executive.

If Wilson, Reagan, and Biden can finish their terms, I don't see why Trump should be any different, and I'm not willing to entertain talk of dementia as anything other than partisan sour grapes.

Biden should have been removed. I am just saying that even though he wasn't, it didn't seem to be so bad because people who actually made the policy on his behalf were reasonable. Not great but competent.

Maybe the same expectation was with Trump. It doesn't matter how crazy he is if the administration is reasonable. No one believed that absurd tariffs will get implemented etc. In a way, the problem is not with Trump but that he is surrounded by people who are not competent.

No one believed that absurd tariffs will get implemented etc.

Have they actually gotten implemented though? I keep hearing that Trump keeps kicking the ball down the road on them. Which is a pretty classic negotiating tactic - hit people with sticker shock, and then walk it back.

I am still very very suspicious that some of the motivations behind the Tariff Whiplash Phenomenon is Secret Sauce Stuff that will come out in 1 - 40 years. Not confident, just suspicious. (There seem to be other plausible explanations.)

Either way, I don't really think Tariff Whiplash is really good evidence that Trump has dementia (I suspect he has lost a step but isn't suffering from a mental illness if that makes sense).

Have they actually gotten implemented though?

"Currently, the US's 145% tariff rate on goods from China and a 10% baseline rate on all other countries are in effect."

Many communities are freaking out right now as either goods or parts used by US manufacturers have now more than doubled in cost. For individuals there's the additional insanity of a flat minimum of $100 / $200 fee for individual packages where the tariff would fall below that amount, starting in one week from now.

There you go - sort of a silly question from me, sorry, it's just that there's been so much stuff announced and then paused that I haven't been tracking when all of these things were actually for real kicking in (as opposed to being announced. I guess I'm not used to the government working so quickly!)

Anyway, to my point, it's looking like The Latest is that they'll be brought back down, at least a bit, supposedly. Which is, again, pretty classic negotiating. Slap them on, show that You Mean Business, pull back when you get a deal, which...might be happening?

For individuals there's the additional insanity of a flat minimum of $100 / $200 fee for individual packages where the tariff would fall below that amount, starting in one week from now.

I hope this helps reshore domestic light manufacturing. Not sure that it will, but that could be good.

I hope this helps reshore domestic light manufacturing. Not sure that it will, but that could be good.

The problem is that applies to any goods or parts that are imported. Need a $2 component to fix something? That’ll he $100 in one week and $200 starting in June. Ordering a batch of prototype pcbs (something no US manufacturer has capacity / interest in providing)? That’ll be $200 extra. The biggest freakout about the tariffs is in communities dealing with or closely associated with small manufacturing businesses as their materials costs are suddenly doubling or more.

This demonstrates possibly the largest single difference between Chinese and Western manufacturers / vendors. China is chock full of manufacturers who are perfectly happy to handle small quantity orders while Western manufacturers by and large are only willing to deal with major customers.

Ordering a batch of prototype pcbs (something no US manufacturer has capacity / interest in providing)? That’ll be $200 extra.

My man, are you not familiar with OSHPark and DigiKey Red? The bare PCB options there are fairly cheap as long as you can use their standard stackups.

If you need something more complicated and/or populated, there are choices like Advanced Circuits, too. At least in my area, if you look, there are commercial shops that can populate SMT/TH boards. Admittedly, these might be more than $200 above the Shenzen costs today.

Yeah, I'll second OSHPark. They're a little slower than the standard Chinese options like JLC, but the price premium isn't very severe and they've generally been great from a support and quality perspective.