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I've been thinking about why some people are terrified of Trump while others, like me, are more indifferent. I mostly tune out Trump news because I assume much of it involves scare tactics or misleading framing by his detractors. When my wife brings up concerns about his supposedly authoritarian actions, my general response is that if what he's doing is illegal, the governmental process will handle it - and if it's legal, then that's how the system is supposed to work. I have faith that our institutions have the checks and balances to deal with any presidential overreach appropriately.
This reminded me of a mirror situation during 2020-2021 with the BLM movement, where our positions were reversed. I was deeply concerned about social media mobs pressuring corporations, governments, and individuals to conform under threat of job loss, boycotts, and riots, while my wife thought these social pressures were justified and would naturally self-correct if they went too far. The key difference I see is that the government has built-in checks and balances designed to prevent abuse of power, while social movements and mob pressure operate without those same institutional restraints. It seems like we each trust different institutional mechanisms, but I can't help but think that formal governmental processes with built-in restraints are more reliable than grassroots social pressure that operates without those same safeguards. Furthermore, the media seems incentivized to amplify fear about Trump but not about grassroots social movements - Trump generates clicks and outrage regardless of which side you're on, while criticizing social movements risks alienating the platforms' own user base and advertiser-friendly demographics.
There needs to be a differentiation between the regime and then nation. The country can continue on with a new regime, the regime can't survive without the nation. Lots of countries have changed regime. The US can survive with a different form of government.
The US needs to avoid going bankrupt. It needs to avoid being over-run by migrants. The US should worry less about institutional restraints and realize that the US needs to reform radically to survive. The checks and balances arguments are like people in Russia in 1912 and France in 1785 talking about the need to respect the old ways. If France had been able to overcome people worrying about formal procedures in 1785 they could very well have avoided the revolution.
The US won't be able to solve its debt crisis if all procedures and checks and balances have to be followed.
Ok but Trump is not addressing the debt crisis, he's giving tax breaks that far exceed any cuts and hamstrining our industries with hare brained tariff schemes while demonstrating no understand of economics whatsoever. The old ways made us the richest nation earth has ever seen. I certainly favor some reforms, and even some stuff the Trump admin has done, but if your overriding concern is the budget then Trump is not using his smashing of norms to actually address that.
Be that as it may, the literal only cuts that would make a difference would have to be to entitlements. Slice the defense budget to ZERO and it wouldn't actually fix the issue.
And reducing entitlements is the political equivalent of navigating a field of nuclear landmines.
And for this same reason, raising taxes would directly imply taking money from productive sectors of the economy to give to the nonproductive sectors. Which is not exactly a formula for growth.
So if you think Trump is not doing enough, please, PLEASE specify exactly which programs he should start making drastic cuts to, and then go and explain to the voters who will see their benefits reduced why this is important and necessary and they SHOULDN'T revolt at the ballot box.
Or, alternatively, explain to the various taxpayers why THEY should be on the hook for programs they generally don't receive a direct benefit from.
Simple problem to solve, I'm sure.
(Incidentally, I suspect that part of the plan RE: Tariffs is to help spread around the tax burden in a way that most Americans won't see as a direct extraction from their wallet, so as to avoid the outrage that would come with congress passing an actual income tax hike)
This is just a motte and bailey, right?
Bailey: The US needs to avoid going bankrupt. We (well, not we, since functor is not an American) need Trump to take extraordinary measures to achieve this and should trust the plan.
Counter: Trump is only making the debt crisis worse.
Motte: It's actually impossible to address the debt crisis.
Wait a minute, why are we trusting the plan again?
You won't find me saying "Trust the plan" at any point.
I do think Trump acts more strategically than virutally any of his detractors give him credit for, though.
But if the complaint is that Trump hasn't taken a chainsaw to entitlements (which, for example, Milei has actually done in Argentina! Well okay, stopping them from increasing is not quite the same thing), stating:
and
I think its worth considering that Trump may be aware of the fact that this current situation is unsustainable AND that making the needed cuts is going to be exceptionally politically unpopular, and that his ultimate approach to addressing this might be something people haven't considered yet.
Otherwise, what exactly do you think his motivations are? Just ignore the debt issue entirely and try to kick the can until he leaves office in a few years? I'm trying to understand the mindset that suggests that Trump acts at semi-random or that he is SOLELY self-interested and doesn't have any goal other than wealth accumulation.
I mean, yeah, you're not saying "trust the plan", you're merely saying "it's worth considering if we should trust the plan". I don't know that this is a major distinction.
What is the behavior of Trump we would expect to see in the world where:
He has a secret weapon for addressing the debt crisis, versus
He has no secret weapon
And does the Trump of our reality behave more similarly to Trump 1 or Trump 2? Well, the most basic graph would suggest Trump 2. Yes, perhaps there are some epicycles that can be added, but where's the payoff? Shall we make a bet about what this graph is going to look like when Trump leaves office and see which one of our theories is a better predictor of reality?
I don't know that his goal is wealth accumulation, I suspect he has already accumulated enough, or at least, it's not his primary goal. I think Trump's primary goal is something like status. He wants people to think that he's the best, that he's the Big Guy. That's why so much of his politics seem to revolve around the respect and deference that he receives, or does not receive, from the people at the other end of the table ("did you say, 'thank you, Mr President'?"). I don't think that the debt crisis is that important to him, and kicking that particular can down the road is a time honored bipartisan tradition at this point. Why not him too?
I would narrow it to "Consider that perhaps a plan exists rather than think he's flailing around and screwing with things for no reason." You can't trust OR distrust the plan if you don't think there's one in the first place. If you don't think there's a plan, then what exactly are we seeing? And why does it often seem to work out for him?
There is no 'secret weapon.' You can either reduce spending, or increase tax revenues... or both.
Reducing spending is a minefield. Increasing tax revenues can work via either economic growth or strategic tax increases (see the Laffer curve for why you might not want to push this very far).
I'm guessing that he's aiming/hoping for unleashed economic growth AND a combination of very gradual tax increases (especially indirect ones) and some monetization of the debt, which is why he's hammering away at the Federal Reserve right now, hoping to get them to reduce interest rates. IF he's going to propose spending cuts, I'd guess that comes after the midterms... which explains why he's expending so much capital to shore up more republican seats (see the current redistricting fight, and preventing mail-in voting and other election fraud issues) in 2026.
If he has any 'secret weapon' at all, it is that he can perhaps convince people to accept a series of individual steps that all seem odd on their own but push us to a 'better' equilibrium in the long run. I think that is EXPLICITLY his goal with negotiating new trade deals that force other countries to reduce tariffs on the U.S.... which can assist with that 'unleashed economic growth' point, up there.
You know, I agree there's a narcissism in what he does. But I don't think he takes himself NEARLY so seriously as you're contending here. Personally, I think he really, genuinely enjoys 'doing deals' and almost everything else about his personality is in service of his negotiation tactics when trying to make such deals happen. "Did you say thank you" is a tactic for putting the other party on the defensive by reminding them how much they've already gotten.
Like, what 'status' did it win him to go walking along the Roof of the White House and to scream at reporters from 100 yards away?. I pretty much believe his explanation that he was just surveying things to help plan out his White House expansions. Sometimes he just does things because... he can.
Talking about Trump doing things for "no reason" is basically a strawman of the anti-Trump position. If I ended up in a situation where I found myself trying to land a 747, I wouldn't be doing things for "no reason" in the cockpit, but it would be a mistake to think that I had a coherent plan to land the plane except to the extent that I'm aware that landing the plane requires reducing speed and reducing altitude.
And as I mentioned, it's not a given that Trump is actually trying to land the plane at all. He may be content to let the next guy try to land it instead.
Very astute, and this ties in to your final point. "The plan," to the extent that it exists, is mostly around Trump increasing his status and self image rather than helping the country. And I think that works perfectly - Trump is certainly better off than he was before he took office. Is the country? Not so sure about that.
Yeah, sure, everyone loves economic growth, or at least, they say they do. However, the problem is that not every policy actually increases economic growth, and for people like Trump who have a multi-decade bee in their bonnet about certain policies (like tariffs), it's implementing the policy that's the focus rather than achieving economic growth.
Let's get down to brass tacks here. Do you actually think that Trump is going to make a dent in the debt crisis? Or is this all just playing devil's advocate? Because if you really do think that he's going to make an impact, I'm much less interested in discussing the 4D chess moves that may or may not suddenly come down the pipe without warning and much more interested in putting down some actual predictions about the debt to GDP ratio and seeing who's right in three years, because I don't think that either of us is going to convince the other.
And if you don't actually believe, then this whole conversation is pointless.
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