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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.
I don't like trump because he's made my situation materially worse and is likely to continue to do so. I don't like trump because he profits the outgroup at the expense of the ingroup. I don't like trump because I'm ideologically and morally opposed to his positions. I don't like trump because I think he is, personally, a very immoral individual.
In principle, you could convince me that any particular complaint is overblown. There are plenty of immoral, harmful, outgroup people I don't feel nearly the vitriol for. But Trump is the perfect storm; He's not just a villain, he's a villain that gratuitously kicks puppies. Sure, the media environment contributes to what you call "terror", but that's strictly adaptive. Everyone on my "side" would agree, sober-minded, that Trump is the single most important political figure to oppose. Adding a component of emotional motivation increases the time and pleasure in doing so. Consider any ideological cause leftists and liberals are interested in: creedal citizenship, wealth redistribution, climate change, alphabet people, etcetera. Assuming conflict theory, it's obvious that "Depose Donald Trump" is the first step in promoting any of them. The only reason to do anything else is if you believe in mistake theory instead-- but Donald Trump is congenitally incapable of admitting mistakes (except in the "fifty stalins" sense) which means any attempt to find common ground just gets ran over by his conflict theory instead.
But how? Unless you are a rulebreaker or someone who gets money from the government for non-poverty or oldness related reasons you cant have been. If you are amongst the rulebreakers, certainly you knew you were, right? The rules as written are much harsher than the Trump rules. The third option is tariffs.
If you are a government subsidy for non-poverty reasons-er, well that could always have ended at any time right? Was your work nonpartisan? Like were you researching how to grow trees with wood 2x as strong in 1/18 the time? Or were you doing something else?
The tariff affected I see and understand. Its a rapid change in the business environment, and those always suck. If you can show me an approximately equal amount of outrage about the passage and implementation of Obamacare you are certified fresh to complain about the Trump tariffs.
Tarrifs and fewer immigrants increase cost of living. Plus he's personally annoying, and that counts.
Were you born after 2008? because people were definitely Big Mad. The outrage reduced over time, but only because Obamacare is actually decent policy. (And if you want to argue that, explain why even Trump still hadn't gotten rid of it.)
Anyways, if you want to make a 1-to-1 comparison the outrage about Obamacare is definitely bigger than the outrage over tarrifs. Immigration and healthcare are flamewar lightning rods, but barely anyone actually cares to discuss trade policy.
I'm a government contractor. I believe my work is relatively nonpartisan, though if I doxxed myself maybe you would find a reason to disagree. But apparently the trump administration doesn't, because the contract I'm on got renewed... just, after a whole lot of time-and-money-wasting nonsense.
Not generally, from you. Its not good policy at all. Medicaid should be abandoned not expanded. Implementing the mandate and coverage on preexisting conditions has caused a cost spiral in the personal/family health insurance market. Trump hasn't gotten rid of it because 1) He has never had close to the votes; 2) He doesn't really care, its not his issue; and 3) Taking away benefits causes farm more wailing than imposing diffused and hidden costs. The cost to the economy of Obamacare is equivalent of probably a 100% tariff on all goods in perpetuity.
Okay, so your argument is that:
I have two counterarguments.
#1: Narrow
Point #2 is wrong. Obamacare is good. Therefore 3 and 4 are wrong, and there's no contradiction.
#2: Broad
Even if I were to admit that obamacare was bad, that would not be sufficient to demonstrate a contradiction in my position, because my position rests on the particular degree of trump's badness, and also on the utility of opposing him.
Consider this non-political example:
Bob is clearly worse than Jim, no question. But it would be more rational for me to be emotionally motivated to oppose Jim. No amount of anger and hatred would reverse bob's actions, or even be particularly likely to deter future Bobs. But the right emotional reaction to seeing Jim about to kick a puppy might let me intervene in time to stop him, and perhaps even deter future puppy-kickers from doing what they want.
Consider this second example:
Jim is clearly bad. But if Jim is willing to get angry with me about Joe, it's politically expedient for me to join Jim in his anger so we can intervene against Joe together than to be angry at Jim first.
So you like Obamacare and dislike tariffs. Thats fine. Whats the cost imposing measure that was implemented before tariffs that you dislike as much?
Zoning laws. I hate, hate, hate them. They're also mostly a Democrat thing, so there's an example of me being appropriately mad at "my side" for acting against my interests.
Aside from that--
Other tariffs. Excessive FDA regulatory burden. The existence of patent law. The Jones Act.
I could go on.
Zoning laws are more bipartisan than you let on, and, given that most local governments are saddled with many state and federal mandates, are unfortunately necessary. In a more libertarian world you might be right, but I can't say I've ever lived in that world.
But consider this, town of 20k people with mostly or all high income single family units plus a quaint downtown. Now, the school district is "awesome" (in other words it contains children who are intelligent and nonviolent/disruptive). Some developer decides to knock down 10 houses and build a 40 story slum. This just absolutely blows up the finances for the town. They now need a whole new plumbing system, double the cops, and, most expensively, their school now sucks. These kids pay way less per capita in taxes, plus they run around stabbing other kids. Libertarianism has many good aspects, but far too many on that side dont understand you need to do things in order. You cant have no zoning laws without repealing the CRA and eliminating the public school system. It just doesn't make sense.
Tariffs are another similar case. When you think about it, it is objectively unfair to American workers that we have the FDA, EPA, NLRB, OSHA, etc and then they have to compete against someone who can burn coal and dump arsenic into rivers.
I'd be very interested in your patent law take. I've worked in it extensively and it mostly works well outside of pharmaceuticals and a few "innovative" patent categories (which IMO the patent acts as written shouldn't ever have applied to. To get an idea of those categories of what IMO are fake/illegal patent categories see Bilski v. Kappos, Mayo v. Prometheus, and Alice Corp.
I don't actually think I, or anyone actually knows what the Jones act does. It outwardly seems fairly stupid.
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