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Culture War Roundup for the week of March 16, 2026

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You lost on trade. Trump did tariffs and nothing bad happens, the economy did as good as before, stocks boomed, and a bunch of tax revenue was created.

We can quote some old dead guy. Or we just did an experiment and have results.

Even if it was true "our flagship policy didn't completely fuck us" isn't really something worth bragging about.

Even if it was true "our flagship policy didn't completely fuck us" isn't really something worth bragging about.

Seems too uncharitable when the original claim also included

and a bunch of tax revenue was created.

Which isn't to say that I agree. The whole tarrifs thing seems like a lot of noise for little good, IMO.

Trump did tariffs

Only partially, Trump pulled back a lot on the effective tariff rate from the ones at the "liberation day" announcement. Yes if you don't do the thing nearly as much as you say you will, the effects won't be as bad as predicted by economists.

Nothing bad happens

Untrue, lots of companies have suffered (especially small businesses like the ones that sued Trump). For example here's a news station interviewing local small businesses in eastern North Carolina

Heck even the Trump admin themselves acknowledged that tariffs were raising prices, because they removed/reduced some of the tariffs on food products in fear higher prices were upsetting people.

The economy did as good as before

So even if this was true, the best you can say is "it changed nothing" for the economy?

stocks boomed

Wait till you see how the US stock market is growing compared to others.. In an economic boom year worldwide, we're being outpaced. The thing keeping us afloat are our tech companies (AI) and healthcare. Things like manufacturing which the tariffs are apparently supposed to help are practically in recession conditions

And a bunch of tax revenue was created.

Yes if you tax businesses, you make tax revenue. No one debated that taxing people makes the government more money. We should start implementing even more taxes, it's free money and has no economic downsides.

IMO us stock market versus rest of the world isn’t a great counter-argument here. It’s mostly been a value stocks versus tech rotation. Low valuation stocks have done well everywhere. Foreign indexes don’t have mag 7 or IT/software which entered the period expensive. If you compare says banks or industrials (bulk of foreign stocks) their far more similar performance.

Wait till you see how the US stock market is growing compared to others.

Can I please get this chart in a version that goes back more than one year?