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Notes -
I was recently going through the Archive of Astral Codex Ten content and reread Scott’s post “The Populist Right Must Own Tariffs”. Rereading this post I had a few thoughts: 1) this is the most nakedly partisan Scott-post I can remember, 2) this is the most unqualifiedly confident opinion about the outcome of a political policy I’ve seen Scott express, 3) “Tariffs” seem like an issue from a lifetime ago when it has been less than a year since they were the number one news story.
As someone who is essentially a Trump loyalist/plan-truster, Trump II has been hard to follow. The tariffs, which Econ 101 would tell you are a disastrous idea, and were hard to rationalize even as a Trump supporter, seem to have had little noticeable effect. DOGE, despite fulfilling the boomercon dream of putting a real “businessman” in charge of reforming Washington, was fleeting if not an outright failure. Despite closing the border and significant political capital expended on deporting illegal immigrants, sentiment on the economy is poor, and anecdotally the “Great Replacement” seems to be proceeding at the same pace it was before. The right-wing pundit sphere has largely turned on Trump and anti-Israel sentiment has entered the mainstream.
My question is - is this all a repudiation of the internet-right’s political project? Would Trump be popular if not for the Iran war? Does the Trumpian paradigm have any hope of continuing post midterms?
DOGE was a great illustration of how the world actually works. Elon's boys effortlessly pushed their way past the weather nerds at NOAA, but they sure as hell didn't try that at CIA or the Pentagon, despite the billions vanishing into thin air at those two places. The whole project was a way to punish the faction of Trump's enemies that would respond to bullying with angry op-eds, not the ones that would actually kill him if he ever came after them. And the whole thing fell apart when Elon the extreme autist actually thought he was there to "transform Washington", lol.
Anyway, MAGA supporters are finding out (just like all of Trump's previous business partners and political allies) that Trump only looks out for Trump. He's now in full legacy mode. He couldn't give a fuck less what his supporters in Oklahoma are paying for gas and groceries when he could be the guy that makes Cuba a new US territory.
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