Trump is his own biggest threat

Although Republicans and Democrats have few things in common, there’s one American universal: we don’t like when you mess with our money. After Donald Trump’s erratic tariff tantrums have sent markets lurching, who knows how much stocks will have spiked or tanked between the typing of this paragraph and it seeing print. Some 62 percent of Americans own stock; unsurprisingly, I do, too. A believer in the joys of denial, I’ve refused to even peek at my portfolio since the President’s “Liberation Day.” I guess not worrying my pretty head about my finances constitutes liberation of a kind.

While never a Trumpster, I found the initial weeks of the 47th presidency exhilarating. No more racial preferences in the military, the federal government or universities that receive federal funds. Yes! Finally, aggressive prosecution of immigration law, with the flow of illegal aliens slowed to a trickle. Yay! Cutting wasteful and wokeful spending. Awesome! Pushing Europe to pay more for its own defense. Fine! Men banned from women’s sports. About time! It’s official: there are only two sexes. Shouldn’t really have to announce what we all know from the age of two, but apparently we do – so good show! The end of ineffectual, self-destructive net-zero policies when 80 percent of the world still runs on fossil fuels. Effing fabulous! I’m even keen on being able to buy higher-volume shower nozzles, which you wouldn’t think should require presidential intervention in the Land of the Free.

Yet all the above relies on flimsy executive orders, lazy and monarchical edicts that a Democratic president could instantly reverse four years from now. The economic turmoil Trump has unleashed just increased by a good measure the likelihood that Trump’s opposition wins in 2028, too. What a gift to a party I’d rather stayed far longer in the wilderness to learn its lesson (careen left, fall off edge of Earth).

Trump will only effect a serious cultural about-face if he nails these policies through legislation. With small majorities in Congress, he enjoys a narrow window in which to make lasting changes before the midterms, when this economic seasickness could give the Dems a massive edge. If nothing else, ostensibly negotiating trade deals with 75 countries all at once will distract the administration from consolidating its position on other issues. Even in the form of executive orders, too, these new policies need policing. Universities still employing racial preferences in hiring and admissions must be brought to book. Laws are only real when they’re enforced (see: immigration).

In sum, I’m disappointed, anxious and irked. I desperately want us to bury Woke World deep under the sea like a depraved Atlantis. That opportunity could now be slipping away.

Even hardcore Trumpophiles won’t long forgive logging on to an Amazon.com where compressors, toolkits, nappies, toys and food storage containers are all scarce and exorbitant. They won’t forgive prices at Walmart having soared. They won’t forgive the devastation of their pensions. And if they at last decide to take that holiday of a lifetime, they won’t fancy sky-high foreign hotel prices, either – for if a strong dollar has its problems, they’re nothing in comparison with the problems of a worthless dollar. By indulging his infatuation with tariffs, Trump imperils his political support for accomplishing anything at all.

When researching my economic dystopia novel of 2016, The Mandibles, I came to appreciate that the workings of international finance are so complicated that the system really shouldn’t work at all. (Consider how many separate transactions are entailed in the purchase of a single product from Amazon. It dizzies the mind.) The more complex a system, the more prone to collapse. As an avalanche can be triggered by one rolling pebble, a small misjudgment can send a complex system into meltdown.

But this isn’t a small misjudgment. Leaving aside Trump’s 10 percent worldwide tariff and all the “reciprocal” tariffs on hold for 90 days, a 145 percent tariff on China alone is no pebble. By virtually halving the country’s trade with the US overnight, Trump has ignited a bundle of dynamite. Within days, hundreds of container ships started clogging foreign ports. Whether or not Trump thinks other countries’ trade policies are fair, he’s demonstrated a willingness to risk blowing up the international economy – also known as the whole world.

Reading up for The Mandibles, I also came to appreciate that economics is closer to religion than math. Our swapping of goods for money relies on faith. Currency is a belief system, and unless the congregation concurs that dollars or pounds have value, they’re merely colorful paper or arbitrary digits on screen. Well, Liberation Day has undermined faith – in the US government, in the dollar and in the President himself.

The language of finance is emotional: trust, confidence, exuberance, panic. Economic pollsters ask consumers how they feel about the future because expectation can be self-fulfilling. Wall Street’s most crucial gauge is its fear index. The past week or so has lowered economic confidence and petrified the bejesus out of everybody.

Before this wrecking ball, the American economy was doing better than most, and “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” is a truism for good reason. Trust by its nature – in the competence of government, in the functionality of complicated doings most of us don’t entirely understand, in the viability of money, in the certainty that people and countries will pay their debts – takes a long time to build and five minutes to implode. That’s the case with all destruction: it’s comparatively easy. The fiendish ingenuity of the 9/11 hijackers still couldn’t hold a candle to the engineering genius that built the World Trade Center to begin with. Trust in the creditworthiness of the United States was hard to build; it’s easy to destroy.

So even if our economies steady in the end – don’t count on it – the famously “disruptive” President is being cavalier, like a guy who borrows the family motor only to crash the car. He’s both threatening to stall his commendable initiatives and endangering nothing less than the means by which his compatriots survive.