Today’s headline in the New York Times posits that Donald Trump is ignoring the effects of his incoherent tariff policies on the economy. This is simply untrue. Trump is watching the effects of his destabilizing and downward trending economic policies with relish. Everything he has done is with the intention of destabilizing and wrecking traditional global and American economic institutions, not in ignorance or inattention to their decline.
We may not understand fully to what end Trump would so damage the economy, but I think we could draw a fair conclusion looking at, among a thousand other indicators, the memecoin-dinner and Project 2025. Altogether, Trump's policies suggest not so much ignorance of destructive effects but overt intention to damage and destroy the institutional architecture of American society for personal gain while cult-ivating the political support of Christians and billionaires.
We assume, and the headline reinforces our comforting belief, that we still live in a normal world where even if he seems wildly misguided or ignorant, our institutions still hold sway; the implication being that Trump will pay for his foolish ignorance. Nothing could be further from the truth.
It's not Trump who is ignoring things.
It's us.
I actually don't think of Trump as dumb. Not that he's brilliant, but he's so different from us, he's wired so differently, I just don't think we know how to assess his intelligence. If you look at his aptitude for doing things that piss his detractors off, you might see it as genius. He's alien for sure.
It’s petrifying and our only hope is the midterms or???