On Tuesday, March 4th Trump imposed tariffs on Mexico, Canada and upped the tariffs on China. After that, the stock market fell, losing all of the gains since Trump got elected.
U.S. stocks tumbled Monday and wiped out even more of their gains since President Donald Trump ’s election in November, after he said that tariffs announced earlier on Canada and Mexico would take effect within hours.
The S&P 500 dropped 1.8% after Trump said there was “no room left” for negotiations that could lower the tariffs set to begin Tuesday for imports from Canada and Mexico. Trump had already delayed the tariffs once before to allow more time for talks.
Trump’s announcement dashed hopes on Wall Street that he would choose a less painful path for global trade, and it followed the latest warning signal on the U.S. economy’s strength. Monday’s loss shaved the S&P 500’s gain since Election Day down to just over 1% from a peak of more than 6%. That rally had been built largely on hopes for policies from Trump that would strengthen the U.S. economy and businesses. [Politico Playbook]
WALL STREET JOURNAL CALLS TRUMP DUMB
Trump had threatened tariffs would begin on goods from Canada, Mexico and China starting Tuesday, March 4th. Many people in the financial world told themselves Trump was just setting up a way to make a deal. They claimed he would reconsider. However, despite warnings that he could tank the economy by doing this, Trump on Monday said that he would impose heavy tariffs anyhow. Right after Trump said that, the stock market fell on Monday. The Wall Street Journal called him dumb.
Trump was elected by Americans to make their economic situations better.
He is doing the opposite.
Here is what the Wall Street Journal had to say:
President Trump likes to cite the stock market when it’s rising as a sign of his policy success, so what does he think about Monday’s plunge? The Dow Jones Industrial Average took a 650-point header after he announced that he’ll hit Mexico and Canada on Tuesday with 25% tariffs.
Mr. Trump said at the White House there was “no room left” to negotiate with the two American trade treaty partners. Some of his smarter advisers have been hoping he’d start renegotiating the USMCA and delay the tariffs. But Mr. Trump wants tariffs for their own sake, which he says will usher in a new golden age.
We’ve courted Mr. Trump’s ire by calling the Mexico and Canada levies the “dumbest” in history, and we may have understated the point. Mr. Trump is whacking friends, not adversaries. His taxes will hit every cross-border transaction, and the North American vehicle market is so interconnected that some cars cross a border as many as eight times as they’re assembled. [Wall Street Journal]
PRO-DEMOCRACY FORCES RAMPING UP
It can feel like Trump and the right-wing MAGA movement he leads is growing stronger, but that is what they want you to think. It doesn’t mean that is true. The right-wing has a huge megaphone which has created a right-wing swamp and echo chamber on social media. Those right-wing voices dominate social media with heavy pro-MAGA content and lighter MAGA adjacent content that fully eclipses the pro-democracy content online.
Nonetheless, there are some indications that Americans are slowly but surely waking up to the huge amount of damage Trump and Musk are doing to them, the people of our country and to a world order that kept us safe.
Let’s start with the reaction to that back alley hit job on Zelensky in the Awful Office by Trump and JD Vance. It got a lot of Americans mad at Trump.
This was NOT what Americans voted for when they cast their ballot for cheaper egg prices, safe streets and a well policed southern border.
In the most recent Maris/PBS poll, Trump is underwater in his approval ratings.
In this latest poll, 56 percent of Americans say the president is rushing to make change without considering the impact of his decisions. That includes two-thirds of independents and 11 percent of Trump voters. Another 43 percent of Americans believe the president is doing what needs to be done to get the government on track.
Trump and Vance attacked Zelensky for failing to thank Trump enough, for not wearing a suit to meet with the president (has anyone checked out what Elon Musk is wearing every day in the Oval Office?) and for daring to criticize Putin.
Let’s set the record straight on that.
Zelensky has thanked Americans many times. He thanked Biden and Trump hundreds of times for the help the US has provided his country as well as for our global defense of democracy. But what Zelensky was wearing and whether he had thanked Trump enough was not the real point. Trump and Vance have been pushing an alternate reality in which Ukraine is to blame for the war which is a bald faced lie. It was Russia that invaded Ukraine, bombed its buildings and kidnapped Ukrainian children. There is no way Zelensky could ever accept this Russified version of reality not only because it is absolutely not true, but because it would be the death of Ukraine and the Ukrainian culture not to mention Zelensky’s own likely death as well.
Zelensky understood that the hit job reality TV moment in the Oval Office would shock Europe and help them rally around his effort. Ukraine is the Russian gateway drug to the conquest of the rest of Europe. European countries need to protect Ukraine because Trump is selling out Ukraine. Russia is an aggressive country that is likely to try to invade other European countries if they can get away with their war on Ukraine. If Europe wants to survive, those democracies have to step up their support for Ukraine. Europe and Canada have responded by stepping up to take over the peace process.
Now we know for a fact- and maybe it’s good that it’s finally out in the open: Trump is all in with Putin. Some day we will know why. Is there a pee pee tape? Does Trump want a Trump Tower in Moscow? Is Putin a father figure for Trump that Trump admires and wants to emulate? Or maybe, just maybe, Trump is a Russian asset that Putin hand picked to become president to destroy American democracy. You know, whether or not Trump is a Russian asset doesn’t matter. He is doing everything a Russian asset would do to satisfy Putin. Who cares if he is or is not a bona fide Russian spy. He is definitely Putin’s puppet.
Here are some of the actions he has taken to help Russia:
Trump has removed the kleptocapture unit that used to monitor Russian cyber attack efforts. Trump wants Russia to be allowed back in the G-7. Trump is removing sanctions on Russia. Trump is refusing to supply further aid to Ukraine even assistance that was approved by congress- Trump stopped it anyhow.
Do Americans buy this upside down version of reality they are getting from Trump and his administration? Are Americans finally realizing that Trump is remaking our country into an oligarchy and is Putin’s lapdog? Will Americans reject this attack on our country from within?
THE BEGINNINGS OF RESISTANCE, OPPOSITION AND BACKLASH
Not sure what to call it, but what we are seeing are protests across the country in cities, in front of Tesla dealerships, in front of NOAA, at government parks which are closing to the public because Musk fired so many staff, and other government entities that Musk is shutting down. Media Matters for America reports that Hannity and other podcasters on the right are hearing from former Trump voters about how angry they are, scared they are, worried they are– about what Trump is doing.
JD Vance took his family to Vermont to ski where he was met by hundreds of angry voters with signs like this: “Go Ski in Russia!” Vance decided not to ski in Vermont after all.
Run for Something, a group that helps Democrats run for office, has never seen this many applicants for their program: 500 to 600 A DAY across the entire country since Trump’s inauguration.
One of the interesting developments is that a group of pro-democracy activists with a sassy podcast, Meidas+. has been gaining traction on social media and most recently beat Joe Rogan’s podcast. Rogan has been supportive of right-wing ideas, beliefs, and disinformation and his dominance seemed to be evidence of how powerful the right-wing has become.
JOE ROGAN GETS BEAT BY MEIDAS TOUCH
The Joe Rogan Experience has long dominated the podcast chart, but this month he slipped down into the second spot, according to Podscribe. His podcast was downloaded and played 48.6 million times, a 32 percent decrease from the previous month. The MeidasTouch Podcast took top spot with 56 million downloads and plays, increasing in reach by 101 percent this month.
MeidasTouch was founded by three brothers Ben, Brett and Jordy Meiselas. It is described on its website as: “A pro-democracy news network,” the organization first started with creating viral videos and political ads opposing Trump and supporting Democratic candidates.
The podcast is critical of Trump, and in the most recent episode, Ben Meiselas said “The buck stops with you, whether Trump wants to admit it or not, he needs to take responsibility for everything that is going on and I think it is up to the people to hold him responsible and I know that’s what we’re gonna do here every single day.”
If you join MeidasTouch and listen to their podcasts, you help them to grow their audience and dominance.
There are other news sources/providers building audiences on social media by offering Americans reliable, truthful information from pro-democracy activists who reject Trump and MAGA ideology. They include: The Bulwark, The Contrarian, Democracy Docket, Heather Cox Richardson’s Letters from an American (you can find her on Substack), Thom Hartmann, and others.
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