In 2016, Trump promised to build a wall — and boasted that Mexico was going to pay for it. Nine years later the questions mushroom. Where’s the wall? Where’s the money? Who knows? Do the MAGAs care that their boy looked them in the eye, spat on their trust, and failed to realize his stated #1 ambition?
I can confidently answer the last. No, the MAGAs don’t care.
For you’all who saw the movie (who knew it was a documentary?) “Idiocracy”, you may remember the scene where a future moron, looking for commercial romance, pays Maya Rudolph’s character today for the mere promise of a bit of how’s-your-father two days later. The screenwriters, Etan Cohen and Mike Judge clearly anticipated the average MAGA.
It is therefore no surprise that in 2024 the MAGAs — who overwhelming evidence suggests are incapable of learning from experience — continue to buy today Trump’s guaranteed-to-be unrealized promises of future satisfaction.
Trump had enough ferine intelligence to not mention his border barrier folly during the 2024 campaign. He was aided by radio silence on the subject by both his in-house propaganda fluffers Fox News, and his MSM enablers. Instead, he turned his immigration focus to the millions of hard-working but undocumented laborers laboring in the vineyards of his paymasters.
He promised a complete and total excision of the backbone of US agriculture, the ill-paid grunts who pick the produce and man the abattoirs. Predictably, his commitment to the forced deportation of foreigners is already weakening. No one knows how he can achieve it. Especially as the costs would be astronomical. Local law enforcement is cool to the idea. And farmers think it’s nuts
His immigration czar, Tom Homan has retreated to the Democratic position of prioritizing criminal immigrants. There may be a few show raids to show the base he meant what he said. But the results will be insubstantial.
First, many of the people employing undocumented workers tend to be Republican voters. Second, Trump ran on lowering prices (more on that later). Deporting cheap labor will raise prices. Third, he has a record (both criminal and economic). In his first term, Trump averaged fewer deportations than Obama. And even though he promised to ease up on heavy-handed enforcement, Biden will end his term out-deporting his successor’s first attempt.
Of course, it is not just immigration where Trump is running away from his campaign promises. His team is already waffling on his threat to tariff the shite out of imports — although Trump himself is trying to maintain the illusion he is still wearing clothes.
Everyone, except the average MAGA, knows that if you put a sales tax on something, the consumer pays it. Manufacturers can’t pay it. There is no fat in international commerce. Chinese companies cannot pad their profits. If they did, Walmart would tell them to cut it out, or they would take their business elsewhere. American companies have no loyalty. If they did, America wouldn’t be hemorrhaging manufacturing jobs.
On Monday, the Washington Post reported on the incoming administration’s tariff plans. It seems they have tempered the rhetoric of universal pain. Instead, tariffs will be targeted.
Two weeks before Trump takes office, his aides are still discussing plans to impose import duties on goods from every country, the people said.
But rather than apply tariffs to all imports, the current discussions center on imposing them only on certain sectors deemed critical to national or economic security — a shift that would jettison a key aspect of Trump’s campaign pledge, at least for now, said the people, who cautioned that no decisions have been finalized and that planning remains in flux.
Trump denied the report — so the odds are overwhelming it’s true. He took to Truth Social to splutter:
“The story in the Washington Post, quoting so-called anonymous sources, which don't exist, incorrectly states that my tariff policy will be pared back. That is wrong. The Washington Post knows it's wrong. It's just another example of Fake News.”
There is no way Trump’s oligarch overlords are going to let him pee in their punch. So they’ll tell him what tariffs he can have to keep the base happy — while they continue to add zeros to the unproductive cash they are piling up.
The third of Trump’s commitments is the most sensitive and measurable. He promised to cut prices. This one is critical. Deportations and tariffs drive prices up. Hence the waffling on their implementation. However, even without these self-inflicted wounds to the economy, the odds look good that prices will start to go up next year.
The GOP’s one true economic love, tax cuts, will increase the deficit. The national debt will skyrocket. Tariffs will not offset this, and the ensuing trade war will diminish American and global GDP growth. Trump’s people know this — the profiteers at least, if not the ideology jihadists. And the big-buck advisors have the popinjay’s ear.
Trump will try to blame Biden for all the economic ills of his upcoming administration. But even the base will mutter when their eggs, bacon, and microwave burritos get pricier. Especially as Trump had promised he would bring prices down. Last August, his message was clear. He told voters:
“Prices will come down. You just watch: They’ll come down, and they’ll come down fast, not only with insurance, with everything.”
Trying to manage expectations, Trump has replaced his promise of an easy price rollback with a warning that reducing the cost of stuff will not be easy. In December, when asked about his boast he would reduce prices, the doughy bloviator waffled on Meet the Press:
“Look, they got them up. I’d like to bring them down. It’s hard to bring things down once they’re up. You know, it’s very hard. But I think that they will. I think that energy is going to bring them down. I think a better supply chain is going to bring them down. You know, the supply chain is still broken.”
The guy knows he has no fracking clue how to bring prices down. The usual tool, raising interest rates is a no-go for the new presidency’s sponsors, the investor class. However, due to inflation worries, the Fed seems less inclined to keep cutting rates.
In short, Trump can smell the rot. And he is doing his best to deny it was him who farted. Regardless, it is hard to see any economic sunshine in the financial forecasts. This dim prognosis should be no surprise. When was the last time a Republican President had any sustained economic success?
