Passed by the British Parliament in 1765, the Stamp Act is often seen as the first major event that pushed the American colonists toward independence from Great Britain. American colonists at the time saw it as odious and a violation of their legal and natural rights, and it was almost universally hated throughout the colonies. The Stamp Act attempted to place a tax on virtually all printed goods and documents sold within the American colonies, including law licenses, legal documents, college diplomas, papers involved in economic transactions, pamphlets, newspapers, playing cards, dice, and a host of other items. In fact, the sheer amount of items that required a stamp to prove the tax had been paid touched nearly every colonist from all walks of life, leading historian Carol Berkin to exclaim, “This tax [was] going to touch everyone. It's probably one of the dumbest political acts in the history of government. They taxed dice and cards, so the rowdiest group of people there are in the world, sailors in port with nothing to do, are going to be angry. They taxed legal documents, which means that lawyers, the most articulate and argumentative people in America, are up in arms also,” (see 18:25 of linked video). We can easily continue Berkin’s line of thought: merchants, many of the wealthiest people in the colonies, and those responsible for the importation of finished goods, were upset because every shipping document needed a stamp. College graduates who formed the leadership of the colonies, largely the aforementioned lawyers and members of the clergy, had to pay a high tax for their degrees. Printers, those who control the media and held great sway over the influence of public opinion, were significantly impacted. The list goes on. What were the British thinking in passing a law guaranteed to negatively impact every single American, including those most powerful and likely to fight back? Shouldn’t they have foreseen things were not going to go well for them?
Trump’s actions and executive orders come fast and furious these days. Hardly a day goes by where some fresh new hell isn’t visited upon the American people, broadcast over social media or cable news. The sheer amount of actions taken by the Second Trump Administration is dizzying. And like the Stamp Act, their reach is wide-ranging, touching upon nearly every facet of American life, from trade, to consumerism, to health, to education, to investment, to veterans affairs, to transportation, to retirement, and the list goes on and on. These aren’t so-called “niche” issues that most Americans do not pay attention to— these are fundamental aspects of daily life to nearly all Americans. Moreover, in virtually every instance, Trump’s actions make each of these less accessible or more expensive. This begs the question: does Trump realize that he’s at risk of pissing everyone off?
The warning signs are certainly there. Recently, Steve Bannon, certainly no friend to entitlement programs, warned Trump against cuts to Medicaid “because a lot of MAGA’s on Medicaid.” Veterans are loudly voicing their anger over cuts to veterans’ services and the Veterans Administration. Financiers and business leaders are beginning to panic behind the scenes as the stock markets tumble and even the Trump Administration itself hints that a prolonged economic downturn is possible. We know that Trump’s supporters want his policies to hurt “the right people,” and we also know from experience that even if some of Trump’s policies are not hurting the right people but instead are inflicting pain on his supporters, it takes a lot to get them to turn on Trump. But this time around, Trump and DOGE’s austerity measures appear to have something for everyone to hate. Just how dangerous is it for a politician, even one with such a messianic following as Trump, to court policies that upset everyone? I’m certainly not here to argue that Trump is going to foment a revolution as the Stamp Act did. But he should at least be cognizant that, when governments do things that make everyone angry, it doesn’t tend to go well for them. I have not been one for optimism lately, but maybe, just maybe, it will be Trump’s hubris, like that of the British Parliament in 1765 that thought the American colonists were facile and pliant, that will be his undoing. Never underestimate the capacity of the American people to look out for their bottom line.
-Peter Porcupine
