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I won’t claim to be super optimistic, but I’m in a conservative region in the rural south where the cracks are showing and people aren’t just ignoring it anymore. Folks are starting to talk openly and vocally in opposition.
If you’ve never lived in a conservative, rural area before then know that it’s the type of place where “Fuck Biden” signs littered the yards of so called Christians while gas pumps and egg shelves were covered in “I did that” stickers. You hear someone verbally bashing a Democrat politician or liberals while you’re standing in line to check out, then you know it’s a day that ends in Y.
It’s hard to stress how jarring it is to hear anybody expressing any degree of dissatisfaction with a Republican policy / politician in this area, in public, around strangers. And that’s especially true when it comes to criticism of Trump. But let me tell you, it is happening with increasing regularity.
People are pissed that grocery prices are only getting higher. They’re upset that they have to wait in line for 45 minutes at the post office because there’s only 1 employee working. They are absolutely livid that the local hospital may be closing down because of medicaid cuts.
They’re talking about this in public with strangers. And they’re blaming Trump. There’s no push back. I’ve literally never seen this before.
Obviously a day late and a dollar short, since the time to have done the easy thing was back in November 2024. But at this stage of the game, I’ll take whatever fickle alliance I can get.
They’re blaming trump for this too: https://www.courier-journal.com/story/money/companies/2025/08/07/apple-investment-in-us-corning-glass-production-kentucky/85556405007/
They’ll make up for it by mooching off the blue states.
They’re already trying. I saw an article the other day about them planning to give tariff refund checks back to red voters.
That was suggested I think by Hawley. He suggested $600 check. The thing is that the tariffs will cost us more than that.
Also giving checks acknowledges that tariffs indeed caused this and giving them based on how one voted will definitively upset at least half of the population.
So I say: “go ahead”
It was weirder than that. Hawley was pitching income-based check distribution (full amount for annual income below $75,000 then phased to lower amounts up to $200,000 or something like that). Then he stated that this policy of income restrictions would ensure everyone who got a check would be Republican (meaning, no Republican makes more than $200,000 a year) and would prevent Democrats from getting checks (meaning, all Democrats make more than $200,000 a year). It breaks my brain.
You know, I could kind of understand what they’re trying to do and why they would support it if they were cutting social programs and also lowering everyone’s taxes. That’s not what they’re doing. They’re cutting social programs, raising everyone’s taxes, and giving tax cuts to the wealthy.
Anyone who thinks that Republicans care about workers is a fool.
For a party that has constantly messaged themselves as being for free trade and lower taxes, they sure do love restricting trade and jacking up taxes.
Same party that is SUPER into states right’s and smaller government until they’re not.
Republicans are really just a bunch of Confederate racists who really like protecting pedophiles.
Why would Biden do this?
They’ll blame the rest of us
As is tradition
Inspired by this post (https://sh.itjust.works/post/43644825) with Nebraska’s GDP being in the shitter.
Those states are, LOL were, massive agricultural exporters, doubt other states with more flexible economies will get hit that hard. A 6% nationwide reduction would be absolute chaos. 2008 was “only” a 4.3% GDP shrink and that was disastrous.
These dipshits will eventually figure out that Trump will lead us into economic ruin if things don’t change. Will they come to Jesus before it’s too late? I’d bet not. Problem with gauging America’s economy is that it’s so damned big, it’s hard to tell what policy effects are until way down the road. This thing doesn’t turn on a dime.
We’ve already trashed our allies trust and if Trump keels over tomorrow, they’re not going to suddenly start buying America again. The master of branding has fucked our brand.
The US has had relatively steady population growth for so long, all our normal ranges for economic indicators have an assumption of a growing population baked in, including what a healthy amount of GDP growth is - enough to both cover the prior GDP per person for the new people, and also have some productivity growth.
This year with all the immigration policy changes (and maybe some emigration pattern changes), projections are for a population decline. Which means potentially GDP could maintain or slightly improve on a per-capita basis, and yet decline overall.
The current policies are doing damage that will last at a minimum of decades, but I think it’s important to try to sort out the real damage from the weirdness of massive change. If we manage to get a majority of elected officials who actually want to do repairs, good analysis will be important to figuring out best bang for resources to focus on.
Yeah… The thing is, if your country doesn’t import things, it has to stop exporting too because foreigners don’t print your money.
Adam Smith kinda of discovered that¹, but it’s too recent a thing for politicians to learn.
1 - Not with all the details, but he discovered the overall issue.
An economic podcast I listen to has covered how much foreign investment the US net trade imbalance has led to, for exactly that reason: foreigners had dollars from US entities buying more stuff than they sold, those dollars had to come back to the US, and investment ended up being a huge way that happened. If the trade imbalance actually reduces, likely that investment rate will be the first thing to drop. We’ve already seen hints of it with softened demand for Treasury bonds.
The entire “the Dollar being the reserve currency of the world” thing happened because of the US trade deficit.
It has been slowly reversing since the pandemics, and a lot faster now… What ironically means that whatever exports numbers those companies are getting, it’s inflated and unsustainable.
Apple is opening a new $2.5 billion facility in Kentucky.
And they still pay less taxes than the EU VAT.
