Nothing Trump is saying, doing or enacting makes any sense – so is his real goal to Make America Dysfunctional Again – or MADA?
There is no audio version this morning: in fact the YouTube is audio only as I was not near enough to a video set up when I made this, but did have audio kit with me.
This is the transcript:
Donald Trump said that when he became president, he would Make America Great Again, or MAGA for short. But I don't believe him. I think he's going to make America MADA, by which I mean, he's going to Make America Dysfunctional Again. Let me explain.
If you are a good president, you deliver coherent policy that people understand and which can be implemented by those who you expect to follow the laws that you create.
Now that's an obvious statement of fact. You would think it was a tenet of good management.
It should be something that a person of Trump's age, who is after all approaching nearly 80, and who has claimed to be in business all his life, should know. But the reality is that he is displaying no sense of coherence about the policies that he is putting in place, at all.
Let me take a simple example. This is the case of tariffs on Mexico and on Canada.
On the very day that he came into office, Trump said that he was going to impose tariffs on all imports from those two countries of 25%.
He claimed that the countries in question would pay them, when absolutely everyone who knows anything at all about tariffs knows that this is not true. Tariffs are paid by people within the country which imposes the tariff, not by the people who are exporting goods into that country. And so, from the outset, what Trump said was economically incoherent. It seems that he does not understand the policy that he is putting in place.
But worse than that, to some degree - because the policy is bad enough in itself - is the fact that he has been utterly inconsistent as to what he wants to do with regard to these tariffs.
He announced them in January, and in February he said that they would be delayed, until at least April. So, instead of them being imposed during the course of that month, they were delayed and everyone who put plans into place for what might happen had to put those plans on hold. This is not good for business.
Then, having delayed the plans, he announced during the course of the first week in March that he would, after all, be putting these tariffs onto imports from Mexico and Canada and would be doing so in days.
And then, two days later, he reversed that decision and has delayed again.
Now, what's the consequence of this utterly incoherent approach to management?
Well, first of all, it is clear that Donald Trump is running a dysfunctional government. He does not know what he is doing, in other words. There is no joined up thinking. I hate the term - I believe it was popularised by Tony Blair and that's good enough reason not to like it, but it seems to be applicable in this case - because nothing that Trump does makes any sense at all.
Worse than that, what he's doing is actually diminishing the political value of the statements that he makes. If he really wants to deliver an America that is great again - whatever that might mean - then people have to believe that he is capable of doing so. But every time that he makes an announcement that he's going to do something, and then that he isn't, and then that he is, and then that he isn't, and then that he modifies it, and then he changes again - which is exactly what has been happening with regard to these tariffs - he diminishes the value of what he has to say.
Those people who believe in him will begin to have doubt.
Those who do not believe in him will realise that they were right all along and that this man is a charlatan in charge of a country of which he has no comprehension as to the means of management.
And let's also just stand back for a moment and think about this with regard to taxation.
If we go back to 1776 – and I am not talking about the fact that the USA became independent in that year - I am going back to 1776 because that was the year in which Adam Smith - generally recognised to be the first economist in the world - published his book, The Wealth of Nations. And in that, he published what he called the Four Tenets of Taxation.
Now, there are reasons to doubt whether he got those tenets right because they are too vague for use in the modern world. But one of them certainly stands up to scrutiny. And that was that taxes should be predictable, or certain. And what he meant was that the person who is expected to pay the tax should know what that tax is and be able to plan for it accordingly.
And I think that's right. There is an absolute necessity when it comes to taxation to be transparent about the reasons for a tax, transparent about who will pay the tax, transparent about why the tax is being imposed, with transparency about the benefits of the tax for the society on which it is being charged. These aspects of transparency are key to a good tax system, and I've done a lot of work on this issue over the years.
But what Trump is doing is ignoring all of those factors. He's, in fact, ignoring the tenets of taxation that were put forward by Adam Smith, to which most of his economic advisors would, I suspect, subscribe.
Instead, what he's doing is playing games with the taxation system for supposed political advantage.
He's not taking people with him. And remember, that all taxation in a democracy is ultimately by consent. People have to agree to be taxed.
He is not consulting people.
He is not engaging people.
He is alienating people with this tax and all along he's doing everything to undermine the functionality of his government.
And that's precisely why I say what Trump is doing is Making America Dysfunctional Again or MADA.
And this is the way in which I see everything progressing with regard to his administration.
There is no sign that there is actually a plan in what he is doing, unless it is to create chaos.
But out of that chaos, what does he want?
Is it that he sees that this is the opportunity for the vulture capitalists to come in and to claim assets and to therefore take advantage of the situation of that chaos to become oligarchs with supreme wealth - the sort of situation that happened in Russia in around 1990, after all?
Or is it that he simply wants to destroy democracy?
Those are the only two logical conclusions that you can draw from his behaviour.
But maybe we shouldn't even be logical.
Maybe Trump is just dysfunctional.
Maybe he doesn't know what he is doing.
Maybe he is just flailing around, wondering what to do next. Letting Musk have his say. Destroying everything in sight. Creating uncertainty and deliberate chaos. So that mayhem will follow, from which he takes some sort of totally dysfunctional pleasure.
Whatever it is, Trump is failing the people of the USA.
He's failing the people of Canada and Mexico.
He's failing the people of the world.
He's just failing.
It's as simple as that.
Trump is a dysfunctional president, creating a dysfunctional economy that will ultimately lead to a dysfunctional state. Trump is Making America Dysfunctional Again.
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Hmm………..we know how Crispin Odey works and Trump is a Crispin Odey type who actually became a political leader. Odey thrives in chaos and hoovers up as much as he can out of it. Trump is the same.
Trump thrives on chaos – it is oxygen to him, discombobulating opponents and hostile media. We also know that he is contemptuous of his fan base – if they cannot see through him, his logic is that is their fault. And so – like the fraudster he is – he will just continue like any other human being until something or someone makes him stop. Trump is actually someone who talks like a king but only because he is a kompromat puppet, a worm tongue born out of Western hubris.
But he has a lot of things in his favour – millionaire backers (until they work out that they are now losing business because of him), various tech bros strangling the information highways but also pride. People can feel really ashamed when they’ve been duped. We’ve seen this over BREXIT here haven’t we? And that leads to inaction and denial. We are in for a period of that, during which the Ukraine might well fall or concede land to Russia (it needs to get out of Kursk right now or it will have a war on two fronts).
And Europe needs to get its act together and ignore the UK unless it has anything constructive to offer. Maybe Starmer could send our leaky air craft carrier cast from pure Neo-liberal methodology itself to one of Russia’s key ports and scuttle it at the harbour entrance and disrupt shipping – a fitting gesture for an an unfit democracy such as ours?
When has America not been dysfunctional? The poor dears left Europe to be free but have somehow concocted their own type of Establishment. Hearing the Canadian Foreign Minister speak, there were better ways to build nations. I know which part of North America I’d rather live in and it has nothing to do with Florida or California!
My hope remains with the American people, many of whom, like us Brits are fundamentally decent human beings. But where is the English Rachel Maddow or Laurence O’Donnell? It is our supposed leaders who let us down, time and time again. Now, Trump is the king of that particular problem for sure.
Bravo!
A brilliant rendering of the current stat-of-affairs.
Keep writing.
I’ve long read MAGA as Making A Grotesque America.
Donald Trump = DT = delirium tremens – although this seems to have lasted longer than a medical practioner would expect.
“Trump is a dysfunctional president, creating a dysfunctional economy that will ultimately lead to a dysfunctional state.”
Undoubtedly true – but from a Mango PoV rather missing the point. The man-baby wants to stay the centre of attention just like a 3 year old in a gathering of adults. Everything that he has done so far is performative & attention grabbing. It is also irrelevant that he backs down when e.g. the Canadians say enough – no more. The best thing the EU and Uk could do is disengage from the USM(ango) – let them stew in their own mango-juice. They voted the man-child in to office – they own the problem.
It is time to disengage from the States
The moment that epitomized things for me was when caught on video in the Oval Office, Lutnick (Commerce Secretary) said with a smile: “Always say yes to the president.”
Could this just be a case of greed, pure and simple? I mean, if you can rig the casino, you and the rest of your syndicate can decide when to short and when to buy, with no risk involved. And all done in plain sight. I mean, isn’t this what he/they are also doing with crypto? And are these just little side bets, amuse bouche along the way to the bigger prize?
Minor point of order. The president can do many things but passing laws is not one of them
To some extent that might be one point in Reeve’s favour. The pro-austerity balance at all costs may be harmful, but at least we know what to expect.
Trump seems to push things one way or another not necessarily because he thinks it will help, but because he’s happy to point to whichever element the people he’s talking to like and deny or shift blame on others. He’s utterly reliant on people’s lack of memory to shape the narrative in his favour
I am not sure that knowing a beating is coming is much comfort.
Compassion in politics posted this powerful speech by French Senate Member Claude Malhuret, a doctor and lawyer, who delivers a chilling assessment of what is playing out before our eyes in the US:
“Never in history has a president of the United States capitulated to the enemy. No one has ever supported an aggressor against an ally. No one has ever trampled on the American Constitution, made so many illegal decrees, revoked the judges who could prevent it, dismissed the military staff at once, weakened all counter-powers and taken control of social networks.”
“It is not an illiberal drift; it is the beginning of the confiscation of democracy. Let us remember that it took only a month, three weeks and two days to bring down the Weimar Republic and its Constitution.”
https://www.compassioninpolitics.com/claude_malhuret?recruiter_id=13649&utm_campaign=ag_french_senator&utm_medium=email&utm_source=cip
Or direct link
https://x.com/frontlinekit/status/1897400210223140968
Spot on, unfortunately.
My favourite comment on YouTube this morning. Make America Go Away
You have to keep in view that whatever dreams this man was offering the electorate, the Democrats failed to come up with a better one.
On the domestic front, the Conservative Party have yet to come up with any dream at all, and the dreams that Reform are putting before the people (or at least those people that watch GBNews), are glimpsed through the rear-view mirror. Labour’s offer of jam tomorrow will only keep their balloon aloft for another six months or so.
Brace yersel!
Sooooo many elements in play here that it’s hard to formulate any coherent explanation. I have a few though.
IQ – he’s a thicko
Age – he’s going senile
Health – addicted to Coke & Maccies
Psycho – zero empathy, masochist
Deluded – truly believes he’s a king
Genius – his genius is knowing where to tap for support & sniffing out weaknesses/opportunities
He’s been playing the part of a successful person all his life and is fully immersed in his own Truman show. I think he really believes the bonkers things he says – total delusion that’s now baked in. It’s fascinating tbh.
His end game is to stay in power as long as possible to escape prosecution or incarceration. The chaos & dismantling of all guardrails feeds into that aim. He is probably angling to be in some kind of conflict so he can suspend elections and remain ‘king’ indefinitely.
The one thing he does not appear to realise is that he is actually a useful idiot for the world’s worst people. They use him to say things nobody else would dare say, open seams nobody would dare mine, and widen the Overton Window so that authoritarianism & the dismantling of bureaucratic government can be normalised.
We’ve all been played by him but he’s been played bigly by the world’s worst ghouls. Sad!
I think this is quite an interesting perspective on what Trump is up to:
https://charlieangus.substack.com/p/trumps-gangster-economics-and-the