Trump's Tariff Chaos Is a Risk for Him and An Opportunity for The People

Trump derives power from his specific brand of mafia-esque bedlam he calls the “art of the deal”, but it’s also an opportunity for the people.

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Donald Trump’s return to the White House has been nothing short of a tsunami of chaos.

We read and hear experts saying they hadn’t expected it to be like this, to be so fast, so harsh, so reckless… and yet, of course it is. This is how Trump has always moved.

Trump is, at heart, a mob boss wannabe authoritarian. He knows how to use the power of disruption and shock to grab more power. He’s been doing it his whole life. And due to his expertise at corruption and enriching cronies who support him while punishing those who don’t, he’s made a splashy name for himself that has allowed him to think he is always in control.

Trump’s imperialist retaliatory tariffs on our most important trading partners is another example of how he uses havoc and confusion to his benefit.

But Trump’s weakness is that he lacks the finesse of an Orbán or Putin.

Trump has moved so fast to seize power, to lord it over corporations, institutions and universities to get them to be co-opted into his regime, that he believes his Teflon reflection isn’t a lie.

Trump derives power from his specific brand of mafia-esque bedlam he calls the “art of the deal”, but it’s also an opportunity for the people.

When the markets are in freefall, people are afraid. Trump hopes to use that fear to entrench his own power. This morning, CNBC reports, “Dow falls 1,000 points in wild session as Trump tariff market collapse continues.”

Trump thinks he’s bringing the world to his knees. But what if trump’s turmoil was met with relentless dissent? What if Trump’s chaotic destruction of our government was met with a hostile takeover combined with refusal to participate as the cogs?

Authoritarians always need to carefully balance their corruption and enrichment of the elites who keep them in unchecked power (our corporate media, many of our lawmakers, the Supreme Court most of the time) with keeping the peons sedated.

In other words, in order to grab the power of an authoritarian and keep it, the economy can’t go to sh*t for too long.