“Following swift market backlash, Trump on Wednesday announced a one-month reprieve for autos and auto parts from the sweeping 25 percent tariffs he levied one day earlier. In doing so, he signaled an openness to hearing appeals from other industries for additional exemptions to the Mexico and Canada tariffs. It’s a stark contrast to the approach he is taking with the American people, whom he is asking to shoulder the risk of higher prices as a result of the tariffs, in exchange for the promise of longer-term economic benefit.
“I don’t know what the administration’s plan is,” said Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.). “If they’re using [tariffs] as leverage, seems to me it would be better to threaten them, negotiate and you put them on or not on.”
Together, the conflicting actions reflect the president’s dual impulses: longstanding sensitivity to stock market fluctuations — which he has long read as Nielsen ratings for his performance — and a love of tariffs as a primary instrument to get what he wants from foreign governments.
That tension is also reflected within Trump’s circle of advisers, who spent much of Wednesday debating whether and how far to mitigate the impacts of a trade war on American industries and consumers.
“It’s the greatest show on Earth. We’ll put tariffs on tonight, but tomorrow we’ll tell you we may negotiate and take them off,” a person close to the administration, granted anonymity to discuss internal conversations, told POLITICO. “But stay tuned, because you never know what tomorrow’s gonna bring.”
The self-inflicted economic uncertainty comes as Americans remain concerned about high prices, with polling showing that people don’t think the administration is doing enough to address the economy even as they are pleased with its performance on other issues. It also comes amid growing frustration on Capitol Hill, particularly among Republican senators from farm states, who fear the ripple effects from the tariffs on their local economies.
And it’s adding to confusion about whether the new tariffs on Canada and Mexico are truly aimed only at stemming the tide of fentanyl flowing across the U.S. border — a message Trump’s lieutenants have underscored far more firmly than the president himself — or reflective of the administration’s broader protectionist goals. The new tariffs, after all, are only a prelude to the more sweeping reciprocal tariffs the president has promised will take effect April 2 — and it’s unclear even to many of the president’s close allies what actions Canada and Mexico could take at this point to lift the tariffs entirely.”
“We’ve studied democratic erosion in countries around the world, and our research has found that the most important bulwark against an elected leader undermining democracy doesn’t come from opposition parties or pro-democracy activists. It comes from the ruling party — and particularly the powerful elites in that party — and their efforts to constrain their own leader.
The danger to democracy is particularly acute in political systems led by parties where leaders wield disproportionate influence relative to the political parties that back them — as is now the case in the Republican Party. Our data on all democratically elected leaders around the globe in the 30 years since the end of the Cold War show that where leaders dominate the parties they lead, the chances of democratic backsliding increase, whether it’s through gradual democratic decay or a rapid collapse.
In the United States, we tend to assume that constitutional checks and balances, including the powers vested in Congress or the Supreme Court, play the central role in constraining a rogue executive and any power grab they might attempt. But we’ve found that institutions can do so only if the members of the president’s party inside those institutions are willing to use their authority in the face of executive abuses or overreach.
The reason that often doesn’t happen is because when a political party becomes dominated by the leader as an individual, party figures view their political fates as directly tied to that of the leader, not to the long-term reputation of the party, and so they are unwilling to push back against the leader’s actions. In these “personalist” political parties, the party elite are even willing to go along with a leader’s abuse of power if they see that doing so is advantageous for keeping their jobs.
The impact affects more than just the political class. When prominent party figures tolerate — or indeed even support — a leader’s anti-democratic actions, it fosters public acceptance of those actions among party supporters, as people take important cues from their elected officials. High levels of polarization and the resulting disdain for the other side only make matters worse, as partisans are willing to accept abuses of power if it means keeping the other side out of office. Indeed, even when there remains a high level of public support for democracy, our research shows that societies can slide down a non-democratic path simply because they don’t want the other side to win.”
Trump’s speech was filled with falsehoods. Does he lie to make Republicans repeat what they know is a lie as a sign of loyalty? Is he flooding the zone with bullshit to overwhelm society so that it can’t effectively fact check him? Could he possibly believe all the falsehoods he says?
“Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk on Wednesday accused Russia of planning a major terrorist campaign against aircraft.
“I can only confirm that Russia planned acts of air terror, not just against Poland but against airlines across the globe,” said Tusk during a meeting with Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
The New York Times reported in recent days that U.S. intelligence warned the White House that Russia was planning to smuggle incendiary devices onto cargo planes heading to the U.S. The White House, according to the Times, warned the Kremlin to stop the operation.”
Reading the Bible literally is more of a modern phenomenon. In antiquity and the Middle Ages, the official teaching was the Bible is not to be read literally when it comes to things we can know by science.
DOGE’s wall of receipts has been full of basic mistakes that makes it look like DOGE isn’t familiar with the organizations they are cutting.
DOGE is less a efficient tech support generally improving the efficiency of government, and more a political project broadly cutting things they don’t like.