US Election & Presidency

(Yesterday 12:35 )southsidestu Wrote:  Perhaps what actually happened is that Trump staged a phony trade war as a PR stunt

I'm not buying that story.

Trump gave very specific reasons for the tariffs he imposed, not only border security, but to rebalance trade, saying that the US would not be trade mugs any longer. Now he's suddenly paused the tariffs because of supposed concessions on the border issue, with no mention of correcting a trade issue anymore. This suggests that Trump has definitely changed his thinking.

What made him change?

We know that Trump pays great attention to the stock market because he mentions it often, and his billionaire buddies, who's wealth is tied to the stock market, pay great attention to it too. The stock tumble on Monday wouldn't have gone unnoticed.
Canada threatened to cancel their contract with Musk for his Starlink. That's a 100 million dollar contract gone up in smoke, although how paused for 30 days in line with Trump pausing his tariffs. I can't see Muck losing that amount of business without a fight.
Rupert Murdoch told reporters on Sunday that he needed to have a word with Trump regarding the tariffs and sure enough he was seen entering the White House on Monday. Hours later the tariffs were paused. This is the same Rupert Murdoch who owns Fox News. He also owns the Wall Street Journal which had called Trump's tariffs the 'dumbest trade war in history'.

Trump lost this one.

With Trump, its ALWAYS about TRUMP. Number 1. WAY above everything and anything else. Behind that, number 2 to him, is the Trump family. Number 3: The people who he judges to have shown him distinct public loyalty, obsequiousness and sycophancy; and, as such, are people who can (for a time that he sees fit at least) be of use to him in advancing #1 or 2. EVERYTHING else is simply NOT on Trump's radar. Not in actuality. Anytime he claims otherwise, its a LIE; a lie, in truth, set out to advance something concerned with 1 thru 3!

Even when he talks of America first he means HIM. (In his head, he is synomous with America!)

Trump 2.0 is less naive to the trials of government than first time out. He has had 8 years to get ready to twist things his way in ever more substantial fashion. To find and surround himself with people that can help him achieve his entirely SELFISH aims. To facilitate his utterly single-minded cause. Plus, this term he doesn't have to be concerned about having to win an election to get back in again either. The things he does don't have to be reasonable to 50% of the population.

Now - if its not to advance his own personal power and wealth - ALL his actions can be turned to aggrandising his LEGACY or, more specifically, his legacy as seen thru the weird MAGA kaleidoscopic worldview. So much of what he is doing is thus about whitewashing or elevating that sense of his own history in the making; his sense of his own triumphant presidencies and 'victories' involved in it. As ever then, everything is about achieving a warped set of pre-subscribed personal 'wins' (or anything similar that happens to pop up along the way). He's just more prepared to set the narrative towards that end this time. And more people have bought into helping him do that, because doing so is more obviously benefical to them now that his election victories - and the crap he peddled to get them - can no longer be written off as an anomally. (People LIKE and WANT to believe in easy answers to complex questions. It's eternally popular. And it can be used OVER and OVER again to self-benefit if you're as good at playing to people's FEARS as Trump is!)

When looked at like this, recent news falls to stark clarity. All this bombastic "trade war" stuff just devolves to the usual deal-advancing aims; stuff that he can make massive drama out of on TV and online (all his actions are done with a sense of performative theatre very much to the forefront - as if this were one massive reality TV show). He can then shout about any subsequent 'victories' in similar fashion. Trump never wanted tariffs, he just wanted to crow over the (often smallbean) concessions he'd get after throwing his weight around and bringing the other fella to his table. He doesn't CARE for what any of what he does in the process might mean for America's standing or relations with its allies going forward. Like all narcassists, he thinks he [America] NEEDS no one else in any meaningful way. People outside his circle are only there as short-term transactional pawns to be prodded into the places he wants them in. Full context is for suckers. It's a TLDR! ("Fuck it, pardon them all!")

Like so much else from Trump's second coming's first 100 days, the Gaza thing (as well as the Greenland, the Panama Canal and "51st state" Canada stuff) - and all such expansionist claptrap - just exposes his core and the exuberant freedom he feels in indulging his true self more openly this time around. Trump wants it because he thinks it would look good on HIM. It would be incredibly funny if it wasn't all so serious.