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Face, meet leopard. Leopard, meet face.

Norman Alexander said:
Hey, wait a sec, guys! Did we just shoot our own jobs in the head??
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Indeed, the whole leopard-face analogy tells us that a lot of people really got riled up about how great America was going to be once we allowed the oligarchs to make all these drastic, self-serving changes, but then somehow also thought that everything would just sort of stay the same. Sure, Trump fans can regurgitate the talking points about how America has been taken advantage of for decades, but can't seem to go into specifics. When those specifics mean things we actually care about, that's when the leopard turns on us.

On the other hand, a union giving up 900 jobs in order to stick to some larger imagined purpose is not really in keeping with the best traditions of a union. Granted, United Auto Workers has about 300,000 people in it. But when stuff like this makes the news, all those UAW people are going to wonder if they're the next people to be thrown under the bus.

newyorkguy said:
trump is a moron? He's got a lot of company.
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According to Chris Whipple, the author of The Gatekeepers, the White House is pretty much staffed with what Chief of Staff Susie Wiles calls "tariff zealots." Whether they also qualify as morons remains to be seen. But it's quite likely they've been filling Pres. Trump's head with all kinds of nonsense that he just ignorantly repeats. Donald Trump has never convinced anyone he is a master at global trade.
 
The Don said:
But once everyone is forced to buy a Chevy*, happy days will be here again!
*Trump “couldn’t care less” if foreign automakers have to raise prices 25%.
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The thing is that even the price of that Chevy would rise as a result of tariffs because some components and raw materials are imported.
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Its even worse than that.

Not only do the "big 3" automakers use parts manufactured outside the U.S., but they also import cars from outside the U.S. (They may be able to increase domestic production a little, but probably not enough to cover the entire shortfall.)

From: https://finance.yahoo.com/video/why-auto-tariffs-extra-harsh-215733894.html
The Big Three automakers — Ford (F), General Motors (GM), and Stellantis (STLA) — are the most exposed to US President Trump's auto tariffs, even when compared to foreign automakers... a high percentage of their automobiles are actually sold in the US that are actually from imported areas, more so than the Japanese Big Three of Toyota, Honda, and Nissan, and also more so than the German Big Three of Volkswagen, BMW, and Mercedes.
 
P.J. Denyer said:
It's exactly the kind of thinking that got us Brexit, now we just need a catchy name for America exiting the rest of the World.
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Dump's Great Wall? He started with the border to Mexico and now he's walling the US in completely.
 
Baseball, hot dogs, apple pie and Chevrolet. Straw hats on the door and Currier and Ives prints on the walls. We sent the kids out to pick chunks of big beautiful coal off the tracks. It made them strong. That was the real America before they pumped us full of gay woke vaccines and jazz. They'll go to their graves in a Cadillac hearse, and won't those sissy liberals cry!
 
The other lesson they should've learned during the covid pandemic (other than that, among other things, that Dump is a horrible and incompetent leader) is that the verious countries of the world need each other. You can't just shut yourself off from the world with tariff walls, you need all the stuff you import into your country.

I'm not surprised they haven't learned, since they seem to have forgotten covid, and a million Americans dying under Dump, altogether, but it would've sure been nice if they remembered.
 
Safe-Keeper said:
The other lesson they should've learned during the covid pandemic (other than that, among other things, that Dump is a horrible and incompetent leader) is that the verious countries of the world need each other. You can't just shut yourself off from the world with tariff walls, you need all the stuff you import into your country.

I'm not surprised they haven't learned, since they seem to have forgotten covid, and a million Americans dying under Dump, altogether, but it would've sure been nice if they remembered.
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I survived measles as a kid, as did many of my contemporaries. Talk to anyone walking around today, and ask "did you die of measles?" Chances are pretty good they'll say "no." To pass beyond that obvious truth takes a degree of thought that many find challenging. The dead take their memories with them.
 
JayUtah said:
According to Chris Whipple, the author of The Gatekeepers, the White House is pretty much staffed with what Chief of Staff Susie Wiles calls "tariff zealots." Whether they also qualify as morons remains to be seen. But it's quite likely they've been filling Pres. Trump's head with all kinds of nonsense that he just ignorantly repeats. Donald Trump has never convinced anyone he is a master at global trade.
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I don't think that's how it works. This is the short version of Trump's addiction to tariffs:
Rachel Maddow Explains the ‘Ridiculous’ True Story That Inspired Trump’s Tariffs Plan | Video (Yahoo!News, April 5, 2025)
Trump “came up with the idea” after the circulation of a “fake memo from a fake person with a fake email address,” she explained.
The memo in question was the brainchild of author and economist Peter Navarro — also the senior counselor for trade and manufacturing for the administration — who entered the Trump sphere after Jared Kushner found his book “Death by China” and asked him to join Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign as an economic adviser.
In his books, Maddow continued, Navarro often cited the work of a so-called economics expert named Ron Vara. “V-A-R-A, Ron Vara,” Maddow said. “Vara” shared a memo in Washington D.C. circles after Trump won the presidency
“At one point, Ron Vara wrote in the memo that Trump could, quote, ‘Ride the tariffs to victory,'” Maddow said. The problem is, Ron Vara doesn’t exist. He never has. The economics expert that Peter Navarro has long cited to explain why he’s so gung-ho on tariffs, this person, Ron Vara, is a made-up person.”
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It's not unlike the way that healthcare is being handled by the Trump administration: You know what you want the experts to say, so you go looking for alleged experts who say it, i.e. cranks supported by the most ignorant of all epidemiologists you can find. See the RFK Jr. thread.

It's not that "they've been filling Pres. Trump's head with all kinds of nonsense that he just ignorantly repeats." It's what he has hired them to tell him!
They, on the other hand, are blessed by never having to stand up for their ideas against opposition from people who actually know what they are talking about. All they have to do is refer to Trump and their trust in him.
The Lord works in mysterious ways, and it's not for us mere mortals to question His decisions, be it about tariffs or snake oil.

As in the case of Navarro, it works particularly well when the authority that the experts refer to are entirely made up. That kind of expert will never contradict you! Ron Vara meet John Barron.
 
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bruto said:
I survived measles as a kid, as did many of my contemporaries. Talk to anyone walking around today, and ask "did you die of measles?" Chances are pretty good they'll say "no." To pass beyond that obvious truth takes a degree of thought that many find challenging. The dead take their memories with them.
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MAGA: "I have never met anyone who died of COVID".
 
shemp said:
Morons.
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I can empathize with those particular morons. These, however, ...
These tech leaders donated to Trump. Now they’re out billions of dollars (CNN, April 9, 2025)
Silicon Valley leaders donated to President Donald Trump’s campaign or inaugural fund. They visited him at Mar-a-Lago and sat front-and-center as he was sworn into office. But in the first three months of his presidency, their wallets have taken a hit from his policies.
The companies founded or run by Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Apple CEO Tim Cook, Google CEO Sundar Pichai, Tesla CEO Elon Musk and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos have cumulatively lost nearly $1.8 trillion in value since the start of this year, even after markets rebounded Wednesday in response to Trump’s pause on many planned tariffs. As a result, the personal wealth of those leaders has shrunk, too.
Tech’s top brass almost certainly hoped to gain some business benefits by hitching their wagons to Trump’s — such as fewer regulations or reduced antitrust pressure. And Trump has been eager to expand the tech industry’s US footprint and cement America as a leader in artificial intelligence.
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dann said:
As in the case of Navarro, it works particularly well when the authority that the experts refer to are entirely made up. That kind of expert will never contradict you! Ron Vara meet John Barron.
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If only there had been some subtle clue, some tiny hint, that Navarro and Ron Vara were one and the same. 🤔
 
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