Yogi Berra once said, “It’s deja vu all over again.” Economic history is repeating itself, although it appears more idiotic than in the past.
The Republican Party was once a thoughtful, less radical bunch. They were not in a to-the-death war with the world and found ways to compromise for the good of the nation.
The Grand Old Party no longer exists; it is now a machine requiring total loyalty to one man. If you cross the man, you are no longer a Republican.
There is little reason to debate or analyze the death of the Republican Party. It just is. However, we can see just one example of the difference between Trump’s fixation or fetish for tariffs and Ronald Reagan’s more reality-oriented position. The following YouTube video very cogently describes the reality of tariffs.
Although many of Reagan’s political positions were indisputably conservative, his position on tariffs was consistent with most presidents from Eisenhower to Obama. They all said that tariffs are to be used with care and precision. There was a time and a place for the limited use of tariffs. Reagan rightfully emphasized the dangers of the indiscriminate application of tariffs and the instigation of trade wars. He might have been wrong about some things, but he was not mistaken about tariffs.
Reagan would not have applied a 50% tariff on goods from Lesotho, a 46% tariff on Vietnam imports, and a 10% tariff on the penguins on the McDonald Islands. Trump says he wants to restore the trade balance between the USA and other countries. So, will the tariffs on Lesotho, Vietnam, and the McDonald Islands solve Trump’s perceived trade emergency? Will the government of Vietnam and the penguins on the McDonald Islands suddenly start buying Teslas from the USA to redress America’s balance of trade problem?
I doubt that many in the MAGA Cult will publicly announce their unease over the dramatic decline of the stock markets or the economic panic spreading across America. Fox, Newsmax, and the MAGA talking heads will smile and reassure their cultists that this is like a bitter pill that will make everyone sick for a short while but that the patient will be better off in a year or two. However, I suspect many cultists will experience some degree of discomfort, if not outright cognitive dissonance. Regardless, we all know what happens when the Republican Party (or now the Trump Party) causes the economy to crater. It wasn’t pretty in 1928-1931 or 2007-2008 and will not be pretty from 2025 to 2026.