Trump

Rationally Understanding Trump’s Actions

April 4, 2025

To influence, compete against, or sometimes even tolerate anything, you have to have a correct understanding of it. If you think Trump is just a nut or mean guy — and those might be the case — but that’s all you’ve got, that’s not good enough. I think I finally understood what’s going on after combining my previous notions with those from James Carville’s interview on the Ari Melber show on April Fool’s Day, quite appropriately. Melber asked, “Are they tariffs or are they just taxes on working people?”

Carville responded, “It’s just Trump going power-mad… I don’t have to get approval from Congress… I can just do this. The idea that he can just do something unilaterally has great appeal to him… and then of course everybody’s got to call him… because you can exempt things… there’s no policy, it’s just his ego playing out in public.”

And that’s the heart of the matter. Before getting this additional insight, my understanding was close but not exactly on target. Yes, I felt from early on that all the tariff bluster was never really intended as monetary action but just negotiating bluster… but that’s not accurate enough to fully grasp the dynamic. In fact the press lately has been talking as if the tariffs represent Trump’s long-standing belief in protectionism. Stop, stop, stop. Trump believes in nothing other than his own enrichment and power. The notion of tariffs for protectionism implies building up a country — its people and wealth — by encouraging self-sufficiency in markets. He does NOT care about the wealth of the country! He does NOT care about the prosperity or jobs of our countrymen! He does NOT care about our self-sufficiency. He does NOT care about building our factories.

The dynamic is that…

1. Trump is like a superhero or supervillain who has zero-ed in on his superpower. Imagine a newly minted superhero asking his minions, “What is my superpower… what can I actually do, that others are powerless against??? To Trump they must answer, you can destroy things. You can destroy internal things by invading them (because the police on the street won’t prevent this) and eliminating their infrastructure (because Congress won’t prevent it). You can destroy external things with tariffs (but it will also destroy ourselves for at least the foreseeable future). It is the only power you have that everyone else is powerless against. Utterly powerless. (Hate sentences no subject but works here.)
2. One is not a superhero if one never uses one’s superpower! Or conversely you are only super-powerful by using your power. Picture now his superpower as scary lightning bolts of misery that he flings at people’s feet as they dance to his entertainment. That is his main and only goal. Yes, it might result in temporary things that have policy effects, and it might look like policy, but it absolutely is not. He is incapable of policy.
3. It doesn’t matter if one uses one’s superpower rationally; one must use it even if the only context is meaningless, frivolous, or cataclysmic. So, to be quite candid about it, Trump would actually destroy our economy if that came to pass; he honestly has no concern, malicious or intentional for that eventuality. He means no harm to our economy; que sera, sera. But destroying the economy wouldn’t impact his comfort. In fact, only by disrupting (that is, partially destroying) our economy does he apply and demonstrate his superpower to the rich people who previously mocked and excluded him from their clique, the Wall Street Journal guys and their ilk. Include as well the billionaires the Zuck, the Muck, and the Bozo… they’re NOT HIS FRIENDS, just his latest bootlickers. And they are doing the most expensive bootlicking ever on the planet. Trump probably is wondering if they’re ready to lick other body parts yet. (Update April 9, 2025: he stated online in these precise words that they’re kissing his ass. As Lily Tomlin said, “No matter how cynical you are it’s hard to keep up.”)
4. This particular superhero is a non-empath, to use a positive word for a very negative situation. (Reference Pritzker’s [Youtube] commencement speech on the relationship between kindness and intelligence.) He has probably been taught, whether in fact by his father or the rut he’s dug in life, that he has no friends. So even those in his closest inner circle, and the enslaved congress people like Cruz and Rubio, are just dancers in his chamber. Once he’s enslaved them, they dance like everyone else. And don’t deceive yourself that there’s an inner circle, no such thing as a friend. Miller and even the as-yet-unembarrassed Wiles are just people who will dance in the future; if they’re never made to dance, they have, in effect, usurped his superpower. The only reason a dear leader allows some around him to not dance is so that the others think there’s hope of lifelong ingratiation; there is not.
5. He will hardly ever enact anything for genuinely positive effect, whether financial, environmental, humanitarian, whatever. It’s just not his thing. He’s a landlord and the game is all — and only — about getting the rent, not providing shelter. The occasional action that seems like an America-first initiative, or jobs-creation measure is probably just someone else’s pet project or favor that’s being called in.
6. There’s only one person in America, and one outside, who don’t have to dance. Can you see who they are? Both are of roughly similar ethnic descent. Fascinating. Hmmm… and why do ‘fascinating’ and ‘fascist’ have the same root?

So what can we do differently if my analysis is right? I’m not suggesting that the balance of power changes; we have dug the biggest hole our Democracy has ever had. The main thing we can do is to NOT RESPOND TO HIS ACTIONS AS IF THEY ARE RATIONAL OR STRATEGIC. Foreign powers must simply wait it out, or maybe negotiate directly with others in America. There will be a lot of non-US money no longer going to America; work on getting that business. Accept that it is merely the Great and Powerful Oz bellowing smoke, explain that to all in his path, and move everything out of the way as best as possible.