What Would the Trump Economy Really Be Like
What’s happening to us, exactly, as we descend into war-as-a-form-of-discourse-and-interaction?
What we’re doing is standing in judgment of others. And that’s easy to do, in a divided world. When I predicted the rise of Trumpism, and its ilk, even I was baffled. The economics told me with absolute confidence it was going to happen, but the person in me was still bewildered: how could you become a fan of a person like Trump?
Today, I think I’m an advocate of a gentler approach. Let’s call that…understanding. Not “understanding” as in the sort of dishonest way of mutely “being understanding,” or just sitting there in silence. But genuinely understanding.
Today, I try to understand. Not just in the sort of academic way—the economics tell me these Big Transformation are Going to Happen. But at a human level. And when I do that, I begin to get it.
Let’s take Trumpism. I get why people are this attracted—let’s just call it what it is, there’s this weird erotic charge to it—to Trump. He emanates strength and purpose and firmness in a world going haywire. We all know our institutions and systems are broken, and at least he admits it. There’s a kind of nugget of truth there, even if what comes next—the scapegoating, rage, Big Lies, coup attempts, etcetera, is pretty odious. After all, it’s not Trump that we’re trying to understand, just his flock.
You see, we’re all sitting in judgment of one another in this divided world. The Trumpists and their ilk think everyone is a godless heathen, maybe an “invader,” maybe not even a “real” person. That’s judgment to the extreme. So should the rest of us…judge them right back for it? It’s human to want to do that, and it leads to…a place of retribution, really. Look at these idiots! They hate us! Get them back! Get them first!
The side of democracy can’t really win this way. Its job is much harder than mere power or dominance. Only by winning the desperate and broken back into the fold can it prosper again. We should think of people who’ve turned away from democracy as something like religious converts. Have you ever had a friend who suddenly found religion to an extreme degree? And turned fundamentalist or fanatical? That’s sort of what’s going on here, and we can’t win just by out-arguing them. But only by converting them back.
And to do that, just sitting in judgment isn’t going to work. It hasn’t worked for Biden, after all. It hasn’t worked for any liberal or democratic institution or force, who are all only weakening by the day. Judgment’s easy—but we need to desperately understand the reasons why so many people are turning to conflict and demagoguery, and that means really sort of empathizing with, grasping, seeing, holding, how broken and afraid and hurt they really are.
The path of judgment leads right through to the battlefields of what’s become everyday social life, and that leads nowhere. We’re in a kind of Cold Civil War already, in many societies, where, sure, we aren’t kind of gunning each other down, but we’re beginning to genuinely despise one another, and take every opportunity to sow conflict and enact retribution. Where does this end up? In, as Alex Garland’s new movie suggests, actual civil war. Or something very much like it, whether it’s authoritarianism or fascism or what have you.
I think I’m on the side now of understanding for all those reasons. But I mean that in a true way: not sitting in judgment, while biting your tongue, resentfully saying the same things in your mind you want to scream online. But actually trying to understand what it is that’s motivating this self-made series of collapses, how deep these feelings of betrayal and abandonment and neglect really are, why they erupt in rage and fury, how they erotically charge figures like Trump as salvational near-religious icons.
None of that means merely “tolerating” it, accepting abusiveness, or being complicit in sordid hate, by the way. But it does mean something more challenging than I myself used to do, which is give the rage and spite right back, only harder: find what slender thread of human connection remains, if one does at all, between us.
That’s a lot of goopy stuff. Now let’s talk about some hard stuff. I’m sure you’ve been dying, practically sobbing, for a Hat-Wearing Economist to tell you the ins and outs of Trump’s latest plan, crazy as always, to devalue the dollar, by delving deep into…macroeconomics.
Well, here I am. Don’t worry, I’m going to simplify it, and try not to bore you to death at the same time.
In case you haven’t heard, Trump’s latest crazy plan is to…devalue the dollar. One of Trump’s advisers is a guy called Robert Lighthizer, who appears not to really understand how economics works, I know, what a surprise, and his Big Idea is…just this.
All of this tells us what the Trump economy will (really) be like. So what’s this going to do? Oh, just cause probably another huge inflationary shock, and send prices skyrocketing all over again, maybe even higher this time.
Why is that? Devaluing currencies does two things. It makes imports more expensive, and it makes exports cheaper. Now. Trump and his advisor want to devalue the dollar so that exports are cheaper, and America’s trade deficit “falls.”
There’s only one Incredibly Big Problem with that, which should make anyone with a bit of common sense groan. America imports much, much more than it exports. So of course the effect on imports will be devastating for the average person. Imagine all that stuff you buy now—from China, or Vietnam, or India, or wherever—is suddenly 10, 20, 30% more expensive. I’m sure that made you shudder, because who isn’t feeling the pain of inflation these days?