"We should beware of the demagogues who are ready to declare a trade war against our friends—weakening our economy, our national security, and the entire free world—all while cynically waving the American flag."
~ President Ronald Reagan
So let me be clear, once again. I do not view the Reagan years as a successful presidency. Many people - particularly but not exclusively self-identified conservatives, including apparently Barack Obama - but I do not. He was a very good actor, and acted a part. Moreover, he successfully managed to popularize things which were, to put it bluntly, not good for the country, and which have remained toxic to the nation ever since. Things like trickle down economics and corporate supremacy and giving more and more to the already inflated budget of them military industrial complex and deregulation and gutting the Fairness Doctrine, among other things. He also initiated a new, and I would argue narrow-minded and mean-spirited, nationalism which poses as healthy patriotism, and which only recently has come to be viewed as toxic by much of the world, and even increasingly by many Americans.
All of which is to say that you should not expect me to mention, much less defend, Reagan and his presidency in the future. He is not a model of a successful or responsible president by any real objective and quantifiable measure.
That said, I will repeat my theme from yesterday, and say that at least there were some standards. Maybe his presidency was largely responsible for the beginning of the deterioration of those standards - unless you want to ignore or find excuses for things like the Savings and Loan and especially the Iran-Contra scandals), but they still did recognize some truths and standards.
One of those was not turning out backs on our allies. We did not bend over backwards to belittle or insult or try to punish or bully countries in western Europe or Canada or in the Far East. Most especially, we did not simply or without cause start trade wars with friendly nations, much less almost every other country in the entire world.
Right now, of course, we are witnessing Trump doing exactly that. Against the warnings of leading economists and many prominent politicians, not to mention leaders from the rest of the world, Trump went ahead with his imposing tariffs on most of the rest of the world (Russia being one of the very few countries exempted).
The fallout has been serious. Of course, the Trump White House and its allies are trying to minimize the extent of the damage. Generally speaking, that's what they do, and have always done, so it should be expected.
However, the ramifications of their actions are real. The stock market has simply crashed. Many people's savings have been seriously impacted and diminished. This is very real, even if Trump acts like everything is normal and decides to spend yet another day playing golf.
But that's not going to fix the problems. And the problems are a direct result of the actions of this Trump administration. Moreover, those problems were entirely predictable, and it was not just the Democrats or libtards or economic experts who were warning about it. That is why I felt it was imperative to show that even a conservative Republican icon like President Reagan knew the dangers of waging completely unnecessary tariff wars on friends.
Below, I added a video of this specific speech to combat that age old denial mechanism by Trump and members of his cult. They always claim that anything unflattering is "fake news". But this was a real quote, and you can view Reagan saying it on this video, which was posted by no less of an authority than the Reagan Library.
Whatever else Trump and his loyal supporters might say or argue, the one thing which they cannot argue with any honesty is that they were not warned. All of this was very predictable and foreseen. They insisted that they knew better and so went ahead with it anyway, regardless of any dissent.
Now, we are going to be paying the price for some time to come. Some things can be quickly forgiven or forgotten. But my gut instinct tells me that this will not be among those things. There has been a serious and total shift of opinion by the rest of the world based on Donald Trump having been elected president twice now, and his actions and attitudes while occupying the White House. The fact that he was placed in that position by the American people, not once but twice now, shows that it was no mere aberration. This is what enough Americans wanted and thought would be a good idea that it has now come to pass. So the rest of the world sees this and understands that maybe placing trust in the United States might be misguided.
Can you blame them?
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