Summary
A new WalletHub poll reveals that 74% of Americans believe Donald Trump’s proposed tariffs will worsen inflation, which remains a major concern for most households.
Trump’s plan includes significant tariffs—up to 60% on Chinese goods and 20% on other imports—to protect American jobs and address issues like fentanyl production and border security.
Experts warn these tariffs could increase consumer prices, with middle-income families potentially losing $2,500 annually.
Analysts caution Trump’s plans may face political hurdles in Congress despite his economic-focused campaign promises.
I understand the appeal of “teaching them a lesson”, purely for spiteful reasons. But there are problems with that approach:
You can teach a child never to put his hand on the burner by putting his hand on the burner. He’ll learn alright, but he’ll also have a nasty burn. Similarly, you don’t want people to learn the dangers of populism and extreme right by letting the extreme-right populist do stupid shit and wreck their lives.
We who didn’t vote for the dangerous populist live in the same country as those who did: even if we wanted to let the dangerous populist hurt them to teach them a lesson, he’ll hurt us too in the process.
History always repeat itself: even if everybody learns a hard lesson after Trump is done wrecking the economy - or worse - our children, or our children’s children will invariably elect another Trump some day. So we might as well do our best to limit the damage each time.
It is not spiteful. I’m looking at this from the outside (as far as anyone can be with a world-dominating economy like the US), and I’ve given up any hope that Americans as such would learn without really, really painful lessons that manage to pass even through the thick skulls of the MAGA-heads. I don’t wish anyone to suffer, but at the moment I cannot see any way for this lesson to set in without it.
That innocent people are hurt is horrible. But as only a smaller number of citizens have voted for the smart alternative, those who didn’t vote and those who voted for Trump together are the majority. It could have been prevented if enough people had gotten their asses out of their houses - but that did not happen. And the death wish for the US was strong - Hitler only had about 33% of the votes and had to resort to political tricks to get where Trump was carried to by a majority of the voters. Think about that.
And yes, history repeats itself. You were extremely lucky to skip a few cycles - in comparison to e.g. Europe - but the signs were there for a long time, and way to few people cared. Maybe we all get lucky and it “just” turns into a 1929+ depression, focused primarily on the US.
Your second point only applies to people who voted against him. If you didn’t vote you voted for him.