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PaperclipPerfector  10d ago (text post)   31904 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of April 7, 2025

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Two questions. With the second question being-

'When the Trump tariff rollback doesn't happen over the next two years, what next?'

Great new American golden age, Don Jr selected as presumptive next nominee (all other contenders drop out), Amazon buys Truth Social for $20bn cash in exchange for slightly reducing tariffs on China and Vietnam (15%)

GOP gets destroyed in the midterms, Supreme Court gets scared of getting packed in a future Dem trifecta and starts limiting Trump in a big way, lamest of lame duck final 2 year presidencies, woke coalition return to power not out of any competency but because Trump screwed up so badly (85%)

Even if the GOP ultimately gets destroyed in the midterms, I think there will be a GOP pullback well before then, probably beginning at the end of this year, assuming, of course, that the tariffs stay in place. As the effects are more fully felt, I think Trump's intransigence on the issue may cause some of his supporters in congress to see the writing on the wall. You can guarantee that some otherwise safe seats will have primary challengers basing their entire campaigns on tariff policy, particularly in districts where losing the seat to a Democrat is a real possibility. The Republicans who are currently standing with Trump will have a hard enough time getting reelected already, and will have to pull back in order to have any chance of salvaging their careers. This is doubly true if Trump's approval ratings tank among Republicans, at which point supporting the cult no longer scores you any points.

one other interesting twist on all of this is that Trump is extremely old. This is not a charismatic 40-year old who has the potential to cement his rule for a decade+. Trump is inherently a short-term politician, and if he starts being a short-term loser then it’s a lot easier for people to jump ship. There is little chance he stages some kind of comeback in the future after this which would cause people to doubt if defecting now will come back to bite them later.

Full on communism European style socialism once the democrats take over. And they don't eliminate the tariffs either.

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