this post was submitted on 20 Sep 2024
229 points (97.9% liked)

politics

19097 readers
3594 users here now

Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!

Rules:

  1. Post only links to articles, Title must fairly describe link contents. If your title differs from the site’s, it should only be to add context or be more descriptive. Do not post entire articles in the body or in the comments.

Links must be to the original source, not an aggregator like Google Amp, MSN, or Yahoo.

Example:

  1. Articles must be relevant to politics. Links must be to quality and original content. Articles should be worth reading. Clickbait, stub articles, and rehosted or stolen content are not allowed. Check your source for Reliability and Bias here.
  2. Be civil, No violations of TOS. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
  3. No memes, trolling, or low-effort comments. Reposts, misinformation, off-topic, trolling, or offensive. Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
  4. Vote based on comment quality, not agreement. This community aims to foster discussion; please reward people for putting effort into articulating their viewpoint, even if you disagree with it.
  5. No hate speech, slurs, celebrating death, advocating violence, or abusive language. This will result in a ban. Usernames containing racist, or inappropriate slurs will be banned without warning

We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.

All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.

That's all the rules!

Civic Links

Register To Vote

Citizenship Resource Center

Congressional Awards Program

Federal Government Agencies

Library of Congress Legislative Resources

The White House

U.S. House of Representatives

U.S. Senate

Partnered Communities:

News

World News

Business News

Political Discussion

Ask Politics

Military News

Global Politics

Moderate Politics

Progressive Politics

UK Politics

Canadian Politics

Australian Politics

New Zealand Politics

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] Ruorc@lemmy.ml 63 points 1 month ago (2 children)

He doesn't understand the nuances of making policy decisions, so his default answer to stuff like this is to just impose tariffs because that's all he knows. He doesn't care to understand and would likely eat the crayons you use if you were to try to explain it to him. He's just incapable of that sort of mental growth.

[–] watson387@sopuli.xyz 35 points 1 month ago

He doesn't understand anything. He's lived in a completely separate reality his entire life.

[–] Wrench@lemmy.world 11 points 1 month ago (3 children)

I don't know how you can miss that, though.

Tariffs on imported goods means the price raises to cover the increased cost to import it.

Tariffs are a mechanism to encourage domestic production by making foreign competition more expensive.

It's literally the opposite of reducing the cost to consumers.

Trump has to understand this. But he knows his rabid base do not. So he says it like it's going to help consumers, rather than exclusively the domestic producers that are already overcharging.

[–] djsoren19@yiffit.net 8 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Trump has to understand this.

Who says? It seems like these days he doesn't even know which state or city he's in, I think the likelihood of him understanding literally any political theory at all is close to zero.

[–] Wrench@lemmy.world 3 points 1 month ago

It's certainly possible, but I don't buy that level of ignorance.

Trump was savvy enough to keep interest rates low to heavily inflate real estate as the obvious money dump for free money. As a real estate mogul, this directly benefited him personally.

And don't give me that nieve nonsense that the president doesn't control the fed reserve. Trump's corruption was thorough and complete.

Trump absolutely understands basic economic principles of supply and demand. He is constantly trying to manipulate competition to give himself more power so he can gain from it. It's the same as raising tariffs to give domestic producers more power so they can raise their profits at the cost to the consumer.

He just doesn't give a shit about the consumer, only the kickbacks he gets from the producers.

[–] dalekcaan@lemm.ee 7 points 1 month ago

Honestly no, I don't think Trump understands. The way he talks about his precious tariffs, I'm pretty sure he's under the impression that imposing a tariff on Chinese goods means making China pay for it. It's really just the latest iteration of "build a wall and make Mexico pay for it."

[–] Ruorc@lemmy.ml 4 points 1 month ago (2 children)

You're giving him way too much credit. Never attribute to malice what can be explained by stupidity. While Trump has certainly performed acts out of malice, he is also the epitome of stupidity. He's suggested nuking hurricanes, injecting bleach, and has stared straight into the sun during a solar eclipse, etc, etc. He's a terrible person of course, but he's also a complete moron.

[–] orcrist@lemm.ee 3 points 1 month ago

I think with Trump we're forced to attribute many things to both malice and stupidity. The more he opens his mouth, the more you realize that he does have bad intentions.

[–] Wrench@lemmy.world 2 points 1 month ago

Sure. He's an idiot, no argument. But I think he understands leverage, and what tariffs means to domestic leverage over their consumers because of lack of competition. But ultimately, his understanding doesn't matter, the voters understanding does. And I doubt many who are considering voting for him understand that tariffs are worst for them personally.