this post was submitted on 06 Apr 2025
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Fascism has come to America, wrapped in a flag and carrying a cross.

Documenting the crimes and corruption of the 47th president of the United States and his fascist minions.

Here we go again.

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I somehow was not aware of exactly where and how Trump got the idea that tariffs were a solid idea. Behold (youtu.be)
submitted 2 days ago by PhilipTheBucket@ponder.cat to c/trump_watch@lemm.ee
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[–] PhilipTheBucket@ponder.cat 48 points 2 days ago (1 children)

In short: Trump told his son-in-law to find him an economic advisor, Jared went on Amazon and started looking for economic books on Amazon with titles that sounded badass. Jared found “Death by China” by a random nut job named Peter Navarro. In it, Peter Navarro extensively quoted an economics expert named Ron Vara who explained in detail how good an idea tariffs were.

Now, think about this: If this were a bad fantasy novel with a mysterious villain, who would Ron Vara during one particular big reveal turn out to be?

[–] TachyonTele@lemm.ee 53 points 2 days ago (5 children)

I cheated and looked up the answer:

“The economics expert that Peter Navarro has long cited to explain why he's so gung-ho on tariffs, this person, Ron Vara, is a made-up person. He is a fictional person. Peter Navarro invented Ron Vara as his expert source, so he could quote this expert source over and over and over again in his crackpot books.”

[–] barneypiccolo@lemm.ee 5 points 1 day ago (1 children)

John Barron and Ron Vara are friends.

[–] TachyonTele@lemm.ee 1 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

They're best friends!
https://youtu.be/QGu0m08Etm8

[–] jonne@infosec.pub 26 points 2 days ago

And he even made the fake economist an anagram of his own last name.

[–] gibmiser@lemmy.world 17 points 2 days ago

Reality is so fucking dumb. Ughhhh

[–] shalafi@lemmy.world 32 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Hell, I got dumber than that. Trump's origin story was Obama destroying him at the White House Corespondent's Dinner. American history unfolding:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HHckZCxdRkA

That was the moment Trump decided to run. Watch him fucking seethe. I doubt he had ever, before or since, taken such a beating to his narcissism.

This is why I've been screaming for media and government leaders to push him into narcissistic collapse. (That's a thing, look it up.) It would be child's play for people with a large enough audience to take him apart at the seams.

[–] Mohamed@lemmy.ca 6 points 1 day ago (2 children)

I keep hoping that someone, publicly, in front of Trump himself, completely belittles him. Example transcript:

Trump: Tariffs are good! Make America strong! Person: (loudly and with dismissive hand gestures) Oh shut up, you incoherent crybaby idiot. Nobody cares what you think. Trump: You can't shush me! Person: You seem grumpy. Did you eat recently? Maybe go play with your friends?

(I hope you are able to come up with more colorful and hilarious examples of convos)

Based on my own hand-wavy analysis, I think that it will be effective on two fronts: 1. Narcissistic collapse of Trump. It would break Trump, in public, which will probably make him look even more like a crybaby, idiot. 2. Collapse of the cult of personality around him, specifically "the strongman" personality.

[–] shalafi@lemmy.world 4 points 1 day ago

Such a damn shame because it would be so easy to pull his teeth. European leaders alone could have him roll up into a little ball. And the media should be hammering him with humiliation.

[–] Willy@sh.itjust.works 3 points 1 day ago

I don’t think it would be that easy. Wishful thinking. Elons son did worse and he’s like 4.

[–] Floodedwomb@lemmy.world 10 points 2 days ago

Idk he had just done a Comedy Central Roast like a month before the White House Correspondents Dinner. Obama didn't say anything worse than that. He had been openly talking about it for years prior, that's why The Simpsons made a joke about it in 2000. His racism and greed is why he ran.

[–] BlueZen@lemmy.world 21 points 2 days ago

"But that really is how the Trump administration crafted its tariff policy. That's where Trump came up with the tariff idea.

Circulating a fake memo - from a fake person - with a fake email address - in order to make it look like this was a serious issue being debated by real experts.

That is the intellectual basis on which Donald Trump today wiped $6 trillion of wealth out of existence and crashed America's markets and brought America and the world to the brink of a self-inflicted, on-purpose, global Great Depression along the lines of what we had in 2008 and what the pandemic inflicted upon us in 2020.

This time the global disaster is Donald Trump's big brain."

[–] DrBob@lemmy.ca 13 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Ron Vara should form a consulting firm with John Barron, John Miller, and David Dennison. They would be the hit of K Street.

[–] Micans@reddthat.com 6 points 2 days ago (1 children)

With Adrian Dittman

[–] boaratio@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago

I was waiting for someone to bring up Dittman.

[–] kevin@programming.dev 10 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Ron Vera being Navarro reminds me of Trump posing as John Miller

[–] paraphrand@lemmy.world 5 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Game recognize game.

[–] PhilipTheBucket@ponder.cat 11 points 2 days ago

In seriousness, that is what's going on, just in a little more complex fashion.

Both Trump and Musk are incapable of interacting with someone who knows what they're talking about and also has the integrity to speak up about it. Because at some point they will disagree with some of the total bullshit that Trump/Musk is emitting. And so, over time, they become surrounded by people they're comfortable with: Total morons, or shameless hucksters, or both at once.

Musk started out running a company that could produce the Tesla Roadster. Trump started out with John Kelly, Jim Mattis, those kinds of people. Over time, natural selection weeds those people out, because they make Trump/Musk incredibly uncomfortable and they have to get rid of them. That's why they are both surrounded by people like Big Balls and Navarro: Because that's what they want. People they feel comfortable with because they never disagree. And Trump and Musk are both so incredibly unqualified that people have to get really incompetent -- like to a grade-school level -- to reach a level that they'll never push back against the horrible ideas that emit from them.

[–] SteveCC@lemmy.world 5 points 2 days ago

Ny times article https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/16/us/politics/peter-navarro-ron-vara.html

[–] militaryintelligence@lemmy.world 1 points 2 days ago

Why would Republicans care about average stock owners? He can cause a huge dip and cash in.

[–] Griff@lemm.ee 1 points 2 days ago

And that’s how America collapsed…