Trump's Crimes of Stupidity Are No Longer Victimless
This week, one stark reality has become increasingly clear: President Donald Trump’s capacity for awfulness is no longer theoretical; it's palpably real.
After Trump’s decision to catapult America into a trade war with the world, the S&P 500 Index dropped 10 percent in two days. On Friday, the Dow Jones lost over 2,200 points. His inconceivably inane and malignant tariffs have already cost Americans trillions in wealth, and there is no end in sight as other countries retaliate.
Things have gotten so bad that even shameless Trump sycophants are worried. Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, who would immediately produce a can opener from his jacket if Trump asked him to eat dog food off the floor of the Oval Office, has criticized Trump’s mindless tariff scheme, calling the inevitable retaliatory tariffs “terrible for America.”
From the outset, Trump has defied conventional political logic, weathering scandal and controversy that would have sunk any other leader. However, until this week, all of the offenses defining his tenure have shared a common theme: they didn’t significantly affect the life of the average American.
Consider the recent uproar over the Signal leak. The revelation that Trump's administration mishandled information over a military operation in Yemen was met with predictable outrage from critics and concern from military experts. Yet, for many Americans, this scandal was distant and abstract. It involved geopolitical intricacies and military strategies that, while crucial, did not directly impact the daily lives of citizens back home. No American soldiers died, and the bombing of the Houthis was a success. It was, for much of the public, a victimless political crime.
Similarly, Trump's relentless assertions about the 2020 election being stolen and his controversial handling of classified documents have stirred controversy primarily in the realm of rhetoric and legality. These offenses transgress norms and challenge institutions, but crucially, they haven't inflicted tangible harm on ordinary Americans in their everyday affairs. They remain, to a large extent, theoretical crimes—debatable, divisive, but detached from immediate consequences for most citizens.
President bangs a porn star while his wife is home with a newborn? It’s got nothing to do with me. Trump takes Putin’s side in a war against an American ally? Ukraine is so far away! The chief executive creates a new meme coin, then scams his supporters for a billion dollars as he pulls the rug out from under them? Crypto-what?
But now, there's one arena where Trump's actions have decidedly pierced the bubble of political theater and impacted the lives of everyday Americans: the economy. The president's ignorant view of tariffs, particularly his tariff policies that have precipitated market volatility and staggering declines, has proven far from harmless. Once a barometer of economic health and investor confidence, the stock market has cratered under Trump's trade policies, leaving retirement funds vulnerable and business outlooks uncertain.
Unlike the esoteric debates over election integrity or the proper handling of sensitive information, the economic repercussions of Trump's tariff policies reached directly into the wallets and livelihoods of American families. Jobs are now in peril as businesses will struggle to adapt. What was once a distant concern for economists and policy wonks became a pressing reality for Main Street.
Virtually every one of Trump’s scandals involves a stunning mix of ignorance, hubris, and dishonesty. It was just a matter of time before he poured this toxic cocktail on an issue that affected people outside the Beltway.
With his destruction of the American economy, he might have finally found an issue in which his voters have skin in the game. If the MAGA crowd continues to support him after this, then they deserve to lose their money; it’s just a shame that everyone else will also be paying the penalty for Trump’s imbecility.