These are the sort of things the poor and middle class voted for. To make the rich, richer. And then turn around and complain that rich are getting richer and they are getting poorer.
I know we don't want HN to devolve into political bickering, but this is a deeply important meta-observation about what's happening in our country right now. Trump's stochastically random decisions are so inscrutable, but his following is so cult-like, that his followers are forced to flail around to try and find any plausible justification for these actions.
You'd think that at some point the sheer effort of this would trigger some sort of introspection, but it never seems to come. Someone, somewhere, latches onto an explanation that's catchy enough, vague enough, and impossible to disprove enough, that the tribe can take the explanation at face value and latch onto it, no matter how thin.
This will be studied for a long, long time.
You can also support tarrifs in principal but not support the way they have been implemented (club not calpol, used as a political weapon or to extract mafia style favours)
Like this is philosophical more than political.
What's being pointed out is the retcon that "the whole damn point of the tariffs" is to end rampant consumerism. It's clear that the grand^{n}parent poster is flailing about and desperately trying to find the comfort of some coherent and intentional narrative behind a set of inherently incoherent and unintentional actions.
- Allows claiming various benefits like onshoring production, or reduced taxes. This is for the voters.
- Allows threatening other countries' industries with tariffs unless they invest in his friends' enterprises. This is for him.
If your manager at work acted like a legit insane person, but said one true thing, you wouldn't be there saying that he/she is smart in that particular area.
If by some chance in hell tarrifs actually work, its due to pure luck, not due to any strategy. Which is what the original person I am replying to made it seem.