Good interpretation of what's happened here, LSO. The left continues with the old playbook, only it's not working. I wouldn't worry too much on the tariffs. Mexico and Canada took less than 24 hours to see reason. Trump apparently did ask prior to the point of issuing tariffs for things that are, by sovereign nation standards, very reasonable - help secure the border and stop sending poison and death across it, but of course he is a "dictator". No one mentions the enormous duties Canada slaps on some US goods prior to all this, but that's a matter for another discussion. The funny part was watching Canadian retailers remove things made in the US from their shelves - as if not selling things they've already purchased will somehow teach us a lesson. I like Canadians in general, but some of the things coming out the last 48 hours have completely nixed the idea of the "nice" Canadians.
In a battle there are always some casualties. But winning is worth it for those that survive - as no doubt your parents, aunts and uncles told you in the 1950s.
Not really. Higher tariffs mean higher prices for domestic (US) consumers. Every economic measure has winners and losers. Much higher tariffs (or other discriminatory measures) are usually used to pursue non-economic goals. And every country uses them, often for strategic reasons.
Trump dropped the tariffs after what? Trudeau assigned few border patrol officers. Meanwhile, he has created enormous ill will. Was it worth it? Is America better off now?
And the way things are here, I wouldn't mind if the UK became the 51st state. Cannot believe I am saying that, but it is a measure of the freefall the UK has been in for so long. Trump's America is more likely to maintain and promote freedom than either the UK or the EU.
As for the US, Trump is doing precisely what he was elected to do. Cut out DEI and that crap and stop government waste on pork and corruption. He's doing a bang up job there and DOGE is following the money and identifying just how many pigs were in the trough getting rich off cosy government contracts.
It's very like what Milei did in Argentina (maybe because Milei advised him on one of his visits to the US?) and it's going to put a lot of AWFUL Karens and Margarets out of a job, which is going to be tough on their neighbors but better for the rest of the country
And the rest of the world I think Francis. Argentina is already showing there is another way. And now the States has the opportunity to prove that a sclerotic, big state, low freedom, ‘social democracy’ model is not the inevitable future for the West.
The bad news for the UK is that it'll probably be sometime before Two Tier and co have to face an election and get replaced. The good news is that by the time they do, Milei and Trump and maybe Polievre in Canada and some others will have figured out all the tricks needed to successfully get rid of the grifters and incompetents
The point is that we have been living in peace for the last 80 years. That might change if we get rid of the organisations that brought us here, even if you don't like the UN or NATO or whatever.
Trump is abolishing DEI and cracking down on trans folk in the army. Excellent. I am with you there.
But what about threatening Denmark with retribution if they don't give up Greenland? Was he elected to do that? What about honouring agreements with other countries?
Does America's word even count any more if a rogue president can violate it?
The UN and NATO have kept us safe for 75 years. Do you think they will survive?
Do you think pardoning the people who attacked Congress was a good idea? Was he elected to do that?
Meanwhile Lammy thinks he can persuade Rubio that because Mauritius has "assured" him China won't be allowed on the Chagos Islands that somehow the lunatic "deal" is OK. Just like Mauritius "assured" the Chagossians that they would receive the compensation that the 1968 Labour government coughed up, only to steal it for themselves. Just as China "assured" us Hong Kong would be left alone.
Fantastic summary - nails it so well. Love the imagery of the child having a tantrum and yes, shock horror - a politician doing what he promised to do. Hoping Trump starts a trend.
Thanks Mrs Bucket. Foreign ‘Aid’ has a been a corrupt money laundering scheme for years. Just the same, if a more junior version, in the UK. The bad guys know that if they label something as ‘aid’ or a ‘charity’ it is much harder for critics to attack it- they just come across as ‘mean’. So these organisations often provide great cover for evil deeds.
Charlotte Gill (somewhere on Substack) has done a lot of DOGE type work exposing the waste in UK Govt & the BBC - and a rather incestuous relationship with USAID
I can shed some light on why the Republicans haven't gone after this. It is because they discovered that they, too, could waltz right up to the troughl. The horror at the dismantling of foreign "aid"on the faces of many long term, powerful Republicans is the realization that despite their performances about "small government", they were all-in on the grift - and it is about to be very, very public.
Good summary albeit preaching to the converted. My sister, getting on a bit, is a leftie - we have a truce - questions how I can endorse Trump. What's the point? If I said the likes of AOC, Kamala, Starmer, Rayner are lying, evil despicable hypocrites whose heads I'd have on spikes along the Embankment 'pour encourager les autres' she'd gawp in wonder at my 'rightitude.'
I wouldn't really, I'd have them on a tramp steamer without washing facilities or a change of clothes bound for N.Korea or Venezuela. Although Mar-a-lago would identify their true spirit.
Tariffs? He said he would if....gave them a choice to comply or not.
The thing about Trump and his relationship with foreign countries is that he's doing to them what hard nosed business people and trades union negotiators do in their negotiations.
1. Say to country I want X to happen
2. Country says it won't X
3. Trump says. OK then if you don't X, then your economy goes titsup.com thanks to the tariffs I'm going to impose that will kill your exports the US
4. Country goes. "Oh shit I'd better X"
The thing is this is not how other people do foreign relations
Agreed Francis. And the US economy is possibly only a secondary factor in Trump’s mind. I think a lot of this is simply about flexing some US muscle and reminding the world that despite the atrophy of the last few years, it is still the biggest, meanest kid on the block. Is this a sort of mafia tactic? Absolutely. But it is effective. And it’s probably in the world’s interests for some countries to be reminded of American might.
Trump is also a teetotaler. 100,000 people die from fentanyl every single year. That pisses us all off. The ingredients are sent to China, Mexicans produce the pills and smuggle them in Bidens open border. Mexico gets rich on it through their cartels. Canada has 4000 terrorist organizations that they know about. This reported by Canadian authorities at a Congressional hearing. They have been very open with their immigration. This hurts Americans and Canadians. Enough with this shit. American policy with both countries have been generous and accommodating for many years but the lack of serious cooperation to deal with this issue has been non existent especially in the last four years because democrats did not care either. Trump got their attention and made clear he was not just going to spend months in useless negotiations. These two countries have 7400 miles of borders with us.
He has sent the military to the southern border and rumor is the cartels have declared their minions to engage with border forces. It could get ugly fast if they engage. There hordes of fed up Texans after years of frustration of the invasion. Now they have authority to defend themselves.
100,000 people a year. 400,000 in four years. And thousands in year’s prior.
One half of a million people. They did not fire a shot.
The bosses don’t really care about drugs Deidre. Unless they affect their business. ‘Anti drug’ programmes are just another way to extract money from the masses. I’m not saying that the on the ground workers are all cynics, but it’s like homelessness in California. A multi billion dollar business it’s in no one’s interest to solve. (Apart from you know, the actual victims)
Now the ‘War on Drugs’ becomes real, present, and effective. Those making money off the backs of the victims have plenty to moan about.
It's a combination of Parkinson's Law of Bureaucracy and Pournelle's Iron rule.
Bureaucracies (which include NGOs/charities) have no incentive to solve a problem because that means they are out of a job. They have a huge incentive to spend lots of money not solving the problem though
Yes Francis. I believe this is a huge opportunity cost in Western broadly liberal societies. No one in the public sector actually wants to sort out the problem they are being paid to address, because as you say, they will be out of a job. I expect about 10% -20% of government is swallowed up this way. As for ‘charities’……
Will just say his was not a program, it was a solution at the core. Stop the source.
The addicts will find something else but perhaps not something that kills so easily.
Half a million people in four years is not something that should be ignored, so yes I am glad Trump took a stand for good. Apparently this is something people no longer recognize a politician might do. They just assume he wants to take them over. Geez I can’t take the nonsense.
I never claimed that Ragged. I’m just pointing out how much of these programs which are supposed to help people are simply grift. And don’t help people at all.
The left are keener than the right on these social programs that’s all. I’m not ‘defending the right’. It’s not binary. We need a smaller state with less of this stuff. If that is coded ‘right wing’ so be it.
I’m less concerned about labels than ordinary people being ripped off because their tax money is being used to fund ‘social programs’ that are really just ways to make members of the PMC rich.
Trump is amazingly better than most of us, after nearly a decade of anti-Trump propaganda, have been trained to think. He was naive going into his first presidency, but he learned from it bigly. Never mind the tariffs, entertaining though they are: he has destroyed USAID in a weekend; he has destroyed DEI in Federal government, and it is collapsing everywhere else in sympathy. He has accomplished more rollback of government oppression in a fortnight than any previous president managed at all.
Another brilliant piece, LSO. Couple of points of caution though. the Trump administration realistically has less than 18months to bake in change and demonstrate itks working, before the mid-terms. It’s got to deliver by then. Secondly, here in the UK, we are stuck with an out of touch, globalist regime in Labour, I’m just hoping that in the 5-10 years it takes to replace them there is still enough of a recognisable country to save.
Thank you P. Yes. I also think they need to consolidate this stuff in Congress (I think) or it can once again be overturned. I don’t think tit for tat administrations is in anyone’s interest.
I worry the UK is past saving. The regulations and culture are so baked in that nothing can change them. And anyone who remotely tries to alter the status quo, like Truss or even Johnson to an extent-at least with Brexit- will face a speedy defenestration.
Conflict with Panama and Denmark. Elon Musk is rummaging through the government’s underwear drawer. Mexico and Canada are turned into enemies. And now “a long-term ownership position” in Gaza, that future “Riviera of the Middle East.”
— Dan Gardener
But at least they don't put pronouns in their emails anymore.
Also I’d say the pronoun thing is not a silly nothing. It’s a huge signifier. And has been used as such to impose fealty and demonstrate allegiance to an anti freedom, anti human ideology. Dismissing it as unimportant is like saying the Berlin Wall was just a pile of bricks. We are well rid of it. 👍
It’s not a distraction. That’s my point. It’s foundational. I expect this is a tactical retreat. Nothing more. The idea that someone like AOC has come round to see sense is nuts. Her power derives from this stuff. They are not going to give it up without a fight.
We will never agree on this Ragged. There is a realignment taking place. A reaction to the last one which the technocratic big state elites have been enacting with their long march through the institutions for decades. Trumps realignment so far is fast, messy and has put lots of people’s noses out of joint. Mainly important powerful people it should be noted.
We’ll find out in four years time if American citizens. The little ones who don’t count. Are richer, healthier and freer. And if the world is safer or more war torn. If China has more power or less power. On all these metrics I am optimistic. More optimistic today than I was even three weeks ago. I know you don’t agree. Let’s see what happens.
We've had 80 years of international trust and cooperation. NATO, UN, WHO, WTO, NAFTA etc. It will be a different world without them. It was certainly a different world before them with that Austrian fella and the Italian fella. The woke stuff is annoying but not as annoying as a world where we don't get along anymore. Or where one country acts like the boss country and all the others bend the knee.
And within the USA, they have a Constitution that specifies how the different branches of government interact with each other and how the States relate to the Federal government. That's worked out well for eighty years too (even if bits of it annoy us both). If that all changes and a couple of authoritarians are running the show, it will be a very different country.
Hardly enemies! They just have to pull their socks up. I'd do that with France: tariffs on all their exports until they stop the boats coming over. Very happy to pay an extra ten per cent on my French beans (or whatever) to stop that traffic. And British farmers would benefit. Win-win.
As you know, I agree with you on the immigration stuff and the DEI stuff and the woke stuff and the transgender stuff — but you have skipped over most of the important stuff.
What was that business with the tariffs about? "25% tariffs on you, Canada, unless you become the 51st state". That's not the behaviour of a normal President. Canada got that cancelled by hiring someone to keep an eye on the Fentanyl smuggling but what damage has it done already? Car parts go back and forth across the border multiple times so Canadian manufacturers will be finding a back-up plan that doesn't involve trade with the USA so they will be ready for next time. Will that be good for American trade?
What about Musk having access to all the government finances? What good do you expect to come of that? Will he switch off payments to…what… social security? Medicaid (not Medicare because they voted for Trump)? Any other Congress-approved spending he will cut off?
Trump clearly doesn't honour America's agreements with other countries. Are international agreements worth anything now? Should the rest of us be prepared?
What will Denmark have to do if Trump decides he really, really wants Greenland? Any other bits of other countries he might want?
What about purging everyone at the FBI involved in the arrest of the folks involved in the attack on the Capitol? What about directing their investigations against people who donated to the wrong party?
What about his Cabinet appointees? Any good ones? Marco Rubio, maybe. Anyone else? How many government departments will they shut down once they are done with USAid?
How much of the US Constitution will survive Trump, do you think?
"25% tariffs on you, Canada, unless you become the 51st state" I do t think he’s saying that at all. Sorry but this just seems like a Democrat/leftist talking point.
As I mention in the article I would be more open to listening to the critics of Trumps tariffs if the same people hadn’t just decided to make everyone in the west poorer with their stupid, and it is stupid, Net Zero plan. Or impoverished us in the uk by spending £450 bn on Covid. Or taking the legs out of our economy with so many regulations nothing can get built and no business wants to open. Sure. These tariffs could be a bad idea. Let’s see. But they are no more daft than the policies our government has been pursuing enthusiastically for the last twenty or more years to the detriment of its people.
The EU proved how quickly it would drop its ‘commitments’ to other countries during the vaccine wars.
I don’t think the Biden administration was particularly bothered by the Constitution. Especially as far as free speech is concerned.
The FBI has a lot of questions to answer. The laptop scandal shows it is not neutral.
I will end with something that I know will annoy you Ragged but I genuinely believe. I don’t support all Trumps actions. But I believe the Constitution much much safer in his hands, that it would have been in Kamala Harris’s hands. Or the hands of the deep state powers behind the Biden administration.
> Trump keeps floating the idea that Canada should join the United States as the 51st state, saying Tuesday he would not use military force to invade the country, which is home to more than 40 million people and is a founding NATO partner.
> Instead, Trump said he would rely on “economic force” as he erroneously cast the U.S. trade deficit with Canada — a natural resource-rich nation that provides the U.S. with commodities like oil — as a subsidy.
Do you work for the BBC, because it appears you get your information from state run propaganda outfits? Which by the way for some unknown nefarious leftist reason USAID donates a big chunk of cheese to. Trump just poked the bear at Canada and folks like you fell hook line and sinker for it. Canada is a beautiful country filled with an amazing amount of resources that could make it one of the wealthiest nations in the world if it chose to. Instead they have adopted a socialist, globalist agenda that has created poverty, drug addiction and regulations that stymie innovation and economic dependence.
We all want the best for them. And their truckers are the finest!
I get most of my information from independent commentators in America.
It seems that Canada also fell for it when Trump poked the bear. You've no doubt seen the video of America's best friends booing the Star-Spangled Banner at multiple hockey matches.
We'll see whether the US Constitution is safer in Trump's hands. I'd say there is a 40% chance that it won't make it through the next four years unless Congress does something brave.
I think the International Order that has kept us safe for 80 years is on dodgy ground too.
Literally no chance that the Constitution will be repealed/rewritten/abolished Ragged. Zero.
Although Hillary Clinton and the WEF have been pretty explicit in their desire to overturn the First Amendment. By pretending it doesn’t cover whatever they decide is ‘hate speech’. Also the second amendment. Which I know all decent liberals hate. But no one has ever explained to me how ‘banning guns’ would result in anything except ’all the good people give up their guns, all the bad people keep their guns.’
The International Order. I don’t know what that means. Ceding power to China, working together to overturn referendums, starting wars in the Middle East, keeping African farmers out of EU markets with tariffs, printing money when your neighbours print money to make your populations poorer, paying off Iran not to develop nukes which they are developing anyway. Maybe that. I don’t feel very safe!
My understanding is that Clinton wanted to charge people who were spreading Russian propaganda. I don't know what the *First Amendment would have to say about that. I couldn't find anything about banning hate speech. Do you have an example? I know the Dems tried to argue that dollar bills are not 'speech' in Citizens United. That seems reasonable to me.
What I had in mind was the relationship between the President and Congress as defined in Article One and Article Two of the Constitution. Trump has already crossed the line over laws relating to finance and government departments. If he continues, there won't be much left of that line.
I think the International Order is getting shaky when Canadians start booing the Star-Spangled Banner. The relationship between Europe, USA and Canada has kept us safe for 80 years. I don't think it will survive four years of Trump if he carries on like this.
* Big fan of the First Amendment, me. I wish we had one.
Clinton wanted to arrest herself? Because she created the Steele report. Or at least paid for it to be made up.
I linked to H Clinton and John Kerry discussing the 1st at I think the WEF in a previous piece. The videos were all over the place.
I’m happy with what Trump is going with USAID. I wish someone would audit the £12bn we are shovelling out the door in ‘aid’. Someone is getting very rich off it. And it’s not poor people.
Hear, Hear! Great stuff. I will copy/forward it to my relatives in yet another effort to drill some sense into them (though some are OK - it's the younger ones that worry me).
Good interpretation of what's happened here, LSO. The left continues with the old playbook, only it's not working. I wouldn't worry too much on the tariffs. Mexico and Canada took less than 24 hours to see reason. Trump apparently did ask prior to the point of issuing tariffs for things that are, by sovereign nation standards, very reasonable - help secure the border and stop sending poison and death across it, but of course he is a "dictator". No one mentions the enormous duties Canada slaps on some US goods prior to all this, but that's a matter for another discussion. The funny part was watching Canadian retailers remove things made in the US from their shelves - as if not selling things they've already purchased will somehow teach us a lesson. I like Canadians in general, but some of the things coming out the last 48 hours have completely nixed the idea of the "nice" Canadians.
I saw the shop stuff too. I thought it was funny that they thought that was somehow a win.
I bet the people who ship those goods to Canada didn't find it so funny. So they have already paid for yesterday's goods. What about tomorrow's?
In a battle there are always some casualties. But winning is worth it for those that survive - as no doubt your parents, aunts and uncles told you in the 1950s.
The casualties are potentially everyone except America. That won't be good. Even if the threats come to nothing, they don't make the world better.
Not really. Higher tariffs mean higher prices for domestic (US) consumers. Every economic measure has winners and losers. Much higher tariffs (or other discriminatory measures) are usually used to pursue non-economic goals. And every country uses them, often for strategic reasons.
Trump dropped the tariffs after what? Trudeau assigned few border patrol officers. Meanwhile, he has created enormous ill will. Was it worth it? Is America better off now?
Yes. I think so.
Canadians seem to be as divided as Americans. By some accounts, there are quite a few Canadians who wouldn't say No to becoming the 51st state -
https://elizabethnickson.substack.com/p/canada-is-a-failed-state-and-mark?utm_source=substack&publication_id=30495&post_id=155772987&utm_medium=email&utm_content=share&utm_campaign=email-share&triggerShare=true&isFreemail=true&r=8t0c1&triedRedirect=true
And the way things are here, I wouldn't mind if the UK became the 51st state. Cannot believe I am saying that, but it is a measure of the freefall the UK has been in for so long. Trump's America is more likely to maintain and promote freedom than either the UK or the EU.
As for the US, Trump is doing precisely what he was elected to do. Cut out DEI and that crap and stop government waste on pork and corruption. He's doing a bang up job there and DOGE is following the money and identifying just how many pigs were in the trough getting rich off cosy government contracts.
It's very like what Milei did in Argentina (maybe because Milei advised him on one of his visits to the US?) and it's going to put a lot of AWFUL Karens and Margarets out of a job, which is going to be tough on their neighbors but better for the rest of the country
And the rest of the world I think Francis. Argentina is already showing there is another way. And now the States has the opportunity to prove that a sclerotic, big state, low freedom, ‘social democracy’ model is not the inevitable future for the West.
The bad news for the UK is that it'll probably be sometime before Two Tier and co have to face an election and get replaced. The good news is that by the time they do, Milei and Trump and maybe Polievre in Canada and some others will have figured out all the tricks needed to successfully get rid of the grifters and incompetents
Let’s hope so Francis. 🤞
All you money grabbers decrying Starmer for his policies of equalising the share out of our pot.
Our pot? And where is that, pray? Or do you think all tax receipts are shared equally?
The point is that we have been living in peace for the last 80 years. That might change if we get rid of the organisations that brought us here, even if you don't like the UN or NATO or whatever.
Trump is abolishing DEI and cracking down on trans folk in the army. Excellent. I am with you there.
But what about threatening Denmark with retribution if they don't give up Greenland? Was he elected to do that? What about honouring agreements with other countries?
Does America's word even count any more if a rogue president can violate it?
The UN and NATO have kept us safe for 75 years. Do you think they will survive?
Do you think pardoning the people who attacked Congress was a good idea? Was he elected to do that?
The UN has never kept anyone safe. And it ain't democratic either.
As for NATO, it did a good job up to around 1990. And who was the main funder? America. And the main beneficiaries? UK and the EEC. Humph.
Meanwhile Lammy thinks he can persuade Rubio that because Mauritius has "assured" him China won't be allowed on the Chagos Islands that somehow the lunatic "deal" is OK. Just like Mauritius "assured" the Chagossians that they would receive the compensation that the 1968 Labour government coughed up, only to steal it for themselves. Just as China "assured" us Hong Kong would be left alone.
Exactly Jeremy. These assurances aren’t worth anything. But they are aware of that. They just use them for cover.
Fantastic summary - nails it so well. Love the imagery of the child having a tantrum and yes, shock horror - a politician doing what he promised to do. Hoping Trump starts a trend.
Thanks Bettina. Let’s hope so.
STREWTH LSO! This is a cracker, a great summary. I am only learning the depth of Democrat evil in using US AID for all sorts of anti-American, pro-Communist China corruption. Slightly puzzled why Trump/the Republicans haven't been all over this in recent years - https://x.com/MarioNawfal/status/1886167348282863630?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1886167348282863630%7Ctwgr%5E2ac1a19fb75a133892bbdcce82813b7730e713c0%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fgellerreport.com%2F2025%2F02%2Fusaid-shut-down-it-is-over-beyond-repair.html%2F
Thanks Mrs Bucket. Foreign ‘Aid’ has a been a corrupt money laundering scheme for years. Just the same, if a more junior version, in the UK. The bad guys know that if they label something as ‘aid’ or a ‘charity’ it is much harder for critics to attack it- they just come across as ‘mean’. So these organisations often provide great cover for evil deeds.
Hopefully Trump and his lively team will smash these rackets. Convictions and jail terms need to follow.
Charlotte Gill (somewhere on Substack) has done a lot of DOGE type work exposing the waste in UK Govt & the BBC - and a rather incestuous relationship with USAID
I can shed some light on why the Republicans haven't gone after this. It is because they discovered that they, too, could waltz right up to the troughl. The horror at the dismantling of foreign "aid"on the faces of many long term, powerful Republicans is the realization that despite their performances about "small government", they were all-in on the grift - and it is about to be very, very public.
Looking forward to it Amp.
See W Kristol, as I noted here - https://ombreolivier.substack.com/p/doge-follows-the-money
Thanks for the link. Well worth a read. And I subbed. 👍
And I wrote another one - https://ombreolivier.substack.com/p/trump-20-the-story-so-far?r=7yrqz
Read it. Great stuff.
Good summary albeit preaching to the converted. My sister, getting on a bit, is a leftie - we have a truce - questions how I can endorse Trump. What's the point? If I said the likes of AOC, Kamala, Starmer, Rayner are lying, evil despicable hypocrites whose heads I'd have on spikes along the Embankment 'pour encourager les autres' she'd gawp in wonder at my 'rightitude.'
I wouldn't really, I'd have them on a tramp steamer without washing facilities or a change of clothes bound for N.Korea or Venezuela. Although Mar-a-lago would identify their true spirit.
Tariffs? He said he would if....gave them a choice to comply or not.
Strewth, I 'm sat in a coffee shop having my lunch and I nearly jumped up and started shouting 'MEGA'!!!! That was brilliant. Join me for a coffee
Thanks Elizabeth!
The thing about Trump and his relationship with foreign countries is that he's doing to them what hard nosed business people and trades union negotiators do in their negotiations.
1. Say to country I want X to happen
2. Country says it won't X
3. Trump says. OK then if you don't X, then your economy goes titsup.com thanks to the tariffs I'm going to impose that will kill your exports the US
4. Country goes. "Oh shit I'd better X"
The thing is this is not how other people do foreign relations
Agreed Francis. And the US economy is possibly only a secondary factor in Trump’s mind. I think a lot of this is simply about flexing some US muscle and reminding the world that despite the atrophy of the last few years, it is still the biggest, meanest kid on the block. Is this a sort of mafia tactic? Absolutely. But it is effective. And it’s probably in the world’s interests for some countries to be reminded of American might.
"And it’s probably in the world’s interests for some countries to be reminded of American might. "
This is quite true, especially after Resident Biden and his minders did their best to make the US appear weak and feeble.
"Resident" Biden!!!!!
Ha ha. Yes! Like the video game. 🤣
Trump is also a teetotaler. 100,000 people die from fentanyl every single year. That pisses us all off. The ingredients are sent to China, Mexicans produce the pills and smuggle them in Bidens open border. Mexico gets rich on it through their cartels. Canada has 4000 terrorist organizations that they know about. This reported by Canadian authorities at a Congressional hearing. They have been very open with their immigration. This hurts Americans and Canadians. Enough with this shit. American policy with both countries have been generous and accommodating for many years but the lack of serious cooperation to deal with this issue has been non existent especially in the last four years because democrats did not care either. Trump got their attention and made clear he was not just going to spend months in useless negotiations. These two countries have 7400 miles of borders with us.
He has sent the military to the southern border and rumor is the cartels have declared their minions to engage with border forces. It could get ugly fast if they engage. There hordes of fed up Texans after years of frustration of the invasion. Now they have authority to defend themselves.
100,000 people a year. 400,000 in four years. And thousands in year’s prior.
One half of a million people. They did not fire a shot.
The bosses don’t really care about drugs Deidre. Unless they affect their business. ‘Anti drug’ programmes are just another way to extract money from the masses. I’m not saying that the on the ground workers are all cynics, but it’s like homelessness in California. A multi billion dollar business it’s in no one’s interest to solve. (Apart from you know, the actual victims)
Now the ‘War on Drugs’ becomes real, present, and effective. Those making money off the backs of the victims have plenty to moan about.
It's a combination of Parkinson's Law of Bureaucracy and Pournelle's Iron rule.
Bureaucracies (which include NGOs/charities) have no incentive to solve a problem because that means they are out of a job. They have a huge incentive to spend lots of money not solving the problem though
See also Glowball Worming scientists
Yes Francis. I believe this is a huge opportunity cost in Western broadly liberal societies. No one in the public sector actually wants to sort out the problem they are being paid to address, because as you say, they will be out of a job. I expect about 10% -20% of government is swallowed up this way. As for ‘charities’……
Will just say his was not a program, it was a solution at the core. Stop the source.
The addicts will find something else but perhaps not something that kills so easily.
Half a million people in four years is not something that should be ignored, so yes I am glad Trump took a stand for good. Apparently this is something people no longer recognize a politician might do. They just assume he wants to take them over. Geez I can’t take the nonsense.
I mean the anti drug programs of the left Deirdre. Thrones that spend billions of dollars but never seem to stop people taking drugs.
Do the right-wing stop the drugs, Mr LSO? They didn't seem to fix it here.
I never claimed that Ragged. I’m just pointing out how much of these programs which are supposed to help people are simply grift. And don’t help people at all.
The left are keener than the right on these social programs that’s all. I’m not ‘defending the right’. It’s not binary. We need a smaller state with less of this stuff. If that is coded ‘right wing’ so be it.
I’m less concerned about labels than ordinary people being ripped off because their tax money is being used to fund ‘social programs’ that are really just ways to make members of the PMC rich.
I cannot recall a right(ish) wing govt in the UK in the past 35 years!
Oh and by the way your post was spot on and 🔥.
LSO. Have you seen this?
I think it encapsulates the mood of a least half of America for years.
PS Doge is going to expose it all. Let’s go Brandon
https://youtu.be/kyFnLqJx-uU?si=GT2vn2nXro3-aTMQ
Trump is amazingly better than most of us, after nearly a decade of anti-Trump propaganda, have been trained to think. He was naive going into his first presidency, but he learned from it bigly. Never mind the tariffs, entertaining though they are: he has destroyed USAID in a weekend; he has destroyed DEI in Federal government, and it is collapsing everywhere else in sympathy. He has accomplished more rollback of government oppression in a fortnight than any previous president managed at all.
Agreed Valda. I was sceptical that DOGE would actually make an impact. Wow. Was I wrong. No wonder the grifters are so angry.
Another brilliant piece, LSO. Couple of points of caution though. the Trump administration realistically has less than 18months to bake in change and demonstrate itks working, before the mid-terms. It’s got to deliver by then. Secondly, here in the UK, we are stuck with an out of touch, globalist regime in Labour, I’m just hoping that in the 5-10 years it takes to replace them there is still enough of a recognisable country to save.
Thank you P. Yes. I also think they need to consolidate this stuff in Congress (I think) or it can once again be overturned. I don’t think tit for tat administrations is in anyone’s interest.
I worry the UK is past saving. The regulations and culture are so baked in that nothing can change them. And anyone who remotely tries to alter the status quo, like Truss or even Johnson to an extent-at least with Brexit- will face a speedy defenestration.
Conflict with Panama and Denmark. Elon Musk is rummaging through the government’s underwear drawer. Mexico and Canada are turned into enemies. And now “a long-term ownership position” in Gaza, that future “Riviera of the Middle East.”
— Dan Gardener
But at least they don't put pronouns in their emails anymore.
Also I’d say the pronoun thing is not a silly nothing. It’s a huge signifier. And has been used as such to impose fealty and demonstrate allegiance to an anti freedom, anti human ideology. Dismissing it as unimportant is like saying the Berlin Wall was just a pile of bricks. We are well rid of it. 👍
I agree — I'm anti-pronoun too — but I think it's just a distraction from the more serious things they are doing.
P.S. Even A.O.C. has got rid of her pronouns. The DEI stuff and the trans stuff and the pronouns stuff are not long for this world.
It’s not a distraction. That’s my point. It’s foundational. I expect this is a tactical retreat. Nothing more. The idea that someone like AOC has come round to see sense is nuts. Her power derives from this stuff. They are not going to give it up without a fight.
Even Kamala had backed away during the election.
There'll be a handful of nutjobs who won't give in but the mainstream Dem politicians won't be able to get rid of it fast enough.
It’s certainly a start.
We will never agree on this Ragged. There is a realignment taking place. A reaction to the last one which the technocratic big state elites have been enacting with their long march through the institutions for decades. Trumps realignment so far is fast, messy and has put lots of people’s noses out of joint. Mainly important powerful people it should be noted.
We’ll find out in four years time if American citizens. The little ones who don’t count. Are richer, healthier and freer. And if the world is safer or more war torn. If China has more power or less power. On all these metrics I am optimistic. More optimistic today than I was even three weeks ago. I know you don’t agree. Let’s see what happens.
We've had 80 years of international trust and cooperation. NATO, UN, WHO, WTO, NAFTA etc. It will be a different world without them. It was certainly a different world before them with that Austrian fella and the Italian fella. The woke stuff is annoying but not as annoying as a world where we don't get along anymore. Or where one country acts like the boss country and all the others bend the knee.
And within the USA, they have a Constitution that specifies how the different branches of government interact with each other and how the States relate to the Federal government. That's worked out well for eighty years too (even if bits of it annoy us both). If that all changes and a couple of authoritarians are running the show, it will be a very different country.
But maybe it'll all be OK, eh?
Hardly enemies! They just have to pull their socks up. I'd do that with France: tariffs on all their exports until they stop the boats coming over. Very happy to pay an extra ten per cent on my French beans (or whatever) to stop that traffic. And British farmers would benefit. Win-win.
> Trump isn’t perfect.
As you know, I agree with you on the immigration stuff and the DEI stuff and the woke stuff and the transgender stuff — but you have skipped over most of the important stuff.
What was that business with the tariffs about? "25% tariffs on you, Canada, unless you become the 51st state". That's not the behaviour of a normal President. Canada got that cancelled by hiring someone to keep an eye on the Fentanyl smuggling but what damage has it done already? Car parts go back and forth across the border multiple times so Canadian manufacturers will be finding a back-up plan that doesn't involve trade with the USA so they will be ready for next time. Will that be good for American trade?
What about Musk having access to all the government finances? What good do you expect to come of that? Will he switch off payments to…what… social security? Medicaid (not Medicare because they voted for Trump)? Any other Congress-approved spending he will cut off?
Trump clearly doesn't honour America's agreements with other countries. Are international agreements worth anything now? Should the rest of us be prepared?
What will Denmark have to do if Trump decides he really, really wants Greenland? Any other bits of other countries he might want?
What about purging everyone at the FBI involved in the arrest of the folks involved in the attack on the Capitol? What about directing their investigations against people who donated to the wrong party?
What about his Cabinet appointees? Any good ones? Marco Rubio, maybe. Anyone else? How many government departments will they shut down once they are done with USAid?
How much of the US Constitution will survive Trump, do you think?
Hi Ragged!
"25% tariffs on you, Canada, unless you become the 51st state" I do t think he’s saying that at all. Sorry but this just seems like a Democrat/leftist talking point.
As I mention in the article I would be more open to listening to the critics of Trumps tariffs if the same people hadn’t just decided to make everyone in the west poorer with their stupid, and it is stupid, Net Zero plan. Or impoverished us in the uk by spending £450 bn on Covid. Or taking the legs out of our economy with so many regulations nothing can get built and no business wants to open. Sure. These tariffs could be a bad idea. Let’s see. But they are no more daft than the policies our government has been pursuing enthusiastically for the last twenty or more years to the detriment of its people.
The EU proved how quickly it would drop its ‘commitments’ to other countries during the vaccine wars.
I don’t think the Biden administration was particularly bothered by the Constitution. Especially as far as free speech is concerned.
The FBI has a lot of questions to answer. The laptop scandal shows it is not neutral.
I will end with something that I know will annoy you Ragged but I genuinely believe. I don’t support all Trumps actions. But I believe the Constitution much much safer in his hands, that it would have been in Kamala Harris’s hands. Or the hands of the deep state powers behind the Biden administration.
> Trump keeps floating the idea that Canada should join the United States as the 51st state, saying Tuesday he would not use military force to invade the country, which is home to more than 40 million people and is a founding NATO partner.
> Instead, Trump said he would rely on “economic force” as he erroneously cast the U.S. trade deficit with Canada — a natural resource-rich nation that provides the U.S. with commodities like oil — as a subsidy.
https://apnews.com/article/canada-trump-us-state-131dcff58a8f56116765f160d9f35460
That probably had nothing to do with the 25% tariff, right? Probably just a joke.
I wonder if the Canadians found it funny.
"25% tariffs on you, Canada, unless you become the 51st state"
sounds like something the EU said to Theresa May during the Brexit ‘negotiations’.
That made up bs 🤬
They haven’t yet noticed that we are on to their gaslighting. Well except for some who repeat it.
Well, we chose those extra regulations and increased costs for ourselves.
Do you work for the BBC, because it appears you get your information from state run propaganda outfits? Which by the way for some unknown nefarious leftist reason USAID donates a big chunk of cheese to. Trump just poked the bear at Canada and folks like you fell hook line and sinker for it. Canada is a beautiful country filled with an amazing amount of resources that could make it one of the wealthiest nations in the world if it chose to. Instead they have adopted a socialist, globalist agenda that has created poverty, drug addiction and regulations that stymie innovation and economic dependence.
We all want the best for them. And their truckers are the finest!
I get most of my information from independent commentators in America.
It seems that Canada also fell for it when Trump poked the bear. You've no doubt seen the video of America's best friends booing the Star-Spangled Banner at multiple hockey matches.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v0yTsFijc9A
I expect Trump's aggression will result in lots of booing before the year is out.
Jesus - that's awful singing. Even I would boo that.
We'll see whether the US Constitution is safer in Trump's hands. I'd say there is a 40% chance that it won't make it through the next four years unless Congress does something brave.
I think the International Order that has kept us safe for 80 years is on dodgy ground too.
Literally no chance that the Constitution will be repealed/rewritten/abolished Ragged. Zero.
Although Hillary Clinton and the WEF have been pretty explicit in their desire to overturn the First Amendment. By pretending it doesn’t cover whatever they decide is ‘hate speech’. Also the second amendment. Which I know all decent liberals hate. But no one has ever explained to me how ‘banning guns’ would result in anything except ’all the good people give up their guns, all the bad people keep their guns.’
The International Order. I don’t know what that means. Ceding power to China, working together to overturn referendums, starting wars in the Middle East, keeping African farmers out of EU markets with tariffs, printing money when your neighbours print money to make your populations poorer, paying off Iran not to develop nukes which they are developing anyway. Maybe that. I don’t feel very safe!
My understanding is that Clinton wanted to charge people who were spreading Russian propaganda. I don't know what the *First Amendment would have to say about that. I couldn't find anything about banning hate speech. Do you have an example? I know the Dems tried to argue that dollar bills are not 'speech' in Citizens United. That seems reasonable to me.
What I had in mind was the relationship between the President and Congress as defined in Article One and Article Two of the Constitution. Trump has already crossed the line over laws relating to finance and government departments. If he continues, there won't be much left of that line.
I think the International Order is getting shaky when Canadians start booing the Star-Spangled Banner. The relationship between Europe, USA and Canada has kept us safe for 80 years. I don't think it will survive four years of Trump if he carries on like this.
* Big fan of the First Amendment, me. I wish we had one.
Clinton wanted to arrest herself? Because she created the Steele report. Or at least paid for it to be made up.
I linked to H Clinton and John Kerry discussing the 1st at I think the WEF in a previous piece. The videos were all over the place.
I’m happy with what Trump is going with USAID. I wish someone would audit the £12bn we are shovelling out the door in ‘aid’. Someone is getting very rich off it. And it’s not poor people.
No. It's donor organisations (bureaucrats) and western consultancies, plus some presidents and govt officials in the recipient country.
Sorry. Tagged! 🙄 I knew I should have waited until I got home….
Great article. Please, please can we have some of this in the UK soon?
Hear, Hear! Great stuff. I will copy/forward it to my relatives in yet another effort to drill some sense into them (though some are OK - it's the younger ones that worry me).
This is a strong essay.
Brilliant. I know just the offensive consensus addict to send this to....