Gail Collins: OK, Bret, I know you can’t tell the future, but give me a prediction. Will President Trump’s tariffs go down as one of the 100 worst decisions in presidential history? 50? 10?
Bret Stephens: As an economic matter, possibly the worst presidential decision ever. Say what you will about Herbert Hoover, but he was an honorable public servant who didn’t have the benefit of hindsight when he signed the Smoot-Hawley tariff into law in 1930. As a foreign policy matter, it’s at least in the top five worst. It’ll be a few months before we see the full consequences in terms of reciprocal tariffs, broken alliances, destroyed trust and an America that has dethroned itself from global economic leadership. And don’t be surprised if it leads to war, as global economic upheavals often do.
Other than that, Gail, it was a great week. Like millions of other Americans, I barely noticed losing a big chunk of my net worth. Can’t wait for all the price increases to kick in.
Gail: Trying to think positive. I did pretty well in a Wordle competition with my siblings!
Bret: Yes, and the Caspar David Friedrich exhibit at the Met was a nice way to spend an hour wishing I lived in the 1820s instead of the 2020s.
Gail: What’s next? Elon Musk seems to have slunk away from the White House. Couldn’t conceive of that being bad news until Trump filled the conspiratorial niche by turning to Laura Loomer, an outside adviser who first came to our attention when she declared that 9/11 was an “inside job.”
Bret: I remember when it was considered a major political embarrassment that Nancy Reagan was consulting an astrologer and that these consultations might have shaped President Reagan’s schedule. How quaint. Laura Loomer dictating who gets to work on the National Security Council or run the National Security Agency is more in a class with Rasputin’s influence on the court of Nicholas II — sinister, pernicious, destructive and entirely revealing of the moral rot in the Oval Office.
Gail: I’ll bet Loomer wouldn’t mind being compared to Rasputin — intellectually, of course. We can all agree she has better hair.
Bret: My questions are, does this dent Trump’s control over the Republican Party, which still likes to see markets rise and taxes — which is what tariffs actually are — fall? And do Democrats adopt some of the old G.O.P. stances?
Gail: Well, I’ll bet the Democrats would love to find themselves referred to as the “low-tax” party, although not if it involved actually cutting revenue — revenue the country sorely needs.
And what other old Republican stances did you have in mind?
Bret: Well, Democrats are now the tough-on-Russia party, which would have astonished the George McGovern generation of liberals. Democrats are also pro-F. B. I. and pro-C. I. A. and pro-NATO, another turnabout from the days of the Church Committee that reined in the C.I.A. and the 1971 Mansfield Amendment that would have cut U.S. troop numbers in Europe by half. I doubt you’ll hear many Democrats talk up the virtues of trade protectionism, as they used to, especially as Trump’s tariffs begin to take a bite out of people’s wallets.
Gail: And we thought Trump couldn’t bring the nation together.
Bret: In a few months, you’ll probably hear Democrats start talking about the need for universities to dissolve their financial relationships with the government, so that Trump will no longer be able to use federal funds as a stick to erode academic freedom. I’m also willing to bet that you’ll hear more Democrats talk about the “original intent” of the Constitution as the Trump administration continues to veer into outright lawlessness.
Now I’m just waiting for more Democrats to embrace school choice — many already do — and take less of a pro-union stance as union members continue to drift into Trump’s corner. It’s the greatest political switcheroo since Democrats became the party of civil rights.
Gail: Ah Bret, so many times we’ve come together on some subject — usually Trump-related — and then a roadblock looms.
School choice has many aspects, but the big problem is always its bad effect on public education. Parents who are more involved with their kids’ schooling, frequently better-educated themselves, are great at using an open market to squish their offspring into the best possible private or parochial school in the neighborhood, while the kids from more deprived backgrounds are left behind in suddenly inferior classes.
Bret: It’s precisely the kids from deprived backgrounds stuck in abysmal public schools that school choice helps the most. Last I checked, competition from FedEx and UPS make the Post Office a little better. Ditto with school choice. Sorry, I interrupted.
Gail: And we have an ongoing, permanent disagreement about unions. Union leaders from the old school sometimes do veer to the right when they see their members veering — even if the end product is something like admiration for Trump. That’s terrible leadership. But there’s also a huge swath of the working class whose jobs are safer and better-paid thanks to organized labor.
Bret: The interesting question is whether unions are driven mainly by economic interests or cultural values. I’m certain Trump remembers the Hard Hat Riot and the contempt that New York City’s construction workers had for the student demonstrators of the Vietnam War era. Union interests may veer left, but working-class values tend to steer right: socially conservative, nationalistic and definitely not “woke.” And it will be a long time before many union workers are willing to forgive Democrats for the virtual open borders policy we had under Joe Biden, which created a huge pool of low-cost, illicit labor.
Another item in the news: You probably saw the news of the “Hands Off” protests that kicked off on Saturday, including one in D.C. that attracted tens of thousands of marchers. Do you think this will take off into a nationwide movement? I have very mixed feelings about restarting “the Resistance” of the first Trump administration, but I’m curious for your thoughts.
Gail: You’ve got mixed feelings about anti-Trump marches? I was kinda buoyed by the evidence that the all-purpose craziness of this administration has given resistance organizers the sway to mobilize around more specific issues, from foreign affairs to oil drilling.
Bret: I have no problem with opposing Trump — as we both do. My misgivings are about an opposition that takes the form of futile gestures and virtue signaling.
Gail: Cannot possibly deny that the Democrats need to put together a message — and a vision — that draws in the currently sad and confused populace.
But speaking of resistance, what did you think about Senator Cory Booker’s 25-hour speech against Trump on the Senate floor? Now the longest Senate floor speech in history — happily breaking the record Strom Thurmond set with his 24-hour diatribe against civil rights?
Bret: Speaking of futile gestures ….
Gail: My first thoughts were how actually easy it might be to come up with 25 hours worth of things to decry about Trump, and awe at the fact that he had to do it without a single bathroom break.
Bret: “Depend” undergarments, take a bow. Probably. Staff denials notwithstanding.
Gail: We’ve been talking about potential post-Trump presidential candidates. Think Booker should be on the list?
Bret: I used to admire Booker when he was a reform-minded mayor of Newark running into burning houses to save people. Then it turned out he was a bit of a fabulist, and he didn’t help himself with a highly forgettable run for the 2020 Democratic nomination. But my larger objection is to blue-state Democrats running as presidential candidates. Nominate a candidate who has shown he can win in a red state, or at least a purple one, and that’s the person to beat JD Vance or whoever the Republicans put up next.
Gail: Think there’s any real chance Trump will try to get himself renominated? It is against the Constitution, but that’s never stopped him before.
Bret: His talk about getting a third term — presumably on the theory that he could run for vice president with a secret understanding that the presidential candidate would immediately resign despite a seeming prohibition of it by the 12th Amendment — is Trump’s trademark mix of trolling liberals while threatening the republic. Then again, if a majority of Americans actually winds up voting for a Republican ticket with Trump’s name still on it, we may as well get the sophomoric geriatric imbecile banana republic despotism we apparently hanker for.
Gail: Not going there but I always do admire your phrasemaking. “Imbecile banana republic despotism” gets put in the trophy case.
Bret: Gail, before we go, I hope our readers won’t miss Roger Cohen’s elegant and loving tribute to Richard Bernstein, the former Times foreign correspondent and farsighted cultural critic who died last week at 80. It’s one of those priceless Times obits where a brilliant writer does justice to his fallen friend with sentences the reader won’t soon forget. I particularly loved this:
He took a distaste for posturing, a suspicion of fashion, an impatience with taboos and a deep belief in American possibility. He believed in a fair shake for everyone, including his journalistic subjects. In his view, it was to America, as a postwar power in Asia and Europe, that fell the responsibility to safeguard and extend the freedom from which his family had benefited.
Richard was a role model for many younger journalists and essayists, including me. I was lucky to know him. May his memory be for a blessing.
#Opinion #Plan
