You will no doubt recall that last month, Trump was doing a victory lap, claiming a budget surplus of $27 billion. He used the number over and over, as did right-wing talking heads throughout the month. What they never mentioned, as reported by FactCheck.org, is that :
In its most recent “Monthly Budget Review,” the CBO said that federal spending was lower than it would have been in June because the government made billions of dollars in payments in May that were due on June 1, a Sunday. The Treasury said that some payments for active-duty military, veterans, Supplemental Security Income and Medicare were moved to May because June 1, the normal payment date, was a non-business day.
“If not for those [timing] shifts, the government would have recorded a deficit of $71 billion in June 2025,” the CBO said, emphasizing the word deficit.
As stated previously, what the MAGA messaging monster is very good at is taking a grain of truth and wrapping it in a ball of lies to distort reality and create an alternative universe for the uneducated to bathe in for free. Whether it’s distorting economic numbers or crime statistics to justify federalising Washington, DC, or declaring war on ‘out of control crime’. The truth is, Washington saw its lowest crime rate in 30 years in 2024. Violent crime was down 26% and homicides dropped by 30%. In addition, the administration suggested that Washington was one of the most dangerous cities in the world.
For the record, the July budget deficit stands at $291 billion, which is an increase of 19% from 2024. Did I miss Trump talking about it, or is he just looking for someone to sack for that number, too? The reality is that spending is growing faster than revenue. Tax revenue grew by just 2% while the government continued to spend like drunken sailors. Now I’m no mathematician, but $27 billion in tariff revenue against a deficit of $291 billion is frankly pitiful when the federal deficit is now running at $1.6 trillion, which is an increase of 7% on 2024. In short, while he does another victory lap on tariff revenue, there is absolutely NOTHING to celebrate, other than it would have been almost a $300 billion deficit had he not taxed American companies by around 18%.
America is paying the price for Trump’s fiscal lunacy. It’s an inescapable fact. Wholesale prices rose way above expectations in July at 0.9%. That’s the highest level since 2022. This will almost certainly put the brakes on the Fed cutting interest rates in September, because this is the first sign that the economy is beginning to feel the stress of a catastrophic economic miscalculation. This is not going to happen all at once; the truth is circling the decaying carcass of the Trump tariff miscalculation as tax revenues fall and debt consumes the economy. Take it from me, the markets will eventually eat him alive, but by then the damage will be so significant, it may well take a generation to recover, as China benefits from US economic failure. That’s before we consider the drop in tourism and the rerouted trade that has increased due to disgruntled trading partners. The US is burning down every escape route it has to satisfy the ego of a megalomaniac. It will not end well.
The reality is that the dollar is at a 50-year low, which should mean US exports should be accelerating. Instead, US exports are falling, while imports in July hit another spike as companies try to get ahead of tariff impacts from August. This means that importers are trying to front-load stock for the holiday season. In short, American businesses are constantly having to mitigate against steps by their own government to tax them on an almost monthly basis. These businesses are surviving despite Trump, not because of him. As I have always maintained, this will either hurt their bottom line or hurt US consumers if they pass on their increased costs. There are no winners other than the US Treasury. As for small and micro businesses, these are dying by a thousand tariffs.
Whether it’s lying about the economy or crime in Washington, DC, it’s all just performative political theatre. On the latter, Data compiled by the Igarapé Institute in Brazil, which has studied safety in cities around the world, notes that 47 cities had a higher homicide rate. Does Washington have a crime problem? It does, but the problem is not wildly at odds with other comparable population centres. Policy is being driven by false narratives that bear no relation to the truth, I’m afraid.
It is just another example of Trump pushing the envelope to test how much control he can exert over Democrat controlled cities. The object here, once again, is to disrupt the normal functioning of large cities to create an environment of fear. He is once again exposing weaknesses in the system that allow him to interfere in local governance. It’s a classic Putin tactic to constantly disrupt civil society with federal military interventions to maintain perpetual levels of anxiety amongst the population.
Democratic activists engaged in extensive discussions in April regarding the invocation of martial law and its implications for the right to free expression. If there’s one thing you should have learned by now, that’s that there is more than one way to skin a cat. Trump has used executive power to drive around the need to invoke martial law. Using these new powers, Trump can deploy the military to any city he likes. All he has to do is declare an emergency, which he can do at any time, and the military will appear on the streets. He’s actually boasting now about what he is able to do moving forward, and they are refining the process on the fly.
In a piece in the Washington Post by Alex Horton and David Ovalle (I have gifted the article, so it’s not behind a paywall), they note:
The Trump administration is evaluating plans that would establish a “Domestic Civil Disturbance Quick Reaction Force” composed of hundreds of National Guard troops tasked with rapidly deploying into American cities facing protests or other unrest, according to internal Pentagon documents reviewed by The Washington Post.
The plan calls for 600 troops to be on standby at all times so they can deploy in as little as one hour, the documents say. They would be split into two groups of 300 and be stationed at military bases in Alabama and Arizona, with purview of regions east and west of the Mississippi River, respectively.
For the sake of clarity, this is described as being at the ‘pre-decisional’ phase. The key takeaway, though, is that, as with all their agenda planning, the administration is examining all the angles as it refines its approach to dealing with any potential protests. It will not have escaped your attention that this is a slow, creeping approach to their march to absolute power. No corner of US society will escape the control of the state.
The Smithsonian is the latest focus of Trump revisionism, as noted in a letter to Lonnie Bunch, the secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, from the White House dated August 12th. The intent here is to adopt a state censorship strategy to create ‘new historical truth’ in what should be temples dedicated to education and scholarly learning. This administration has no interest in the truth. It is only interested in ‘their truth’. From schools to museums, to government statistics, reality is being erased and replaced by their fantasy vision of America. I’m sure I don’t have to spell out the danger of that?
Evidence shows that public perception is slowly shifting from political ideology to the people versus the political class. Polls clearly indicate that the people trust neither party to represent their best interests, and if we are honest, the people are right. Republican lawmakers are having a terrible time attempting to defend the indefensible in their constituencies and rightly so. At the same time, Democrats are having a tough time because they are being told they are not fighting hard enough to put a stop to the tyranny. Again, this is justifiable criticism.
I don’t know about you, but I would expect Democrats to be in front of cameras every day, challenging every step that Republicans are taking to remove the rights of their constituents. They should be out there selling a new vision for America, but instead, they are largely silent, and that is a big problem. Of course, there are exceptions like AOC and Bernie Sanders, but the reason they are resonating with the public is not political, and that is where Democrats have got it all wrong. The political model the Democratic Party is built on is the same as the Republican Party, and neither serves the interests of the people; they both serve the interests of their corporate donors.
Of course, there are philosophical differences between the two when it comes to women’s rights, LGBTQ+ rights, and voting rights. Though it’s hard to hear, even these have over the years become secondary to the objectives of their corporate political donors and lobby groups from the fossil fuels industry and big pharma, not to mention AIPAC. Unfortunately, the Democratic establishment has allowed the Democratic Party to become Republican Lite. They have concluded that the American people have abandoned fairness and equity to the point where they feel they have to abandon their core values to appeal to right-leaning voters. Hence, their abandonment of the working class in 2024, who then fell for the lies on offer from Trump, because they felt their own party had deserted them. Democrats have decided to follow and not lead and that is a fatal mistake.
Democrats campaigned in 2024 primarily on the message, ‘Don’t vote for the other guy because he’s a fascist, ’ with a sprinkling of, ‘We’ll allow you to get an abortion. ’ This whole philosophy of voting for us because we are not quite as bad as the other guy shows a lack of vision and imagination, and is frankly insulting to voters. As current polls indicate, it does not resonate with everyday Americans and leaves their activists uninspired. We can pretend all day that Democrats are offering a viable alternative, but it’s not the case, I’m afraid. The DNC are holding their hand out every day for your money, with nothing to offer but the same old same old. They might be talking about rebuilding a state-level framework, and nobody would argue with that, but they are a decade behind what Republicans have been doing. And they don’t have a year, let alone a decade, to win this fight.
Instead of owning their failure in November and getting on the front foot, they sat feeling sorry for themselves and spent their time blaming voters for voting for Trump, rather than owning their own failings. They now have no alternative but to campaign on ‘Don’t vote for the tyrant’. Frankly, it’s lamentable but at the same time totally predictable. Their only hope is that Trump will beat himself, handing control back to Democrats. Now, call me old-fashioned, but that’s hardly a message of a vision for the future.
Time and time again, I get comments about stop hating on the Dems. This is about what the Republicans have done to this country, not what the Dems have done. My simple response would be, which part of the Democrats losing the House, the Senate, the White House and the popular vote are you struggling with? That is the textbook definition of failure on an epic scale. The voters preferred to vote for a convicted felon and proven rapist over the Democratic candidate. Now, I have always been a glass-half-full kind of guy, but even I am struggling to decipher the message Democrats sent. It’s sadly the same attitude that assumes there will be free and fair midterm elections in 2026. Might I be so bold as to suggest pigs might learn to fly before that happens?
I’m afraid this is no longer a political fight, and the likes of Bernie, AOC and a small group of other Democrats recognise this new reality. This is why they are making it about the people versus the rich, and that, my friends, is the easiest sell on earth. You don’t need to be a political scientist or even a politician to understand that humans can easily grasp the concept of fairness. It’s not a hard sell to realise that stripping millions of Americans’ healthcare to provide more money for the rich to buy yachts and private jets is not right.
It’s not a hard sell to say a worker should receive a living wage for a fair day’s work, or that healthcare should be a human right, or that losing your job should not be a potential death sentence, as a result of losing your healthcare. Nobody can argue that education contributes to the future prosperity of a nation, so affordable, first-class education should be the norm. Since when did Americans accept that for them, the regular programs and services enjoyed by every developed Western economy should be considered luxuries and not rights? I’m afraid you have been taken advantage of by both parties for decades.
This battle must be fought based on fairness and the issues, not party political ideologies. It needs to be a war of ideas, not an acceptance that change is too hard to achieve. Ambition for a better society is not a crime; it’s the fuel to arrive at a better tomorrow. The level of change that AI is about to drop on a totally unprepared society will crush everything in its path, and the rich are hoarding their money and yours to insulate themselves when the US hits the societal iceberg. Rest assured, there will be a significant shortage of lifeboats, and your name won’t be on one.
Trump is creating a walled garden full of lies and disinformation designed to create a fantasy world that nobody will be allowed to challenge. Corporate media and social media are now merely vessels for state propaganda. Truth is now the enemy in the reimagined America. NEVER has there been a time in American history when independent voices like mine have been more important.
This is the point at which you can bail out on this piece if you don’t want to listen to me telling you how important independent writers and commentators are in these dangerous times. I would, of course, love you to hear what I have to say, if only to look back on it in the future and say ‘I wish I had listened’.
At a time when the political gold rush is looking to empty your pockets every day, consider this. How important is the TRUTH to you? How much is it worth to you, because the harsh reality is that to deliver truth without fear or favour takes a considerable investment of time and effort, not to mention the cost of investing in numerous subscriptions to gold standard journalism, statistical datasets and specialist economic and geopolitical assessments. My readers can access essential articles from sources like The New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic, and The Economist, among others, thanks to my investment in these subscriptions.
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My mission is to empower readers to become stakeholders in the truth through my work, enabling us to share the cost of research and publication for the betterment of all. At 66 years old, I’m a father, a grandfather and an advocate for a fairer society. I have lived my life, sent my kids to university, and I am blessed to be spending my autumn years with a woman who has been by my side for 46 years, who I love more today than the day we decided to spend our lives together. I’ve experienced the rat race and more challenges than I care to remember as I gained my PhD at the University of Life.
I know I never seem to be the guy delivering good news or telling you what you want to hear, but what you always get from me is the unvarnished but fair truth. I’m an unapologetic progressive voice driven by social conscience, not politics.
Do I go in search of balance? Absolutely not. As I have said many times, I have no interest in Hitler’s justification for ‘The Final Solution’, no more than I am interested in Trump’s habitual lies and deceit. I believe that the starting point for all my work is grounded in my belief that no child should go to bed hungry and no family should be left behind. Everything beyond these two objectives is a bonus.
It’s not my job to tell you how to spend your hard-earned money if independent news is essential to you. I am aware that there are far more talented writers on Substack worthy of your paid support. What I can tell you is that your investment in my work keeps it free for everyone, and on behalf of the thousands of people who benefit from that, I thank you from the bottom of my heart. Information is power, and advocacy for critical thinking has never been more important than it is today. What could be better than spending a few cents a day to be challenged to think? I can think of no better investment.
On that note, I’m going to grab a beer after a pretty intense writing session and bid you good day.
Martin
Enjoy your beer. That was, indeed, an intense amount of high-quality reporting. Thank you, Martin!
Thanks for what you do.