Trump's magic act continues, but the illusion is glitching

The regime's reliance on the suspension of reality is being stress-tested by a population no longer falling for the ever more ludicrous attempts at misdirection.

Even in the world of Republican servitude, the constant insistence on the perpetual suspension of reality becomes exhausting. Watching MAGA politicians and right-wing talking heads attempting to defend the indefensible over the murder of Alex Pretti, aside from being deeply disturbing, is frankly embarrassing. You know these people are cult members when they persistently seek to twist the truth to align with their prescribed narrative.

In a country of 340 million people, it requires just 23 Republican lawmakers to stop this madness, but the system is so broken and poisoned by greed and self-preservation that it will never happen. In moments like this, you understand that there is no loyalty to the Constitution or the intent of the Founding Fathers. The feelings of the American people count for nothing because in the MAGA world, good people are an impediment to their vision of a theocratic autocracy.

Image - Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

If we accept this to be the truth of where we are, and there’s no reason to doubt it, how do we escape this tyranny? There are four options as I see it, but sadly, there appears to be no appetite for any of them.

1. Republicans step up and say enough is enough. (Hell will freeze over first)

2. General strike. This is very high risk and could lead to big job losses, especially given that many employers are seeking to trim payroll right now. Also, it can only work with high levels of consistent collective participation. Many will be familiar with the 3.5% rule (around 6 million), which, historically, has proved effective as a level of mass participation, but I think, in today’s environment, it would need to be closer to 5%. (unlikely)

3. Mass protests. Once again, the 3.5% rule applies (12 million), but the key is consistent, sustained action. This can be difficult for those who have jobs to protect. The added danger is that protests can become violent, handing the narrative back to the regime. When it comes to mass protests, discipline is everything. The Civil Rights Movement has certainly provided the template for nonviolent protest. (little appetite for real sustained mass participation)

4. Economic disengagement. My position on this is well documented. A well-organised, targeted spending strike is one of the most effective methods for achieving a dramatic impact, provided it again attracts wide participation. (You would need to reduce consumption by 3-4%). It’s about targeting the right sectors of the economy and has the benefit of being low risk for participants. Nobody can arrest you or shoot you in the face for refusing to spend your money. This is about embarking on an all-out assault on corporate America and shifting support to local businesses and services. In truth, it’s not really about refusing to spend; it’s about deferring spending until political objectives are met. It saves you money in the short term and may ultimately lead to lower prices, while enabling you to rediscover local businesses. (Too inconvenient for the many addicted to consumption)

These are the only options open to America right now. However, all the evidence suggests that for far too many, the inconvenience would be too much to endure, so we arrive back at the Democratic leadership strategy of sitting back, enjoying your legislator's salary, and sending out begging emails to people who are struggling to put food on the table. Wait Trump out, hoping he’ll either die or allow the people to vote against his regime. Call me old-fashioned, but that’s an option every American should be fearful of.

Often, we fail to consider external factors, and there are many of them right now. I keep returning to the debt ($38.4 trillion) because it may turn out that the thing that brings this government down is its own economic stupidity.

What Trump has managed to do since returning to the White House is construct a fantasy narrative about the US economy. In many ways, you have to take your hat off to him for having the audacity to, in effect, impose an average 18% federal tax hike on every American, masquerading as tariffs. Claims that foreign countries were footing the bill for these tariffs were a lie from the outset, but now we have the receipts, the proof that 96% of the costs are borne by US buyers across the supply chain.

Image - Sky News

A new study by Julian Hinz, Aaron Lohmann, Hendrik Mahlkow and Anna Vorwig from the Kiel Institute for the World Economy in Germany notes:

• The 2025 US tariffs are an own goal: American importers and consumers bear nearly the entire cost. Foreign exporters absorb only about 4% of the tariff burden—the remaining 96% is passed through to US buyers.

• Using shipment-level data covering over 25 million transactions valued at nearly $4 trillion, we find near-complete pass-through of tariffs to US import prices.

The report is well worth a read. It’s comprehensive and in line with the gold standard research methodology for which the Kiel Institute has long been known.

The report continues:

US import prices rise nearly one-for-one with tariffs, while trade volumes contract. Exporters are not cutting prices to maintain sales; instead, they are accepting reduced market share in the United States while maintaining their profit margins.

This is exactly why tariffs have been an own goal, paid for by US taxpayers. So when Trump, as he often does, talks about handing out checks or bailing out farmers, he’s simply giving taxpayers their own money back. In conclusion, exporters' failure to ‘eat’ the tariffs provides a clear indicator of Trump’s overconfidence in the US as the largest consumer market, a trait that reflects the usual American arrogance.

The research is clear:

The United States is a large market, but it is not the only market. Exporters facing US tariffs can redirect their sales to Europe, Asia, or other destinations. If redirecting sales is feasible, exporters have less incentive to cut prices specifically for US buyers. The Indian export data confirms this: Indian exporters maintained their prices across all destinations, suggesting they were able to find alternative buyers for goods no longer competitive in the US.

This is the very reason that China is now running a $1.2 trillion trade surplus. In short, tariffs have done nothing but hurt the American economy. It’s a classic ploy from Trump: juice up the economy using someone else’s money to create an illusion of wealth. Tariffs have hurt exporters, too, in terms of market share, but if the objective was to break China, Trump has failed miserably. The research concludes:

Brazilian export prices to the US did not fall following the 50% tariff increase in August 2025. Indian export prices—measured directly from customs records at the port of departure—remained unchanged relative to exports to non-tariffed destinations. In both cases, exporters adjusted by shipping less, not by cutting prices.

The policy implications are stark. The 2025 tariffs function as a consumption tax on American businesses and households. The $200 billion in additional customs revenue represents wealth transferred from Americans to the US Treasury, not from foreign producers. The 12 claim that foreign countries “pay” these tariffs is a myth.

The claim that the US economy is in any way ‘hot’ is pure fiction, and it’s important for Americans to understand they are truly being played by a man whose sole intent is to line his own pockets in the knowledge that someone else will be forced to clean up the carnage he leaves behind, just as in 2020.

The level of deliberate deception is so easy to miss in the total chaos being pumped out by the state propaganda machine. The economic agenda carefully crafted by the Heritage Foundation in the service of the oligarchy class is truly breathtaking, not only in its scope but in its level of economic depravity. The fairytale goes like this: illegal aliens (3% of the population) are responsible for the economic and societal woes of the middle and working classes. They are why Americans are forced to live in fear while being unable find employment, afford healthcare, or find school places for their children.

I discussed the basic economics in my piece linked below:

The simple fact is, there is no economic upside to mass deportation. To be clear, I am not an advocate for illegal immigration; I am merely a pragmatist. Obama proved during his tenure in the White House, you can run an aggressive deportation strategy without having to shoot American citizens in the street and throw billions of dollars away on performative cruelty. All while the American people are seeing the cost of healthcare skyrocket, along with their heating and food bills.

The whole MAGA strategy is about constantly feeding red meat to a base that has become addicted to cruelty and the punishment of others portrayed as lesser than them. There are no masked thugs rampaging through Texas right now despite their constant carping about being overrun with illegal immigrants. Why? Because this honestly has nothing to do with immigration and everything to do with political persecution in the states that didn’t vote for Trump. It’s a level of political intimidation often seen in African dictatorships, and is nothing short of ideological dogma.

I always ramble on about the level of planning that has gone into the agenda of this regime, but often, people fail to join up the dots of how, just like in Germany, this is an industrial-scale persecution project. Trump often talks about countries sending the US their criminals and ‘low IQ’ individuals, which, by the way, is not supported by the facts. All while he appears to be recruiting uneducated, unqualified racist thugs and misogynists into what can only be described as his personal militia. An army of political and racist enforcers, tasked with terrorising communities. Their secondary objective being to collect data on any citizen protesting their actions in order to build a database of ‘undesirables’.

Image - John Moore/Getty Images

Still, it’s much more than that; it’s an industrial-scale profit-generator built on the detention and misery of the vulnerable and defenceless, using starvation and limiting access to basic services in order to maximise the bottom line. These for-profit companies operate with little to no oversight. There is also the question of whether they are also being used for forced labour. As reported by Lyla Cohen, Freedom United in December 2024:

ICE pays out over 1.2 billion dollars to GEO and CoreCivic each year alone, despite both companies being increasingly reliant on detainee labour [5]. The National Council for Occupational Safety and Health named GEO in their 2025 “Dirty Dozen List,” referencing GEO’s coercive methods and serious safety failures for immigrant detainees awaiting trial.

Given that the government is taking every step to block visits by lawmakers, tens of thousands of detainees are left at the mercy of companies, under which, in 2025, 32 detainees lost their lives. In December 2025, ICE were holding 68,440 detainees, 75% of whom had no criminal convictions. Deaths in ICE custody in 2025 were the highest since 2004.

In the tsunami of propaganda flooding into the social media zone every day, it’s easy to become distracted from the issues we need to focus on. There is absolutely no excuse for abandoning our humanity. Americans should be very mindful that, amidst all the distractions, the US economy is in a dangerously precarious state, more of which we’ll discuss when we meet again.

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