Nicholas Kristof, a New York Times columnist, says that “what may impede Trump and preserve American democracy is not popular revulsion at the historic damage that he is doing to America but rather alarm at the myriad banal impacts on our daily lives because of Trumpian mismanagement.”
“Trump’s tariffs, even if partly delayed, presumably will raise consumer prices and hurt the financial markets and thus our retirement savings; they will create a mess of supply chains for manufacturing goods. One gauge of what to expect: The latest estimate from the Atlanta Federal Reserve is an astonishing 2.4 percent decline in American G.D.P. in the first quarter of 2025.”
“What’s more, Republicans are now apparently preparing to slash Medicaid to pay for continued tax cuts for the rich. . . [The] federal government would be providing less money to pay for health care for the roughly 72 million Americans on Medicaid. The essential reality is that the plan appears to cut health care for the poorest Americans so that the richest Americans can get a big tax cut — and this is not just morally outrageous but also politically fraught.”
When federal employees who are discharged “are health workers at a V.A. hospital, patients will notice. When they manage agriculture programs, farmers will notice.”
“In Western states, we’re already fearful of the ways the Trump cuts will hamstring firefighting during the next fire season.”
“In short, Trump-Musk incompetence and recklessness may — just may — discredit the vandals in Washington and rein them in.”
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Kristof, The Thing That Could Be Trump’s Undoing, N.Y. Times (Mar. 8, 2024).
