Department of Bad Arguments (and Even Worse Baseball Analogies)
It’s not about “progressive values”: Democrats, PLEASE stop saying that. The only values at issue here are democracy, or not; fairness, or not; a functioning government, or not; keeping working- and middle-class Americans out of poverty, or not; preserving Social Security and Medicare, or not.
It’s not about economics: it’s about greed. “We can’t afford it” sounds like a good reason to slash government programs, but is it true? Under our Constitution the congress holds the power of the purse; and successive Congresses have appropriated funds for — among other things — the Internal Revenue Service; the Department of Education; the Federal Bureau of Investigation; the State Department and USAID. If the executive can, of its own accord, decide whether or not to spend that money, why do we need congress to pass a budget? More important: WHERE IS THAT MONEY GOING? Because it’s going somewhere. It’s not going to sit in a magical Treasury vault. (Hint: every time Trump takes a long weekend golfing, his resorts bill the Secret Service at a “special” rate.)
It’s not about government efficiency: it’s about no government. Every adult American knows that April 15 is the deadline for filing annual tax returns; so April 9, surely, is a good time for the IRS to be without leadership. The IRS staff fired by the “efficiency experts” are, by and large, the ones tasked with auditing corporations and the very wealthy — not the ordinary citizens who are still expected to pay. It’s not complicated: government services cost money, and that money comes from taxes. Fire the collectors, and government starves. It’s self-fulfilling in the worst possible way.
It’s not about building the middle class: it's about feeding the rich. See above. The people born on third base pretend that the rest of us are just too lazy to hit a triple, and that the best corrective for poverty is to not be poor. How? Reincarnation is one way; the rich paying their share for the freedoms and infrastructure they enjoy — and which further enrich them — is another.
It’s not about creating a new golden age: it’s about a return to the Gilded Age. Trump likes to say that the United States was wealthier in the 1890s and early 1900s than at any other time, before or since, and that’s because the government was funded by “tariffs” and not taxes. Let’s cut the bullshit: tariff is a fancy word for “sales tax” — the most regressive form of taxation. Anyone who thinks tariffs are paid by foreign governments, or by the overseas corporations selling goods in the US, wasn’t paying attention in sixth grade. There is no (legal) force on earth that can compel foreign governments to pony up to the US tax authorities — if there are any left.
It’s not about smaller government: it’s about killing government. Grover Norquist famously said: "I don't want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub.” With tax collection crippled, the Department of Justice thoroughly compromised, and the FBI so enfeebled that wild-eyed liberals might wish for the return of J Edgar Hoover, America is on the verge of becoming a failed state, like Haiti or Libya, Iraq or Afghanistan. That might not be the legacy we want to leave future generations.
It’s not about improving people’s lives: it’s about avarice, hatred, and laziness. Trump’s appeal seems to be that he “hates the people you hate”: his contempt validates his voters. And even more than in his first term, the policies — such as they are — have the “shoot first, ask questions later” quality that everyone should have expected. There is no process (unless you call ChatGPT queries a “process”); there is only executive fiat — the governing mode favored by Tito, Mussolini, Hitler, Saddam, and — let’s be clear — Putin. This is not democracy, and it does not serve the people.
It’s not about enacting policy: it’s about creating chaos. In the United States in 2025, there is no real policy agenda, and no real policy. In the United States, policies exist to serve the people — we can disagree, and often have, about whether the policy can, will, or does meet its stated objective. Instead, today, we have chaos: an unchecked president who invokes emergency powers, sows worldwide economic calamity, and alienates allies who have stood by our nation proudly for eighty years and more, while a pliant congress looks the other way and a complicit judiciary nods in approval.
It’s not about taxing foreign governments: it’s about smoke and mirrors. Watch what they do, not what they say. Pay attention to the reality of what is happening, and how. A 104% tariff imposed (for example) on “all goods coming from China” is not paid by Chinese industry, nor by the Chinese government, nor by anyone in China. It is paid by the purchaser of those goods: the American consumer of toys, costume jewelry, power tools, and more. Food; appliances large and small; batteries for those toys; accessories for those power tools. The Administration can claim all it wants that foreign governments pay; the Administration is lying.
And finally: It’s not about being an All-Star hitter, Democrats: You are watching every pitch go by. Elsewhere in DC the Chief Justice — who told us, in his confirmation hearing, that judges are just calling balls and strikes, either is asleep at the plate or isn’t the impartial umpire he claimed to be.