GOP Stands by While Trump Sabotages Them

At The Hill, an alarmed Republican bemoans Trump's latest unforced error: His ridiculous trade war with Canada.

Surprisingly enough (for Trump, at least), slapping huge import taxes on the biggest international trading partner of many "red" states is harming their economies in ways voters will probably notice, and correctly blame on Trump and his party:

A recent assessment by the Visual Capitalist highlights 23 states that get most of their imports from Canada. Among the states with closely watched elections are Maine, which gets 68.7 percent of it imports from Canada, Alaska (40.7 percent), Minnesota (33.5 percent), Iowa (26.6 percent), and Ohio (18.7 percent).

But trade is a two-way street. It's not just the increased costs -- up to 50 percent more -- U.S. companies, small businesses (like farms) and consumers must pay for Canadian imports. There are also U.S.-made products and services that Canadians may decide not to buy from the United States because the of the tariffs Canada, in response, imposed on imports from the United States. The Visual Capitalist's newly released map outlines the states hardest hit.

The biggest state exporters to Canada are Ohio (exporting $2.3 billion a year) and Pennsylvania ($1.8 billion). Are there important elections in those states that could make the difference in whether Republicans retain the House of Representatives and the Senate? [bold added]

The piece will make gory reading for those of Trump's partisans who don't just assume Trump is playing 4-D chess, and understand why tariffs are a Bad Idea and why swing voters whose livelihoods are affected are going to live up to their name and swing away from their party.

But what the author takes to be the icing on the cake is the following paragraph:

The most puzzling part is that if Trump were determined to pick a trade fight with Canada, he could have easily waited until after November. He chose to do it weeks away from a critical election, which makes you wonder if the conspiracy theorists are right. [bold added]

Yes, the President who still, somehow, commands so much loyalty is a real idiot: Wouldn't it be nice if someone did something about it before the voters do?

And that question -- my question -- as an independent voter fuming about the Trump Party -- is the real icing on the cake.

I seem to recall that Congress could reassert its own constitutional authority over tariffs. Why hasn't it? And if I'm wrong, or there isn't time to do this ahead of the midterms, why not run an the premise of ending this mad effing around with everyone's costs, while insulting their intelligence?

I don't have an answer, but while this column doesn't fall into the disgusting line of sycophantic puff pieces so many conservatives are guilty of these days, it still fails to hold Trump's enablers in the party accountable.

Trump is: obsessed with tariffs, old and set in his ways, insane for all practical purposes, and floating about in an amniotic sac of constant praise and insulation from things he really needs to know.

The people who built that little bubble -- by letting him have his way all the time, and appointing crackpot "advisors" instead of rational adults to his cabinet -- will have reaped what they sowed if the scenario outlined by Merrill Matthews pans out.

And, unless they change course, by starting to restrain this lunatic, they will have deserved an electoral bloodbath and helped the Democrats win Congress.

-- CAV