alt Hacker NewsTrump is a populist.
He supports tariffs for the exact same reason Bernie Sanders does. There is a reason so many bernie bros jumped to camp Trump in 2016 when (globalist) Hillary won the nomination.
There is no secret or conspiracy going on here. Trump is a populist president and is unsurprisingly doing populist things, elected because of his populist stances. At this point you have to have stabbed your eyes out and shoved spikes in your ears to not know that all he does it gush about bringing back 1950's factory worker dad.
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There's a difference between Trump says populist things and Trump does populist things. Much like "saying things I want to hear" and "saying things I need to hear."
For your factory worker example, at exactly a year into his presidency, we've yet to hear populist points on:
- a comprehensive overhaul to address medical costs for workers
- point-by-point implementation of tariff revenue in reshoring and subsidizing of industry
- how AI is going to support manufacturing gains to the degree we can become competitive with China
Fascism always wears populisms clothing, but they aren't therefore directly equivalent. Bernie and Trump both support tariffs but for different reasons (and to different degrees). Likewise you can gush about 1950's factory workers for different reasons. One is purely to do with economic power of the lower class, the other is to do with supposed Golden age of American history. They have overlapping bases but that's merely a part of their Venn diagrams.
Also Trump already passed the massive tax cuts based off the assumption of income from Tariff's, and those tax cuts disproportionately benefit the rich. I don't think we really need a conspiracy to explain the likely motivations.
yeah, he’s a real populist with the <15% that wants the federal boot on everyone else’s neck. i think there’s a name for that specific type of “populism”.