Letters to the Editor: On President Trump and his agenda

A longtime reader wants to know what I think about President Trump’s current agenda.

When I started do the Letters to the Editor feature, I didn’t plan on doing more than one a month. Kind of like with the Reddit Revue, the Battlestation Reviews, or pretty much any of the other recurring segments on AJnet, I feel that doing the same segment multiple times a month cheapens it. I allow Juan to do two Dear Juans a month because it’s an advice column, and he really likes doing it.

Anyway, I wouldn’t normally do two Letters to the Editor so close to one another, but the topic is something I’ve wanted to write about for a little while now, and this email is the perfect casus belli for doing so.

Specifically, the topic of Donald Trump and his current agenda.

I’ve talked a bit about Big Don on here, and while I’ve criticized him for his brashness and his attitude, I’ve never really talked about his policies aside from when he first took office at the beginning of 2017. I’ll be honest, I’ve tried to avoid talking about Trump as much as possible because of the bullshit his name invokes on both sides of the spectrum. Liberals foam at the mouth like rabid dogs if you even slightly agree with him, and MAGA-tards do the same thing if you disagree with him. While both sides are fucking retards, the left seems to be a bit more vocal (probably because they dominate the media and social sites like Reddit), which is why you’ll notice that I tend to make fun of them a little more than the right.

With all this talk of tariffs, Ukraine, Canada, Greenland, and the economy, I figure it’s high time I gave my two cents worth on everything. This is probably going to be a long one. I’m talking thousands of words. So if long articles scare you, then skip this one.

I’m sure some of the people reading this who aren’t familiar with my writing will assume that I have Trump Derangement Syndrome. I assure you, I do not, and you’re fucking retarded.

Due to circumstances which I’ve agreed not to share, the sender of this email has not only asked that I keep them anonymous, but also that I reword their email to mask their writing style to further decrease the chances of them being identified. Normally I wouldn’t do something like this, but the person who sent this email has been reading the site since at least 2008, and may very well be the oldest reader I have aside from people I know IRL. They’re worried that AI will soon be able to match writing styles to people and track them that way. Are they being paranoid? Maybe, but given the advances in AI we’ve seen in the last few years I’m sure it’s only a matter of time before it’s possible, so I get where they’re coming from. Suffice to say, the person doesn’t want to be found, they have their reasons, and I respect their wishes.

Still, I wasn’t going to rewrite all that shit myself, so with their permission I fed it to R.A.N.T.E.R., who changed the wording up a bit:

 

Angry Jerk,

So far, it seems Trump’s been more active than any president I’ve seen—maybe ever. He’s all over social media, has a big presence in the news, and the liberals can’t stand him, so we’re right in the middle of it all. Liberals think the country’s falling apart and blame conservatives. Conservatives see it as payback and say liberals deserve it. It’s a complete turnaround from Biden. Meanwhile, Trump’s been pushing his agenda—tariffs, dealing with Ukraine’s war, and cleaning house. Republicans run most of the federal government now, so Democrats are keeping quiet. All I hear is complaints from self-important types feeding off each other. Things look decent so far, don’t they?

Two paths could play out. First, Trump’s playing a smart game, messing with people just enough. It works out, and the U.S. comes out stronger, with the dollar—the world’s top currency—solid as ever. We’d gain more economic power and influence worldwide. Ukraine might settle with a ceasefire, losing some land to Russia, but we’d get mineral rights. I could see a neutral zone in Canada or Greenland, tied to the U.S.—maybe easy access for Americans, but still under their control, perhaps a lease deal. Trump’s got his sights on that. And he avoids a war.

Or, it’s a World War III mess. Trump wrecks the economy, and it tanks hard. The world turns against us, and we’re down for decades, even with Democrats in charge. Russia takes Ukraine, China grabs Taiwan when they see us slip, and NATO moves on without us. Iran expands or starts a global conflict with Russia. NATO’s alliance with us gets shaky. China, Japan, and Korea link up for trade; the EU follows suit. We lose Canada and Mexico as they team up. South America and Africa might step up with some new continental alliance.

The stock market’s taken a hit too. AMD, a stock I like, is down bad. If it all collapses, maybe I’ll grab shares at $5 again.

What’s your take?

 

I know a lot of people absolutely hate Donald Trump, while a lot of other people absolutely love him. I don’t have extreme feelings about him one way or the other, over the years I’ve learned better than to allow myself to get worked up over politics. I have no control over any of this shit, so why should I waste energy being passionate about it?

With that said, Donald, are you fucking stupid?

That wasn’t a rhetorical question, I genuinely want to know.

I see so many people defend this guy’s every action as part of some master strategy that the average person is just too dumb to understand. They treat him like he’s a super-genius tactician whose every policy and action is meticulously calculated to ensure he’s five steps ahead of his enemies. These people claim he’s “playing 5D chess”, and will do all kinds of ass-pulls to justify everything Trump does, because the thought that he could make a mistake or be self-serving and crooked is impossible to them. They’d gladly suck the farts right out of his asshole if he told them to, and say it’s part of some greater plan to save America. Liking Trump is okay, but outright simping for him is just pathetic. You guys are sick, you’re no better than the liberals with Trump Derangement Syndrome.

The first thing I want to talk about is the tariffs.

Trump has essentially started a trade war with the entire world by implementing massive tariffs on pretty much every country we do business with. His reasoning behind this is that it will bring manufacturing back to America, while also allowing America to negotiate better tariff rates with other countries. In theory, this sounds good. If companies want to avoid paying high tariffs to sell their products in the US, they’ll manufacture them in the US.

In practice, this is fucking stupid, because none of these companies are going to actually move their manufacturing to the US. Instead, they’re going to jack the prices of goods up further to offset the high tariffs. As we’ve seen from the COVID pandemic, consumers are more than willing to pay exorbitant prices on stuff. Why do you think there’s suddenly massive bird flu outbreaks every year that jack the prices of eggs up? Because egg producers realized that consumers would pay $6+ a dozen for eggs rather than forgo them. It’s a cash grab. The same thing applies here. Do you think people are going to stop buying TVs, cars, produce, and the other things affected by these tariffs? Fuck no. They’ll groan, they’ll grumble, they’ll gripe, but they’ll still buy that TV or car because they “need it”. Companies know this, they know that they can charge whatever the fuck they want and mindless consumers will continue to buy it up. Trump’s plan relies on companies behaving ethically, which is laughable logic when you consider that Trump’s a seasoned businessman and should know better than this. The tariffs are going to do nothing but fuck over average Americans while giving companies yet another excuse to excessively jack their prices up.

The root of the inflation problem is corporate greed. The pay of CEOs and other corporate executives has climbed exponentially, while the average employee’s pay has just barely went up when you factor in inflation. The higher-ups cut all kinds of corners and pocket the enormous profits for themselves without giving their workers anything. You have Dodge and the Michigan State Supreme Court to thank for setting that standard. This isn’t capitalism anymore, it’s some kind of kleptocratic bastardization, and Trump’s tariffs are only going to help cement that.

This whole “annexing Canada and Greenland” thing has gone too far, and needs to stop.

“Canada as the 51st state” started as one of Trump’s patented dumb off-the-cuff jokes, and has since snowballed into an avalanche of bullshit. We’re not genuinely out to annex Canada, and most sane people would understand this. Our hockey-loving neighbors to the north are one of our greatest allies. They’re America’s winter hat that serves as a buffer between Alaska and the rest of the US if the Russians decide they want to invade. As far as I’m concerned, Canada is the cool neighbor that I’d gladly lend my lawnmower to and have backyard cookouts with every weekend.

Justin Trudeau is a massive pussy, so instead of laughing off Trump’s stupid joke, he threw a little pissy-fit over it. Because Trump is a braying jackass who doesn’t know when it’s time to stop fucking with people, he kept it up. Rather than slap a tampon in his bleeding cunt, dry his tears, and just ignore Trump’s childish behavior, Trudeau continued to whine and take offense. Trump doubled down in spite, and now the US and Canada have beef. I’d say that it’s like the old saying about running in the Special Olympics, but the people running in the Special Olympics are probably less retarded than Trump and Trudeau. What a dumb way to ruin an alliance with a neighbor. There’s no serious plan to invade or go to war with Canada, but if there is then count me out. What next, is Karoline Leavitt going to get up on stage and sing “Blame Canada”?

I actually understand why Trump would be genuinely interested in buying Greenland. Russia dominates the Arctic Circle, and by controlling Greenland the US would have a major foothold to counter this dominance. It’s not the dumbest idea he’s had, and it’s not even a new idea. I’ll concede that Trump’s a pretty good negotiator when he wants to be, but saying that he wouldn’t rule out military action to acquire Greenland is a terrible negotiation tactic. Bluster or not, this isn’t the kind of shit I want our president saying.

I also understand why Trump doesn’t want to keep pouring money and arms into propping up Ukraine. It seems like Zelensky does nothing but beg for money and weapons to fend off the Russians. And I don’t necessarily blame him, his country’s being invaded and destroyed. I did an entire article on how I’d handle the situation if I was president. While the article was kind of tongue-in-cheek, my plan to end the war was semi-serious. Aside from wearing Russia down by financing and arming Ukraine in a proxy war, physical confrontation is the only other way to stop this. The only thing Putin understands and respects is strength. He’s banking on the fact that nobody wants to accidentally start World War 3 because he has nukes. I don’t think most of their nukes work, I think the money that was supposed to be spent maintaining them was embezzled over the years. I also think that China is smart enough to understand why America and Russia going to war would be bad for them, and would probably try to prevent a nuclear exchange. Given that America is their primary trading partner (aside from the EU and ASEAN), I also think they’d be more likely to side with America in the conflict. China isn’t going to let Russia start a nuclear war over Ukraine.

Depleting our arsenal and our money to prop up Ukraine isn’t a good strategy, but neither is abandoning them and the rest of Europe. I get what Trump’s going for, that Europe is relying too much on the US to protect them, but going in the complete opposite direction isn’t the answer. Neither is holding Ukrainian aid hostage for mineral rights. You can’t just abandon our allies and leave them to the Russian wolves. You sit back and let the Russians take Ukraine, then they’ll eventually come for other European countries. We tried to sit out the first two World Wars, it didn’t work. It’s not going to work this time either. Abandoning our European allies now is going to hurt us greatly in the long-run. Russia may be a paper tiger, but that doesn’t mean that a war between them and Europe wouldn’t be highly destructive. We need to stop Putin and Russia in Ukraine, before this spreads further into Europe.

I’m also disappointed with Trump sucking Israel’s dick.

Even going back to 2007, you’ll see that I’ve never been a fan of Israel. I don’t support Hamas either, I already did an article last year calling out both sides of this bullshit conflict.

The Israeli lobby is absurdly influential in American politics. According to some, pointing that out makes me antisemitic. Whenever someone says something critical of Israel, they’re branded as antisemites. I guess my Jewish friend Sharon is antisemitic too, because she’s more critical of Israel than I am. She’s taken off work more than once to go join protests against the Gaza invasion. Not my cup of tea, but I certainly respect her beliefs and her right to have them.

I have no problem ignoring the whining of groups like AIPAC, the ADL, or the Jewish Defense League. The problem is, governments continually make laws to protect Israel from criticism. I’m not even just talking about Holocaust denial laws (which I disagree with, because while only a retard would deny that the Holocaust happened, it’s not actually hurting anyone), it’s illegal in over 38 US states to boycott Israel. No other country has this kind of protection. I’ll say it right here: The AJnet Organization will never do business with Israel or any Israeli special interest group. We’ll also never do business with Hamas or Hezbollah, but it’s not illegal to boycott them so nobody cares about that. I’ll be more than happy to defend my decision in court if needed.

Newsflash you morons, being against Israel’s influence on American politicians or their military campaign in Gaza doesn’t mean I hate an entire religion or race. What a stupid leap to make. If I don’t support bombing and displacing almost 2 million civilians then I’m basically Hitler? Yeah, no, get fucked asshole. Excessively killing women and children in response to a terrorist attack has nothing to do with being Jewish, and if it does (it doesn’t) then I’d rather be called an antisemite. Don’t any of you find it even remotely strange that you’re against helping Ukrainians fight off Russia, but you’re willing to support Israel’s invasion of Gaza to fight off Hamas and Hezbollah? The October 7th attack was committed by terrorists, but the invasion of Ukraine was done by a nation and was infinitely bloodier.

Trump is taking this a step further by deporting college students who are protesting Israel’s current military campaign. Some of the college students are openly condoning Hamas’s initial assault on October 7th, which isn’t cool either, but it’s still protected under free speech. Even the ADL said that this was too heavyhanded. I tried to find news articles to link for you on this, but every single source demanded that I buy a subscription. And they say Jews don’t control the media- sorry, couldn’t resist. It should never be illegal to criticize another country.

I think that this hate boner for Iran is rooted in Trump’s support for Israel. Iran is funding the Houthis, Hezbollah, Hamas, and many other terrorist groups in the Middle East. They also hold a grudge against Israel, hence the back-and-forth between them. Somehow this is also America’s problem. There’s absolutely no need for America to be involved with Iran. If the Houthis are attacking American ships passing through the Red Sea, then attack the Houthis and show them no mercy. Starting a direct war with Iran is wasteful, and only really furthers Israeli interests rather than American interests. If Israel and Iran want to bomb each other back into the Stone Age then let them. Fuck them both. Jewish people are fine, but Israel is a rogue state. People are worried about Iran getting nukes, but Israel already has them, and their aggressive nature and impulsive overreaction to attacks on their country concerns me more. I wouldn’t be surprised if Israel used a nuke in the next five years.

Donald Trump is a clown. Just because he was the better choice over Biden or Kamala doesn’t mean he was a good choice. Do I wish that he was really some master strategist sticking it to the deep state? Of course I do. But the most likely truth is, he’s just as crooked and self-serving as any of them. His tariffs are probably going to fuck the country, he’s damaging relations with important allies, and he’s setting up Europe to get fucked by Russia. He claims to be “America first”, but his blind support for Israel is detrimental to American interests. I think we’re likely to see another Great Depression, followed by World War 3 breaking out in Europe, followed by a complete breakdown and restructuring of the global order. I don’t know who I want leading America through it all, but I sure as hell know that person isn’t Donald Trump.

With that big long rant out of the way, my advice to anyone who can afford it is to buy up stocks during the crash. I don’t think we’ll ever see $5 AMD stocks again (and I hope not, because that would be a terrible sign), but it would be a good idea to invest in tech stocks during a crash. I’d suggest starting out with AMD, Nvidia, and Apple, since they’re reasonably priced right now and will probably do pretty good in the long run. You could probably turn a few hundred dollars into a few thousand over the next five years or so. Buy during the dip.

That’s my take on all this. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got more important things to write about, like Google Pixels, anime, and strange Peter Jackson movies from the late 80’s.