The Witness Chronicles, 2/12/25
Sunbathing in Gaza and the coming Trump Recession
Trump is Doubling Down on This Gaza Nonsense
Threatening our long time ally Jordan by withholding aid, and the looming Trump Recession
First, something about Senator Chuck Schumer, the leading Democrat in the Senate, and one of my state’s Senators, who capitulated today, saying there is nothing we can do. I’ve never had a problem with Chuck but he is an old school politician who never misses a photo op, but is totally unequipped to fight the people we are up against right now.
On the other hand, Senator Andy Kim, who worked for USAID, has been leading the fight with implications that closing down the government and calling the Republican bluff might be a good first fight. It would put the focus on how incredibly bad the right is at any kind of governing. A good start in my view.
But Gaza. This started as Trump improvising during his press conference with Bibi, a move that caught his own people by surprise as he waxed poetic about how beautiful it could be when we, the US, take over Gaza, kick out the Palestinians, and turn it into the Riviera of the Middle East. A true real estate developer fantasy on steroids.
Of course Bibi embraced this joke and offered to get things started. The thing was obviously a ridiculous distraction cooked up by Trump to get press, but now it seems he has decided it is a real idea and that he should confront the King of Jordan and the leadership of Egypt, threatening to withhold aid if they don’t take in 2 million Palestinian refugees to clear space for Trump’s developers.
Given the total insanity being unleashed daily in DC, this crap is the last thing we should be focused on right now. We will have no budget in four weeks, Jordan is our long time ally, and both Jordan and Egypt have no desire to take in more refugees. Jordan already has two million Palestinian refugees.
Why we would take action designed to upend the Middle East after we just helped calm things down there, including seeing the regime in Syria collapse? During the press conference with the King of Jordan, Secretary of State Marco Rubio was noticeably uncomfortable as Trump rhapsodized about his vision of the future of Gaza.
A reminder, we have yet another impending crisis in just four weeks as we face a government shutdown and a congress incapable of passing a budget. Yet we get Trump going on about this nonsense and Musk talking about us sending condoms to Africa, to fight AIDS by the way, in the Oval Office as a justification for his draconian cuts to everything.
It’s pure slash and burn by Musk while Trump plays distraction games with his utter nonsense about everything. As an aside, Republicans are ecstatic about Trump’s reported approval rating of 52%, the first time he has passed the 50% level in his entire political career. But they neglect to note that his disapproval rating is 47%, far higher than any opposition he saw the first time around.
The Resistance this time around is very real, and my readers should take heart in that. People are getting more engaged every day and that is the worst nightmare for the Republicans right now. If you want to get politicians’ attention, start showing big disapproval ratings. That scares them because a lot of them have to run again soon.
On top of these numbers, recently elected public officials have a sweetheart period in polling early in their administration but that typically falls off steeply, especially if there are strong negatives, as we have now. Trump pays a lot of attention to the numbers and they are a weapon we can use against his ego.
I seriously doubt the planners behind Project 2025 really want Trump to go off on a tangent about Gaza right now, when their plan is going forward at lightning speed. It’s a focus issue, but by now they should know Trump has the attention span of a gnat and loves shiny objects. Gaza is his shiny object right now and it gets him attention, which is his primary need, always.
Today is the first day I’m seeing cracks in the onslaught of recent weeks. Discipline has always been the weakness of the right. Distractions like this stuff are their weakness and Trump exemplifies that weakness. And Elon is not going to help with this. When he speaks he comes across as so unserious and arrogant that he does not help his case.
Trump is currently having fits over the new inflation numbers that just came out. They show a rise in inflation of 3.3% over this time last year and Trump is trying to blame this on anyone else he can, but current Presidents generally get blamed for these numbers, though to be fair, they rarely have much influence on them.
But there are lots of indicators that the economy is not taking the Trump tariffs and other moves very well. I’m going to go out on a limb and predict we will see a Trump recession later this year if he stays on the course he is charting.
Today the House Republicans unveiled their proposed budget and it, as expected, includes huge tax cuts for the wealthy and a raised debt ceiling so they can pay for those cuts. The numbers only add up if they can succeed in their plan to cut trillions from the government, something that will likely make everything far worse.
Their simplistic version of how to cut spending will cripple the government and have an expanding ripple effect across every aspect of the economy, ripples they don’t seem to have anticipated. That’s the basis for my very amateur diagnosis of the coming Trump recession.
Trump recession. I like the sound of that because you know it would drive him nuts. But, a recession is never a good thing. However, when you slash and burn everything, bad things will happen and it won’t just be those seven dollar eggs.
One question I wonder about is when does Elon wear out his welcome? Stay tuned, I think his time is coming. But I doubt he cares.
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Martin Edic
My amateur guess is that this administration tanks the economy by summer. They are just racing ahead with no thought or strategy as to outcomes. ... but then they never do.
The reasons for Elon's mad dash through government are coming to light and it seems to have nothing to do with cost savings. USAID got killed because they were investigating Starlink for potential fraud. Just like it emerged that his interference in the stopgap budget process was all about him having to admit he borrowed money from the CCP to fund his Chinese gigafactory. He is protecting his main cash sources. Would he be a US government contractor if it was revealed that he was beholding to Chinese communists? Yah, I didn't think so either. Take away Tesla's government subsidies and it ceases to exist. Cancel his Spacex contract with NASA, poof a few more billion. Knock this welfare queen off the government teat and in the space of months he's a mere multimillionaire. I swear to god that if AGI emerges in the next few years it will have Elon's personality. At which point we may realize AGI is not the way to go. Trump will shitcan this dweeb just as soon as he figures out what a drag on his grand faluting govmint takeover he is. Two weeks sounds about right.