It was a marvelous scene in the Capitol Rotunda that day, wasn’t it? Marbled walls glimmered in the morning sunlight, titans of industry standing in homage, and President Donald Trump’s vanquished foes sitting behind him, their faces baffled and pained.
Over the next two months, Trump and company pressed their advantage mercilessly — and with a wry smile. The Department of Government Efficiency made its thunder run through the federal bureaucracy, as the Washington Examiner’s Elizabeth Stauffer memorably phrased it. Sanity and order were restored at the southern border, with crossings down 60%, proving that new laws weren’t necessary to stop the bleeding, only a new president. Multi-billion dollar artificial intelligence infrastructure investments were unveiled. A storm of executive orders unleashed energy, shuttered diversity, equity, and inclusion programs, pulled America out of the World Health Organization, and much, much more.
The new American Golden Era was upon us. And Democrats, with approvals toiling in the low 20s, could only grin and bear it.
But the golden sheen has dulled faster than anyone could have expected.
The downturn began with the surreal national security episode dubbed the Signal snafu. As the world now knows, national security adviser Mike Waltz created a group chat on the messaging app Signal and accidentally added the Atlantic’s Jefferey Goldberg, whose report 11 days later stunned security experts and set the public on edge.
Walz intended to add national security spokesman Brian Hughes to the chat but added the rabid anti-Trump Goldberg instead. He was then treated to a play-by-play of the strike by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. Signal time stamps show Hegseth sent the messages before the first strike, meaning that Goldberg knew what was coming before the Houthis did.
Despite the mission being carried out successfully — and we can thank our lucky stars Goldberg was the accidental addition and not someone who wanted to cause the United States harm — the ramifications were obvious enough. The incident took the glow off Trump’s claims about restoring competence on the most serious possible issue.
Then, last week, the announcement of Trump’s shocking tariff policies and trade wars upended the global economy, causing markets to crash, allies to flee (hopefully not into China’s arms), and economic projections to darken.
The bizarre formula behind the tariffs, including those levied on the penguins of Heard Island and McDonald Islands, appears to have been contrived with bad math and a loose interpretation of “reciprocal.” It increasingly seems that a miracle will be needed to pull the U.S. out of this without suffering terrible damage in terms of economic strength and global prestige. Trump’s aim to revive American industry is noble, but his plan might be dumb.
Billionaire hedge fund manager and Trump supporter Bill Ackman just urged the president to pause tariffs or risk “a self-induced economic nuclear winter.”
In the short term, the threat of an economic catastrophe suddenly looms as a real possibility. JP Morgan’s economists have raised the global recession risk to 60%, up from 40%. The cost of consumer goods will almost certainly rise, but to what extent remains uncertain. The Budget Lab at Yale predicts a 2.3% price increase from all 2025 tariffs, which would mean a $3,800 cost increase for the average American household. Increased business costs are likely to cause unemployment to rise.
You can already see the Democrats’ midterm election commercials running on a loop, showing statements like the one Trump made in September: “Kamala’s inflation crushed you. Day One, I’m reversing it—cheaper gas, cheaper food, cheaper rent. Watch.”
Meanwhile, senior members of Trump’s administration have broken into an all-out conflict.
“[Elon Musk]’s just looking out for his own bottom line,” said top White House trade adviser Peter Navarro on Fox News over the weekend.
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“Navarro is truly a moron … He’s dumber than a sack of bricks,” replied Musk Tuesday on X.
Has late January ever felt so far away in early April?