If nothing else, Trump's chaotic tariff policy is certainly exposing the split in the Republican party between their designated "cucks" and "populists." This interview with New York congressman Tom Reed exposes the ridiculous thought process they have to go through to support Trump.
At least Hallie Jackson called it what it is when she was interviewing Rep. Reed about it. After repeating Senator Ben Sasse's condemnation of the tariffs as "dumb policy," she let Reed ramble on about how the status quo is bad, "disruption" is good, and how somehow these tariffs and protectionism in general are going to create jobs.
“Short term pain, in my opinion, may be something that we have to incur in order to get long term gain for all of us as a country,” Reed rambled. “And I’m willing to go down that path.”
Have you ever wondered why they never tell us where that gain will be or who will benefit?
Jackson let him go on for awhile before zeroing in on the problem. "The way this tariff policy as it has unfolded has been a hot mess," she told Reed. "I think that that is just a factually correct statement based on our reporting the last six or seven days since the president announced it."
"@hy is there so much chaos in the White House, and doesn't that start with the president himself and his leadership," Jackson asked.
Reed maintained that it was all of a piece of the "president's style."
"A style of hot messes? Is that what it is," Jackson shot back.
His answer is no different than a three-year old would give after smearing feces on the walls.
This is about keeping people on their heels," he insisted. "Disrupting, bringing disruption to Washington, D.C."
Yeah, smearing feces brings stink to the room and filth to the walls, too. It's not a good thing.
But Reed wasn't content to leave his excuse-making there. Look at the grin on his face when he talks about screwing over the majority of the country in the name of sacred "disruption."
"It causes a lot of people to not react the way you'd typically see DC folks and the establishment react," he grinned. "That type of disruption coming at it with what some people feel is chaos, some people feel is disruptive, and that's what it is about."
Pain. Pain is what it's about, and he admits that. "It's putting people in a position to say, we're going to change the course of America's future. It is going to be with anxiety and some fear."
Alrighty then. Because that's how governing is supposed to work? By causing anxiety and fear?
By the way, by virtue of the fact that he is serving in Congress, he IS the establishment. Don't be fooled by the faux populism.