Authoritarians

NOTE: the text below was not written by me and is from various sources (as indicated).

This is really important, so I’m highlighting this single comment. The emphasis below is mine.

Incompetence is way more dangerous than people realize.

These tariffs are China’s Four Pests campaign. Mao, a very trump like figure, decided to protect Chinese crops by destroying sparrows that were picking at them. Killing sparrows killed a predator of insects which did more damage to crops. This coupled with reality denying policies and ignoring experts led to one of the most devastating famines the world has ever experienced.

Hand waiving away this policy that denies reality and hurts America as a rational plan that went wrong is absolutely dangerous. Killing sparrows was “rational” in the same way these tariffs are. Authoritarians believe in power over reason. They do not like submitting to the authority of those who have studied problems because it is an attack on their own supremacy, so they fail to predict second order effects, which were likely obvious.

The damage this administration is doing to trust will be felt for generations. An agreement with America will have no value. No world leader will care what we say, they will only look at what we do. They will see power we have not as potentially being used for their own defense, but as a potential attack on their own sovereignty and they will wish to see us weakened so that they can spend less resources trying to determine our intentions.

That is worth repeating:

Authoritarians believe in power over reason. They do not like submitting to the authority of those who have studied problems because it is an attack on their own supremacy, so they fail to predict second order effects, which were likely obvious.

The entire tariff debacle perfectly illustrates this statement. Authoritarian Trump didn’t listen to any experts, all of whom would have universally told him what would happen if he imposed that level of tariffs on the entire world (except Russia!). He couldn’t prefict a second-order effect and was therefore highly embarrassed (if he is capabable of feeling that emotion) to have to rescind them a few days later.