The unfolding economic situation will be an inescapable backdrop for all upcoming elections – no matter how far down-ballot. Trump’s policies are creating havoc and strongly impacting all Americans. His newly announced tariffs are utterly incomprehensible, especially to anybody who has taken even an introductory course to Economics.
This morning’s top story on the usually-staid Axios is a devastating takedown of Trump and his tariffs.
Someone in my office who I knew was at least Republican leaning but thought was intelligent was praising the tariffs yesterday, calling VAT's tariffs, and considered the board Trump used to explain it brilliant. It was fascinating to realize that this very successful woman was also a total idiot.
I had to listen to someone in my carpool today who is convinced that manufacturing jobs are already set to be coming back and we'll be getting trillions in new investment dollars. It is painful - and part of it is my fault for humoring this guy too many times.
Even if some manufacturing moves back, it will employ far fewer people than it used it. And the whole reason why manufacturing jobs are thought of as "good jobs" is because they historically had strong unions. There's no market based reason why they would be high paying and before the unions successfully organized mass manufacturing, they weren't.
By like a dollar or two an hour. Not to say that those jobs aren't important for the local economies of small towns where, say, a paper mill is big employer. But they aren't going to magically be high paying. They're going pay as little as the bosses think they can get away with, unless the workers organize, which given the precarious nature of manufacturing work these days, they're often reluctant to do.
As I saw someone say on BSky the other day, people don’t miss manufacturing jobs, they miss the effects of living in a society with high union density.
There's also no company that is going to onshore jobs with the expectation that these tariffs are going away in no more than 4 years. By the time a factory was up and running they'd get 6 months of profits before production moves back to Vietnam.
I am a centre left Liberal who's been interested in economic theories since I was little kid. I think NAFTA was a net positive and the subsequent downturn in manufacturing was due to a long trend since ww2 caused by many factors and the rise of automation. I supported China tariffs because it is an enemy and abuses trade through merchantilist currency and patent policies. I opposed TPP because I didn't believe it would be a net positive and believed that it would gut American manufacturing. I instead support France, Korea and Japan "Dirigisme" style subsidies adopted by Biden to spur clean and high tech manufacturing. But we are not really gauging the magnitude of destruction Trump is unleashing on the world and America because of his 1990s based Japan and tariff obsession. This world order, supply chains and global trade has been created through the contribution and wisdom of generations of economists, politicians and philosophers which is extremely mutually beneficial for everyone economically, diplomatically and militarily; and keeps stuff cheap and production optimised for everyone relatively. This is also the reason why Presidents like Obama didn't anticipate a full blown Russian invasion. Every Republican should check Reagan's video on tariffs which explains it really well. There is a reason why the tariff experiment was repeated 2 times with a gap of 100 years and this is the 3rd time after another hundred year. Kamala warned us that a Trump in full control of America and the GOP without guardrails would be insane, would put a massive sales tax on everyone and plunge America into a recession. This is the end of the Free World and its alliances for the time being with a high probability of recession. This is harakiri and will hurt our image for years after this economic calamity.
Nice summary and analysis! Food for thought, although I don’t agree with all of it. One of my big automation fears is self-driving 18-wheelers and other vehicles used to transport and deliver goods. Likewise warehousing.
Note: The transportation and warehousing industries employ 6.6 million people, accounting for 5 percent of all private-sector jobs.
Trump tariffs will decimate the livelihoods and businesses of a lot of Americans and people of the Global South. Has America become Great Again?
Even if we start manufacturing and growing everything here in America, we will never be able to fill the comparative advantage gap and this will not happen immediately. The result will be high inflation. This will also provoke massive trade wars which will hurt us exports severely.
NAFTA was a net positive for whom? Not for U.S. unskilled workers, that's for sure. Not for Mexican farmers, who were forced off their land because they could not compete with U.S. agribusiness. The result of which has contributed to increase in immigration to the U.S. It was merely protection for capital, free trade for labor.
There have been more than 3 "experiments" throughout U.S. history. Tariffs have risen and fallen throughout the decades. And Reagan himself placed tariffs on Japanese steel, among other commodities.
I wouldn't even call this a gamble. With gambles at least you have a chance to win. The best outcome Trump can get at this point is to quit while he's behind.
When even the sycophants on r/conservative are throwing around terms like “political suicide” and “categorically nonsense” you know there’s not going to be a favorable outcome for the GOP.
It’s just a question of how bad it gets for the rest of us first
Data for Progress has a poll of NY Senate with AOC up 55-36 over Schumer. I'd say Schumer could just retire at his age but lifers like him usually refuse to retire.
If he actually makes it to 2028, he's actively costing Democrats dozens of seats in the House and Senate that they'd win otherwise. He should have resigned from the Senate yesterday.
If Schumer resigns, Hochul gets to make an interim appointment. Hochul is one of the few statewide democrats that's weaker than Schumer, and she would inevitably pick someone utterly disappointing. Someone worse that would then be all but guaranteed to win the primary for that seat.
Have you seen his approval ratings? There's a non-zero chance many Democrats stay home if he's still in the Senate in 2026/2028 as opposed to whomever Hochul appoints (if he resigns now it would probably be either Delgado or James- they are her biggest threats in the Gubernatorial primary), and just stepping down as floor leader wouldn't really change that in my opinion.
Ahh yes, the same way that Mitch McConnell's jaw-droppingly underwater approval ratings cost Republicans numerous senate seats in 2024? Or Nancy Pelosi's cost Democrats in 2018. C'mon...
And then watch this video of Sam Stein explaining our self-appointed Emperor not even bothering to be there when their bodies were loaded onto the plane in Lithuania because he had to attend a LIV Golf event instead.
"We’re launching the People’s Cabinet — a group of leaders, experts, and everyday Americans who will cut through Trump’s lies and speak directly to the people. Stay tuned for more."
Because AJC is behind a paywall, they cover how Ossoff might be trying to tric MTG into jumping into the Senate race. His race was always going to be difficult but I believe he can and still win. I also say it's 50/50 at this point that Kemp jumps in. I know him and Trump have made up but Kemp never sounded that thrilled about running for the Senate. Thoughts?
If 2026 is shaping up to be a gnarly midterm for the GOP - and so far it seems to be - then Kemp can afford to feel out Prez ‘28 or run against Warnock then
If so, then he probably might as well not run at all. Candidates that look good on paper usually don't perform too well in reality when they only half-heartedly undertake a campaign, and it's not looking like he'll have a red wave to help him (the GOP may be lucky if there isn't a blue one.)
NC appellate court has ruled 2-1 along partisan lines that some 65,000 ballots should not count in the vote tally. It gave some of those voters about 15 business days to provide their missing information.
Riggs is expected to appeal to the highly partisan state supreme court and to take the case to federal court should they lose in state court and Griffin takes the tally lead.
“Changing the rules by which these lawful voters took part in our electoral process after the election to discard their otherwise valid votes in an attempt to alter the outcome of only one race among many on the ballot is directly counter to law, equity, and the Constitution,” Democratic judge Toby Hampson wrote in a lengthy dissent.
A federal judge gave the Trump administration until the end of Monday to return to the United States a Maryland man who was inadvertently deported to El Salvador last month despite a court order allowing him stay in the country.
Totally agree; it's outlived its usefulness in this new age of hyper-polarization. It's a much more useful data point to look at a specific result in the context of that election, rather than average them over time and completely ignore the context of each of the elections involved. Given how much things shift over time, it's sometimes barely useful to use the previous election to predict the next one, let alone TWO previous elections.
Not that I expect Democrats to win them anytime soon, but is it odd or just expected that all of Utah's congressional districts, outside the 4th with Salt Lake City, are ironically shifting bluer than the 4th itself? This is at least according to Cook anyways and they are all R +10. That's within striking distance for a statewide candidate, or even a potential longshot upset.
Looking at the district, UT-04 is only partially in SLC. A lot of the district is in ruby red areas outside the city. Using the precincts specifically it also looks like the part of SLC's urban area in the district is the only red/reddish part of SLC. The city area is split across all four districts. The other three presumably have territory that is more amenable to us and thus why they're trending towards slightly less impossibly red.
DEVASTATING TAKEDOWN
The unfolding economic situation will be an inescapable backdrop for all upcoming elections – no matter how far down-ballot. Trump’s policies are creating havoc and strongly impacting all Americans. His newly announced tariffs are utterly incomprehensible, especially to anybody who has taken even an introductory course to Economics.
This morning’s top story on the usually-staid Axios is a devastating takedown of Trump and his tariffs.
https://www.axios.com/2025/04/04/trump-tariffs-confidence-americans-gamble
Here is a less academic analysis of Trump’s tariffs:
https://www.joeydevilla.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/how-tariffs-work-768x599.jpg
Someone in my office who I knew was at least Republican leaning but thought was intelligent was praising the tariffs yesterday, calling VAT's tariffs, and considered the board Trump used to explain it brilliant. It was fascinating to realize that this very successful woman was also a total idiot.
I had to listen to someone in my carpool today who is convinced that manufacturing jobs are already set to be coming back and we'll be getting trillions in new investment dollars. It is painful - and part of it is my fault for humoring this guy too many times.
Even if some manufacturing moves back, it will employ far fewer people than it used it. And the whole reason why manufacturing jobs are thought of as "good jobs" is because they historically had strong unions. There's no market based reason why they would be high paying and before the unions successfully organized mass manufacturing, they weren't.
They would be high paying compared to working at Wal-Mart or Home Depot.
Yeah but limited to maintaining the automated assembly lines. And sentenced to life in prison if they decide to go Luddite and smash up the robots.
By like a dollar or two an hour. Not to say that those jobs aren't important for the local economies of small towns where, say, a paper mill is big employer. But they aren't going to magically be high paying. They're going pay as little as the bosses think they can get away with, unless the workers organize, which given the precarious nature of manufacturing work these days, they're often reluctant to do.
As I saw someone say on BSky the other day, people don’t miss manufacturing jobs, they miss the effects of living in a society with high union density.
In more rural areas, sometimes there isn't a lot of alternative without driving hours each way. And high housing costs make relocating a challenge.
There's also no company that is going to onshore jobs with the expectation that these tariffs are going away in no more than 4 years. By the time a factory was up and running they'd get 6 months of profits before production moves back to Vietnam.
I am a centre left Liberal who's been interested in economic theories since I was little kid. I think NAFTA was a net positive and the subsequent downturn in manufacturing was due to a long trend since ww2 caused by many factors and the rise of automation. I supported China tariffs because it is an enemy and abuses trade through merchantilist currency and patent policies. I opposed TPP because I didn't believe it would be a net positive and believed that it would gut American manufacturing. I instead support France, Korea and Japan "Dirigisme" style subsidies adopted by Biden to spur clean and high tech manufacturing. But we are not really gauging the magnitude of destruction Trump is unleashing on the world and America because of his 1990s based Japan and tariff obsession. This world order, supply chains and global trade has been created through the contribution and wisdom of generations of economists, politicians and philosophers which is extremely mutually beneficial for everyone economically, diplomatically and militarily; and keeps stuff cheap and production optimised for everyone relatively. This is also the reason why Presidents like Obama didn't anticipate a full blown Russian invasion. Every Republican should check Reagan's video on tariffs which explains it really well. There is a reason why the tariff experiment was repeated 2 times with a gap of 100 years and this is the 3rd time after another hundred year. Kamala warned us that a Trump in full control of America and the GOP without guardrails would be insane, would put a massive sales tax on everyone and plunge America into a recession. This is the end of the Free World and its alliances for the time being with a high probability of recession. This is harakiri and will hurt our image for years after this economic calamity.
Nice summary and analysis! Food for thought, although I don’t agree with all of it. One of my big automation fears is self-driving 18-wheelers and other vehicles used to transport and deliver goods. Likewise warehousing.
Note: The transportation and warehousing industries employ 6.6 million people, accounting for 5 percent of all private-sector jobs.
Trump tariffs will decimate the livelihoods and businesses of a lot of Americans and people of the Global South. Has America become Great Again?
Even if we start manufacturing and growing everything here in America, we will never be able to fill the comparative advantage gap and this will not happen immediately. The result will be high inflation. This will also provoke massive trade wars which will hurt us exports severely.
https://youtu.be/5t5QK03KXPc?si=BdOErB5aKLxTo9kU
NAFTA was a net positive for whom? Not for U.S. unskilled workers, that's for sure. Not for Mexican farmers, who were forced off their land because they could not compete with U.S. agribusiness. The result of which has contributed to increase in immigration to the U.S. It was merely protection for capital, free trade for labor.
There have been more than 3 "experiments" throughout U.S. history. Tariffs have risen and fallen throughout the decades. And Reagan himself placed tariffs on Japanese steel, among other commodities.
The bigger sins were letting the PRC into the WTO and giving them most favored trading status with the US.
Yeah that was way, way worse.
I wouldn't even call this a gamble. With gambles at least you have a chance to win. The best outcome Trump can get at this point is to quit while he's behind.
When even the sycophants on r/conservative are throwing around terms like “political suicide” and “categorically nonsense” you know there’s not going to be a favorable outcome for the GOP.
It’s just a question of how bad it gets for the rest of us first
Data for Progress has a poll of NY Senate with AOC up 55-36 over Schumer. I'd say Schumer could just retire at his age but lifers like him usually refuse to retire.
There's no way Schumer retires before the end of his term barring a major health event.
I think Kevin means he might retire in 2028
If he actually makes it to 2028, he's actively costing Democrats dozens of seats in the House and Senate that they'd win otherwise. He should have resigned from the Senate yesterday.
If Schumer resigns, Hochul gets to make an interim appointment. Hochul is one of the few statewide democrats that's weaker than Schumer, and she would inevitably pick someone utterly disappointing. Someone worse that would then be all but guaranteed to win the primary for that seat.
Please provide even a shred of evidence to back up this bonkers claim...
Have you seen his approval ratings? There's a non-zero chance many Democrats stay home if he's still in the Senate in 2026/2028 as opposed to whomever Hochul appoints (if he resigns now it would probably be either Delgado or James- they are her biggest threats in the Gubernatorial primary), and just stepping down as floor leader wouldn't really change that in my opinion.
Ahh yes, the same way that Mitch McConnell's jaw-droppingly underwater approval ratings cost Republicans numerous senate seats in 2024? Or Nancy Pelosi's cost Democrats in 2018. C'mon...
A "non-zero chance" doesn't sound like something we need to be unduly alarmed about.
I need everyone to take a moment to read this article from Mark Hertling about the four servicemembers who lost their lives in Lithuania this week.
https://www.thebulwark.com/p/when-american-soldiers-trouble-allies-showed-up-lithuania-europe
And then watch this video of Sam Stein explaining our self-appointed Emperor not even bothering to be there when their bodies were loaded onto the plane in Lithuania because he had to attend a LIV Golf event instead.
https://youtu.be/hmyyEtVfA5U?si=oDNmq7ESiePRrX8v
DEMOCRATS ANNOUNCE "PEOPLE’s CABINET"
"We’re launching the People’s Cabinet — a group of leaders, experts, and everyday Americans who will cut through Trump’s lies and speak directly to the people. Stay tuned for more."
– Ken Martin, Chair of the DNC
https://bsky.app/profile/kenmartin.bsky.social/post/3llykndhbck2q
And here are more details and names from the DNC!
https://democrats.org/news/dnc-chair-ken-martin-launches-peoples-cabinet-to-fiercely-counter-trump-administration-chaos-and-lies/
Looks like they took the idea of the shadow cabinet and modified it a bit. I really like this and hope they stick to it and can make it work!
GA-Sen, GOP launching attack ads against Ossoff during Masters and Final Four with transphobic ads about trans athletes: https://www.axios.com/2025/04/04/jon-ossoff-georgia-senate-slf-trans-sports-ads
Because AJC is behind a paywall, they cover how Ossoff might be trying to tric MTG into jumping into the Senate race. His race was always going to be difficult but I believe he can and still win. I also say it's 50/50 at this point that Kemp jumps in. I know him and Trump have made up but Kemp never sounded that thrilled about running for the Senate. Thoughts?
If 2026 is shaping up to be a gnarly midterm for the GOP - and so far it seems to be - then Kemp can afford to feel out Prez ‘28 or run against Warnock then
As someone who lives in Georgia, there is zero chance that Kemp enters the senate race willingly.
If so, then he probably might as well not run at all. Candidates that look good on paper usually don't perform too well in reality when they only half-heartedly undertake a campaign, and it's not looking like he'll have a red wave to help him (the GOP may be lucky if there isn't a blue one.)
NC appellate court has ruled 2-1 along partisan lines that some 65,000 ballots should not count in the vote tally. It gave some of those voters about 15 business days to provide their missing information.
All of these votes were cast by voters who did all that they were required to do. Now, long after the election, this court is tossing thousand of them out. A very bad day for democracy. https://abc11.com/post/jefferson-griffin-allison-riggs-north-carolina-judges-rule-ballots-tossed-republican-candidate-supreme-court-race/16127804/
Riggs is expected to appeal to the highly partisan state supreme court and to take the case to federal court should they lose in state court and Griffin takes the tally lead.
“Changing the rules by which these lawful voters took part in our electoral process after the election to discard their otherwise valid votes in an attempt to alter the outcome of only one race among many on the ballot is directly counter to law, equity, and the Constitution,” Democratic judge Toby Hampson wrote in a lengthy dissent.
Does an appeal just go back to the state Supreme Court?
Yes. But a federal court decided that it could be heard by a federal district court judge after the state Supreme Court decided.
https://www.carolinajournal.com/appellate-judges-will-not-force-nc-supreme-court-election-dispute-to-return-to-federal-court/
Carolina Forward seems certain that this case will make it to SCOTUS. My political predictions are terrible, so I’m bracing for the worst.
If it does, the case that was supposed to be good for one time and one time only, Bush vs. Gore, may come into play.
A federal judge gave the Trump administration until the end of Monday to return to the United States a Maryland man who was inadvertently deported to El Salvador last month despite a court order allowing him stay in the country.
https://www.nytimes.com/live/2025/04/04/us/trump-news-updates#trump-deportations-maryland-man-el-salvador
And now, for something that you've all been waiting for for two years....
The Cook Political Report's new 2025 PVI's, incorporating the results of the 2020 and 2024 elections.
https://www.cookpolitical.com/cook-pvi/2025-partisan-voting-index/district-map-and-list
I hate PVI. I prefer knowing how Harris did or how Biden did, not adding stuff together and trying to make up some fancy math crap for no reason.
Totally agree; it's outlived its usefulness in this new age of hyper-polarization. It's a much more useful data point to look at a specific result in the context of that election, rather than average them over time and completely ignore the context of each of the elections involved. Given how much things shift over time, it's sometimes barely useful to use the previous election to predict the next one, let alone TWO previous elections.
Not that I expect Democrats to win them anytime soon, but is it odd or just expected that all of Utah's congressional districts, outside the 4th with Salt Lake City, are ironically shifting bluer than the 4th itself? This is at least according to Cook anyways and they are all R +10. That's within striking distance for a statewide candidate, or even a potential longshot upset.
Looking at the district, UT-04 is only partially in SLC. A lot of the district is in ruby red areas outside the city. Using the precincts specifically it also looks like the part of SLC's urban area in the district is the only red/reddish part of SLC. The city area is split across all four districts. The other three presumably have territory that is more amenable to us and thus why they're trending towards slightly less impossibly red.
NY-22
Neither Salka nor Abbott strike me as particularly strong candidates in an anti-Trump midterm.