Consequences and Screams into the Void

Many Americans are still in denial of what this election is. To be short, it’s epochal. The age of globalization is over, and it is now a multipolar world. However, I get why a lot of people voted for Donald Trump. Part of it is they forgot how bad it was the first time. It was a traumatic event, especially after the pandemic started. So I get it.

To those who voted for Trump for those reasons. It’s hardly unprecedented in human history, and personal economies are what they are. Hold my beer. And dang it, that beer will go up quite a bit. It’s the aluminum in the can, ok.

It’s the expected tariffs. I will have something to say about the media later because this story is a dollar short and a day late:

As President-elect Donald Trump readies to return to the Oval Office, U.S. retailers that depend on foreign suppliers are prepared to pass along the cost of his proposed import tariffs to consumers, potentially leading to higher prices for a range of products.

Americans stand to lose between $46 billion and $78 billion in spending power each year on products including apparel, toys, furniture, household appliances, footwear and travel goods due to the new tariffs, the National Retail Federation stated in findings released Monday.

“Retailers rely heavily on imported products and manufacturing components so that they can offer their customers a variety of products at affordable prices,” NRF Vice President of Supply Chain and Customs Policy Jonathan Gold said in a statement. “A tariff is a tax paid by the U.S. importer, not a foreign country or the exporter. This tax ultimately comes out of consumers’ pockets through higher prices.”

 
 But beer is not imported, you say! True, but the aluminum for the can is. If you were considering buying a new game console, guess what? 

 
 Now that Donald Trump is going to enter office once again, his proposed tariffs may shape the gaming industry across the US.

In his campaign, the 78-year-old politician spoke of demanding a baseline 60% tariff on exports by China — an action that will indeed lead to quick price hikes for gaming consoles such as PS5, Nintendo Switch, and other electronics that constitute modern gaming.

All of you young men who love your console games…well, guess what? Soon, that may be out of reach for you. I know many young men voted for Trump. Plan on keeping your console for years to come. The same goes for cell phones, tablets, and other electronics.

Again, another one: should the media have rang the alarm before? President Joe Biden raised that tariff from 7.5 percent to 25 percent. This will be much deeper. Here on that tariff, by the way:

US-based primary aluminum producer Century Aluminum praised President Joe Biden’s May 14 tariff hike that more than tripled the US’ Section 301 duties on aluminum imports from China, which the company sees as a critical trade protection amid its plans to build a new domestic aluminum smelter.

Register Now “President Biden’s decisive leadership on Section 301 tariffs and to invest in the resurgence of US manufacturing shows this administration’s commitment to US primary aluminum production,” Century CEO Jesse Gary said in a statement.

“Thanks to the president’s leadership, Century is planning to build a new greenfield facility that will double existing domestic capacity,” Gary added. “The smelter would not only be the first new American aluminum smelter in 45 years, but also one of the ‘greenest’ smelters in the world, powered with cutting edge technology and renewable energy.”

The US’ import tariff increase on Chinese aluminum under Section 301 will see duties rise to 25% from 7.5%. The same measure was applied to steel products. The White House said Section 301 tariffs would also increase on lithium-ion batteries, battery components and some critical minerals.

As posted above, that’s 60 percent. This will mean an economic shock across the board, which is partially the point of the exercise.

Now, let’s talk deportations, shall we? It’s another of his promises; I take him at his word. The prison industry is looking forward to it:

At his final campaign stop in Pennsylvania before Election Day, Trump again promised to start mass deportations, but acknowledged “it’s terrible to do.”

“I don’t want to do that. I’m not looking to do that,” Trump said. “I think it’s terrible to do, but we have no choice.”

Nearly 80% of undocumented immigrants in the U.S. have been in the country a decade or more, and millions of them work and have families here. A concerted effort to round up, detain and deport people by the millions would not only raise legal and human rights concerns, it would cost billions of dollars a year.

But Trump told NBC News after winning the election that there is “no price tag.”

There are already many anecdotal stories of Latino families with mixed status where some in the family feel betrayed by those who voted for Trump. Like others who have previously voted for these kinds of governments, they did not understand the assignment. Worse, they believe their families are the good ones and will not be deported. As a Jew who knows history, I find this story familiar. It happened in Germany as well, with Jews for Hitler. Oh, and those Jews who voted for Trump will also find out. They were a minority, by the way. The hate that’s now open is now including Jews. By the way, you read of the racist messages sent to African Americans and women, the latter reading, your body, my choice, buckle up butter cup. This has been normalized.

I am not even going into how home governments will be closing borders. Yes, repatriation involves lots of cooperation from all sides. Or the fact that the logistics go beyond just throwing them across the border to Mexico. For starters, not all of them are Mexican. Given the jobs these people do, have fun at the grocery store. The eggs are going to be even more expensive. It is out of reach for some people. I am not giddy, I am not happy, it is what it is.

Having worked in a chicken coup, I know how hard that work is. I guarantee many people who want these deportations will not roll up their sleeves and do the job. I was very fit because it involved walking in hot and harsh conditions. I could not do it now.

I will spare you the international law consequences of this…or the humanitarian consequences of this. But we know it’s coming. It’s not like it was hidden. Some industries, like the Napa Valley wineries, are already raising concerns.

Trust me, it’s not just wineries. It’s also the Central Valley. It’s where a lot of your lettuce comes in the winter. Did I mention eggs? Incidentally, the price of eggs is global, partially because of bird flu in flocks. California is preparing to sue as well.

And this is a good Segway into where we are.

 Disorientation

Americans hope institutions will hold; Trump packed the courts in the last term. They also learned and brought loyal people to him rather than the country. Rumors are already swirling that Trump will force senior officers in civilian agencies and the military to swear allegiance to him, not the Constitution.

So, having lived in a closed society, I know what to expect. And Mexico was not that bad. People living under communism are trying to warm Americans as well. We have entered the age of managed democracy. And if your gut tells you something is wrong with the election, it likely is. But nobody will do anything because we still trust institutions, which would trigger a civil war. So dispense with those thoughts and plan to vote for one day it will matter. Is this cynical? Yes.

One of the things they want to slash is birthright citizenship. It’s covered in the 14th amendment, but that does not matter. He is going to issue an executive order:

Former President Donald Trump is pledging to end birthright citizenship through an executive order on his first day in office if he is reelected to a second term in 2024.

Trump’s plan, released via a three-minute Agenda 47 video on Tuesday, vowed to “put America first” by blocking birthright citizenship, part of his attempt to deter illegal immigration.

But, but the Constitution! Well, here we are. There will definitely be lawsuits, but I expect them to win this round. I would love to eat some crow. A lot of what they intend to do will be through EOs…so expect a lot of lawsuits. Some will end in the Supreme Court, which already gave him some immunity. So, it is what it is.

So, in short, what is coming is outside of lived experience. And before you say pandemic lockdowns, no, that’s not what this is. It’s got a lot more in common with Russia (watch American oligarchs become even more insanely rich, for example) and, yes, the Mexico of my youth. Or for that matter a slew of other authoritarian regimes. Or less so, the McCarthy era.

It depends how fast Trump consolidates power, how fast this will be beyond obvious. Yes, I also speak from personal experience. So, I am indeed worse casing this. And to be brutally honest, I never expected to write these words about the United States.

Remember what I said about mass deportation? It will include a lot of naturalized US citizens, or even natural born. But they can’t do that! Yes, yes, they can. They started this in 2017, and this will only accelerate.

By NY Daily News Archive — Getty Images, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=92851984

 
 And we have precedent. We have done this before. The first of these was during the Great Depression: 

 
 These were part of the “repatriation drives,” a series of informal raids that took place around the United States during the Great Depression. Local governments and officials deported up to 1.8 million people to Mexico, according to research conducted by former California State Senator Joseph Dunn, who in 2004 investigated the deportations under President Herbert Hoover. Dunn estimates around 60 percent of these people were actually American citizens, many of them born in the United States to first-generation immigrants.

 Please note that a lot of Americans were born in the United States. These deportations were no joke. So you think this has never happened? Then there was Operation Wetback: 
 

 It’s not clear how many American citizens were swept up in Operation Wetback, but the United States later claimed that 1.3 million people total were deported. However, some historians dispute that claim. Though hundreds of thousands of people were ensnared, says historian Kelly Lytle Hernandez, the number of deportees was drastically lower than the United States reported — likely closer to 300,000. Due to immigrants who were caught, deported, and captured again after re-emigrating, it’s impossible to estimate the total number of people deported under the program.

 I am emphasizing this because we have done this. The language used during the Eisenhower administration involved a lot of stereotypes, such as these people are vectors of disease. It’s not unlike how Trump speaks of immigrants. It’s one of the black eyes of that administration. It was implemented after camps were liberated by US forces and the concentration camps that FDR implemented for Japanese-Americans after Pearl Harbor. 
 
 So I hope this little summary of the less pleasant chapters of American history reorients you. We are entering one of those dark periods. We lived through a milder version of the same situation during the first Trump administration. 

The Democrats and the Media

 I am told Democrats ignored the working class. This was the administration that prioritized blue-collar workers the most. Did you forget President Joe Biden walking with workers in a picket line? Or a slew of other actual policies.
 
 Yes, the Democrats did point out that inflation was already lower and that programs meant to help the working class were in place. But the problem with Democrats is not just messaging. Talking in policy is not going to work most of the time. Give me policy; I don’t mind. I am in the minority. Most people need all this to be broken into understandable language. 
 
 This includes the price of eggs. Did you know that it's destroyed if your flock gets bird flu? So, having an egg farm with more than one chicken coup could mean the whole farm. There are lots of eggs on the market. Thankfully, most operations have insurance. However, this is happening a lot, including what looks like zoonosis. And it’s global. 
 

But nobody has made the proper sense to explain this. At least eggs are less affordable than people buy them in ones and twos like in Russia.

But this is deeper. We have ignored information warfare and disinformation for over a decade. Once BREXIT happened, it would be a wake-up call in the West. But it has not. In the US, it’s the First Amendment. I love it. But certain speech is not protected, like incitement. At some point, we need to figure out how we will deal with information warfare. This is in the future, perhaps a longer horizon than we can fathom.

But Democrats, to be fair, Western leaders have refused to do anything about this. We get what we deserve. Some of us have been screaming into the void. Trust me, this is going to be even worse. If we are where I suspect, managed democracy means Democrats can forget about getting elected in large enough numbers to take control of Congress, but the pretend show must go on.

If this sounds conspiratorial, well, 2012 was that break-or-make election in Russia. Putin was voted back in. He consolidated power…and we know where we are now. I grew up in a one-party state where the PRI kept power for 70 years. So, scratch my suspicions with some lived experience.

Now, to the media. Boy, did they lay an egg, no pun! I know Trump is good for eyes on screens. They expect you to make a boatload, and Biden was awful for business. There are no scandals, work and no leaks.

They spent the last eight years sanewashing this. The parallels to the German media on the way to Hitler's rise are there. So are Trump's implied threats to go after anybody who has been critical of him. I will worse case this. We will soon have the kind of information control we had in Mexico. That would be the rosy scenario. Of course, this includes the end of investigative journalism. The not-so-rosy scenario is open control of the media.

I will not be shocked if we have some independent media to serve as controlled opposition. But something like Watergate will not happen.

Do I hope to be wrong? Yes.

Some of my readers are going to say I have bias. Well, I am Jewish. The optimist Jews died long ago. I was an optimist. She was going to win. I was wrong. There are reasons for this, but it’s too late to correct it. Those of us with a smidgen of a survival instinct know that there are ways to survive this. Americans will learn these fast. It includes creating trusted communities. Most importantly, don’t obey in advance.

And yes, some Americans are breaking familial relationships as well. It not only points to a more broken society, but I hate to say it, a tad of a survival instinct. You will see more of this as time passes because trusted networks sometimes exclude blood relatives. At times, they also exclude friends…or shopping in familiar businesses.

Oh, and VPNs may be more critical in months to years to come. If you don’t have one, get one. I am rerunning one. I used to do that when visiting ailing parents in Mexico City. It was one of the first things I did. One reason was Mexican security. The other is to be able to watch US-only content if need be. 

And given the penchant to denaturalize people and deport them…here we are.