Trump's massive tariffs will almost certainly result in a full-on depression

There's simply no question that Donald Trump's new tariffs—an incoherent hodgepodge of numbers that throws an additional 10% tax on everything important while hitting US allies with double that amount or more—will, if truly implemented, bring about an economic depression.

Will you pay 25% more for an automobile? No, probably not. You'll wait, because you know the odds are very good that these tariffs will go away as quickly as they came. Will companies build new US factories, bringing manufacturing back to the United States in order to dodge the tariffs? Of course not. They, too, will sit on their hands and wait for the tariffs to be dropped.

What about the foreign nations now caught up in a trade war entirely of one addled old man's making? Are they going to purchase more American goods, or are they going to retaliate with tariffs of their own—including, as is being widely threatened, tariffs targeted explicitly at ruining the companies run by The Criminal's wealthiest and most fascist allies? We all know the answer to that one.

But again, the main thing to remember here is that Congress can end Trump's tariffs anytime they want to. Tariffs are set by Congress, not presidents—the only authority Congress has handed over, in their orgy of handing over their own powers to presidents so as to not have to make tough decisions themselves, is the power to set tariffs in times of emergency.

I'll grant you we're in a national emergency, but the emergency is "the presidency has been taken over by a dementia-addled convicted felon with a 3rd grade understanding of international trade, which is to say no knowledge at all." It's a bit weird for the national emergency to be in charge of itself.

We have no idea whether Trump will cave once again, reversing all of this in exchange for whatever change happens to be in each foreign ambassador's pockets when they come to negotiate with him. But it really can't be emphasized enough how much EVERYTHING TRUMP IS DOING IS COLORED BY HIS RAPIDLY ADVANCING DEMENTIA.

That's just a small part of the man's ramblings, during his Rose Garden announcement of our next Great Depression. There was more.

The man is not right in the head, and House and Senate Republicans seem determined to bring down America itself rather than risk Important Grocery Thoughts Man getting angry with them. A new depression, brought about by a man whose brain just rediscovered that "groceries" is a word.

There's little point in analyzing the specifics of the tariffs right now, because every previous time Trump has done this he's reversed course while declaring victory. The stock market is going to crash tomorrow, and he's going to freak out about it and goddess knows what happens next. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent appeared to be nearly in tears as he begged other nations to not retaliate. (Spoiler: He knows damn well they're going to retaliate.)

Other nations have a lot of room to cause the United States pain through their own retaliation, and The Criminal's fascist government has treated US allies with enough contempt that there's an appetite for doing so.

Which, again, leads us back to a likely global economic recession/depression. For no reason. Just because this one man, a dementia-addled lunatic whose obsessions now include invading Greenland and annexing Canada because, he says, the U.S.-Canadian border looks wrong to him, has lost both his mind and every adviser with enough common sense to ditch him after his attempted overthrow of the government.

The guy is a nutcase. What will it take for congressional Republicans to rein him in? Will even a full-on economic depression do it, or are they even more cowardly than that?

We'll see.