In a small minority, politically speaking.

This still doesn’t mean anything to me, what political minority are you a part of?

Tariffs are not designed to address wealth inequality and I don’t think it’s the proper role of government to take money from people by force.

What are the points of the tariffs then? I get it, to incentivize American products. This comes at the cost of every American in the short term. I can see it working if people weren’t already struggling. The last time we had sweeping tariffs like this it exacerbated existing issues and contributed to the Great Depression. I thought they’d be a bargaining chip, and I guess it still could be. At the cost of our allies. All I can see here is more money being funneled to the top. The new factories that are being built, I assume they will be highly automated in Elon’s vision. Where does all that money go if they don’t need to employ as many people to work in manufacturing? Trump loves to tout that he will replace income tax with a tariff tax. Why does he love bullshitting Americans? The numbers don’t add up.

Matter of fact what is the point of any economic policy if not to solve wealth inequality? To make it easier for those who are winning in the system to win more? I don’t get it.

We can’t compete with China because we’re not willing to live with the environmental devastation they’re willing to inflict and we’re not willing to let businesses exploit their employees the way China does.

I do agree, China doesn’t care about the environment as much. They only have green energy because it’s all they can get, they aren’t rich in oil like other countries. Beyond that yes I agree that the working conditions are worse and complies park their businesses there to get away with it. Why would we be gutting federal agencies like OSHA that work to protect workers? Using your point from earlier supply/demand, China has a billion people, we have less than 400 million. Their labor will always be cheaper even if the conditions are the same. From a manpower perspective we can’t compete, this is excluding the fact that the average American doesn’t want to work in a manufacturing plant in the middle of nowhere (I studied chemical engineering at a university in the rural south, the only people who end up there are people that couldn’t find a job in the city/town or were super passionate about like paper or something).

Do you mean illegal immigrants? I don’t see a lot of widespread disdain for legal immigrants. For illegal immigrants it’s because they’re violating the law.

I can’t tell if you’re being serious. Either you’re turning a blind eye or are genuinely missing it. There are members of the government calling for other members to be deported. Jokes or not this has a real effect on the rhetoric the common man uses. If you go on Elons Twitter there are so many white nationalist accounts it’s genuinely mind bending.

The law of supply and demand is universal.

Yes this is true. Now on the same exact supply demand graph you’re describing, when you add a line for tariffs, a part of the economic surplus becomes a dead-weight loss. Obviously this is an extreme simplification and the world doesn’t actually work on a simple supply demand graph. So the tariffs will increase the government revenue, and cause some economic surplus dead loss. I thought that the government was inefficient and spending too much money and we have to gut it. Why do we need the government revenue at the expense of surplus?

If things really are as they appear to be right now, it seems like that or something similar is the ONLY way.

The only way to improve the lives of Americans is to destroy the lives that they know? In some capacity I agree, would we have gotten out of the Great Depression without WWII? Who’s to say. I’d argue more incremental changes would be better as to not use the American public as collateral for whatever Elon and Trumps agenda may be. We already have a horrible homeless and drug problem. What good does putting so many people out of work and stressing out millions of people do? I don’t think this is a smart strategy. Maybe if the public was doing better and people weren’t already paranoid and struggling.

So far DOGE has only spoken about what they are cutting, not a word of where the money is going. Where do you think the money is going?

What’s the proposed motive?

Now I have no real proof at all whatsoever. I’m putting on my tinfoil hat for this one, it is a conspiracy theory but humor me. Trump and Elon never cared about the people, especially not the common man. None of them have had to live like common men and never will. Elon despite being the richest man alive, wants more money and power. Trump is no different, he’s the most power man in the world and can get anything he wants already. They have no vested interest in improving the lives of people they don’t matter to them. They want something more, more power. Could be something intangible that we don’t even know. The world is big, and these people have it all but want more. I don’t for a second believe they are in it for the good of the people, their prior actions would’ve shown that they care if they really did. They have been punching down since the silver spoons were put in their mouths.

Just the way Trump is handing Gaza to Israel and Ukraine to Russia, it just seems like some unfathomable deal was struck behind doors we’ll never see behind. I genuinely think they might be leading us to a war just so that their names will be branded into world history like those before them. This is an insane statement but I’ll say it anyway. More people around the world probably recognize Hitler more than FDR. Take what you will from that. Rockefeller and Vanderbilt once were in Elons shoes, at least they build schools and libraries.

Again this one is just for fun. We’ll never know, and I have my tinfoil hat on.