Many of us have seen the MAGA fallout from the Tesla Chainsaw Massacre — Donald Trump voters with tearful posts on social media, crying that they’ve lost their federal government jobs, or storming Republican congressional town halls to blast their representatives for allowing the president and his henchmen to cut programs and funding that red states rely upon.
Trump even mocked his own supporters on Truth Social, his social media platform.
And for the MAGA who haven’t been hit yet, the New York Times has some advice: Duck! Because unless Trump folds in his trade wars, his tariffs — which even the Wall Street Journal calls “the dumbest in history,” will have a boomerang effect as other countries retaliate.
And that boomerang is going to hit Trump voters the hardest.
China has targeted corn farmers and carmakers. Canada has put tariffs on poultry plants and air-conditioning manufacturers, while Europe will hit American steel mills and slaughter houses.
Since Mr. Trump ordered steep levies on some of America’s largest trading partners in February and March, other countries have begun imposing their own tariffs on American exports in an attempt to put pressure on the president to relent.
The retaliatory tariffs have been carefully designed to hit Mr. Trump where it hurts: Nearly 8 million Americans work in industries targeted by the levies and the majority are Trump voters, a New York Times analysis shows.
Some of those voters told the Wall Street Journal that they’re behind Trump’s economic vision, even though the stock market and their retirement fund have been battered in Trump’s first six weeks. Voters who resisted former President Joe Biden, who gave the U.S. the strongest economy in the world, near full employment and a roaring stock market, are now preaching a stay-the-course sermon, because it’s their guy.
“He’s doing some hard work, some things that are very difficult for people to understand and difficult for people to accept,” physician Patrick Williams of Louisville, Ky., told the Journal. “But it’ll be to our long-term benefit.”
Meanwhile, the Times says Kentucky is in the tariff crosshairs, along with other states that Trump carried in the November election.
The retaliatory tariffs target industries employing 9.5 percent of people in Wisconsin, 8.5 percent of people in Indiana and 8.4 percent of people in Iowa. The shares are also relatively high in Arkansas, Alabama, Mississippi, Kentucky and Kansas.
As a doctor, Williams likely won’t feel the tariffs professionally, but if Trump and Elon Musk hack the heart out of Medicaid and Medicare, along with Social Security, doctors like Williams might have a different outlook. A change of opinion, though, on Trump? Probably not.
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