America’s Cultural Revolution

Is Donald Trump putting America through what Mao Zedong did to China in his “Cultural Revolution”? From 1966 to 1976 Mao had the scientists and bureaucrats – anyone with an education – in China imprisoned or killed. He suspected them of opposing his plans; they were Mao’s "elite" or “deep state”.

The result of Mao’s Cultural Revolution was the destruction of the Chinese economy.

When Thomas L. Friedman was in China recently he was asked by several people that he met if President Trump was executing a cultural revolution in America. A retired Chinese official emailed Friedman, warning him that Mao had sent his young followers to attack

 “… anyone who could think — ruling elites such as Deng Xiaoping, college professors, engineers, writers and journalists, doctors, etc. He wanted to dumb down the entire population so that he could rule easily and forever. Sounds a bit similar with what is going on in the U.S.? I hope not.”

 

Friedman then quoted Stephen Roach, an economist with considerable experience with China. Roach said that the effects of the Chinese revolution was felt mainly within the country because China’s economy was isolated at that time, while a similar revolution in the United States today would have a profound impact on the entire world.” 

Mao’s Cultural Revolution set Chinese economy back for decades; Trump’s will set America’s and the world’s economy back for generations.

Source:

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/03/opinion/trump-tariffs-us-security-stability.html

Trump Tariffs

Donald Trump loves tariffs. He’s been talking about them for 10 years and still does not understand how they work. He also doesn’t understand trade deficits and believes that any country that sells more goods to the USA than buys from them is somehow ripping off America. If services are included the trade balance often reverses but he isn’t interested in that.

It’s one thing for the President to be ignorant about economic statistics. But it’s quite another when he refuses to consult economists or ignores their advice. He thinks he’s such a genius that he knows better than anyone else about everything. Some people just can’t be taught and Donald Trump is the poster boy for such people.

The tariffs Trump announced today covers every country and all products, excepting only Russia, North Korea, and one or two other countries, and their products. This includes many products that America cannot make or grow- like diamonds and coffee - which makes no economic sense.

The stock market which used to be the only economic marker that Trump cared about has tanked even more today. Indexes like the Dow Jones dropped between 4-5% today, losing more than $2t in investors’ wealth (in addition to the $5t lost since inauguration day).

So what is Trump’s motive? Is it simply wilful ignorance and complete indifference to the consequences? Does he really believe that they will promote more manufacturing jobs in America despite evidence to the contrary? Or is something else going on.

Heather Cox Richardson in her substack post this morning quoted Senator Chris Murphy who explained that the reason Trump’s tariffs make no economic sense is because they are not an economic tool. Instead Murphy argues the tariffs “are simply a new, super dangerous political tool” designed to control private industry the way he is controlling law firms, universities and media corporations. Corporations “will need to pledge loyalty to Trump in order to get sanctions relief. The tariffs are designed to create economic hardship so that Trump has a straight face rationale for releasing them, business by business or industry by industry. As he adjusts or grants relief it’s a win-win: the economy improves and dissent disappears.”

Similarly Robert Reich in his morning substack post argues that the real reason for Trump’s tariffs is not to reciprocation for other countries’ unfair trade practices, but intimidation. His goal in this as in everything is to get other countries to capitulate to his demands. “Surrender is the whole point. Domination is his goal”. Each capitulation feeds his power and “encourages him and his goons to engage in even more bullying…”

Whether aimed at other countries or American industries and corporations, what Trump is doing is extortion. He's like the mob boss taking over a town who first sends his thugs to rough up the local businessmen, then offers them protection - for a price.

These theories make at least some sense. But I don’t know which is worse –a wilfully ignorant leader ruining his country's (and the world’s) economy in a misguided attempt to make it great again, or a tyrant seeking world domination.

Sources

https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/april-2-2025-wednesday

https://robertreich.substack.com/p/how-to-deal-with-trumps-demands-for

"Illegal" Immigrants

In an opinion piece for The Guardian this morning Mehdi Hasan argues that it is inaccurate and just plain wrong to call undocumented people “illegal” criminals.

Hasan makes three points: 

·        There is no such thing as an illegal immigrant

·        Being an undocumented immigrant is not a crime

·        Higher immigration does not lead to higher crime

In response to a question about how many of the 3,500 people arrested by ICE were criminals, White House secretary Karoline Leavitt answered “All of them, because they illegally broke our nation’s laws, and, therefore, they are criminals, as far as this administration goes.”

“Leavitt’s answer delighted Maga media and went viral in conservative circles", Hasan wrote. “It was also completely, utterly, totally, wrong. Factually inaccurate. A brazen lie.”

First, people cannot be illegal. They may commit illegal acts but they themselves can not be illegal. Elie Wiesel, an Auschwitz survivor and winner of the 1986 Nobel Peace Prize, once said:

“know that no human being is illegal. That is a contradiction in terms. Human beings can be beautiful or more beautiful, they can be fat or skinny, they can be right or wrong, but illegal? How can a human being be illegal?”

Second, American law states that illegal entry is a misdemeanor not a felony and is subject to civil, not criminal, penalties. So being present in the United States without proper documentation is not a crime and does not make anyone a criminal. A 2012 Supreme Court ruling, Arizona v United States, confirmed “as a general rule, it is not a crime for a removable alien to remain in the United States.”

Reentry of removed aliens however is a felony (so is falsification of business records in New York of which Donald Trump was convicted on 34 counts, making him a criminal). If an immigrant has been forced to leave the United States and then comes back in, they have committed a crime and, if caught and convicted, could be accurately called a criminal.

Nearly half of undocumented immigrants in the United States did not enter the country illegally – they entered legally then overstayed their visa.

Third the American Right is trying very hard to equate immigrants with crime in the minds of American voters. They repeatedly use rhetoric like “criminal alien murderers, rapists, child predators and gangsters” when referring to undocumented immigrants. That too doesn’t’ hold up to the facts. Study after study supports the truth that immigrants commit crimes at lower rates than native-born Americans. I saw a meme that said “More American women have been sexually assaulted by the president and his cabinet than by immigrants”. That may be an exaggeration but the principle is sound.

As immigration expert Aaron Reichlin-Melnick observed: “you’re measurably safer living in a town filled with average undocumented immigrants than a town filled with average native-born citizens.”

Source:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/apr/02/undocumented-people-no-such-thing-as-illegal-immigrant

Trump’s War on Science

Much of the cuts to funding done by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has directly affected health and science research. The cuts include firing of scientists and support staff, cuts to research grants, and reduced graduate student enrollment.

A 75 page open letter published Monday March 31 and signed by over 1,900 members of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine, criticizes these cuts as a “wholesale assault on U.S. science” that will set back American research for decades and threaten the health and safety of American people.

Federal government funding has supported research both within government agencies and at universities across the country.

“For over 80 years, wise investments by the U.S. government have built up the nation’s research enterprise, making it the envy of the world. This is all being destroyed by the Trump regime.  Astoundingly, the Trump administration is destabilizing this enterprise by gutting funding for research, firing thousands of scientists, removing public access to scientific data and pressuring researchers to alter or abandon their work on ideological grounds.”

As one example, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, “responsible for protecting the quality of health care in the United States, just got demolished. These changes … are going to translate into harms to everyday Americans.” Life expectancy, mortality rates, and the mental health crisis will all worsen.

The letter accuses the Trump administration of censorship by blocking research on subjects that it doesn’t like including climate change, trans-gender health, and vaccine safety. Any studies focusing on the specific health needs of Blacks or other ethnic minorities were shut down.

The letter was addressed “To The American People” and called on them to pressure their members of Congress to protect and restore scientific funding.

Economists are also protesting the cuts to science which they say will make America less competitive and the people poorer, less healthy and less productive in the coming decades. They argue that fundamental research is among the most efficient uses of taxpayer dollars, returning 500% on investment. The discoveries made by fundamental research fueled the rise in economic growth and standard of living in America’s 20^th century.

Immigrants are a critical component of scientific innovation, accounting for 36% of patents since 1990, and are more likely to create new businesses than native born Americans. Trump’s immigration policies are not helping.

Canada went through something like this with the Harper Conservative government (2006-2015). He cut scientific research in many areas but particularly anything that threatened the oil industry in his home province of Alberta. All government scientists had to have their reports vetted by his office before publication. He even had his men shadow scientists – reminiscent of Stalin era USSR – when they attended international conventions, to prevent them reporting anything linking climate change to fossil fuels. Chris Turner published a book documenting this called “The War on Science: Muzzled Scientists and Wilful Blindness in Stephen Harper’s Canada” (2014).

But from what I’ve seen, Trump has done far more damage to American science in 8 weeks than Harper did in 8 years.

European and other countries are now actively recruiting American scientists. In a weird reversal of history, American scientists are now finding refuge in Germany.

Sources

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/03/31/health/scientists-letter.html

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/31/science/trump-science-nas-letter.html

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/31/business/economy/trump-research-cutbacks-economy.html

https://www.amazon.ca/War-Science-Muzzled-Scientists-Blindness/dp/1771004312

Buyers Remorse

The term “buyer’s remorse” is being used to refer to people who voted for Trump for whatever reason (e.g. to fix the economy) and are now regretting it when they see him destroying the government and the economy.

One of these voters is Jennifer Piggott from West Virginia. She described herself as a “MAGA junkie”, flying a Trump flag outside her home and voting for Trump three times. Then in February she was laid off from her job with the Treasury Department’s Bureau of Fiscal Service as part of DOGE’s downsizing of the federal government. The reason given for her dismissal was “poor performance” despite getting the highest rating on a performance review less than three weeks earlier. DOGE apparently either ignored her performance review or more likely made no attempt to read it.

Her community voted overwhelmingly for Trump, giving him 70% of the votes. Piggott said “Nobody that I’ve talked to understood the devastation that having this administration in office would do to our lives. I don’t understand this at all. Trump is creating a disaster and I don’t know what America is going to look like if this continues.”

Not all Trump voters in her community have been converted, though. Since speaking out Piggott has received death threats and had her property vandalized.

The latest polls show Trump’s approval rating dropping but still remarkably high. A Harvard CAPS/Harris poll found 49% of registered voters approved of Trump’s job performance in late March, down slightly from 52% in February. By now I would expect it to be in the 20-25% range with just his MAGA cultists still onboard. What is it going to take to wake up the rest of these people? Missed Social Security checks? Martial law crackdown on peaceful protests? Defying the Supreme Court? I honestly don’t know.

People who do not work for government have a (small) excuse for assuming some truth to Trump and Musk’s repeated assertions about “fraud, waste and abuse” in the federal government. But as a public servant working in a government agency, Jennifer Piggott knew that she and her co-workers were honest hard-working people who were providing an important service for American people. She should have known, but apparently didn’t, that this was true for all or nearly all public servants and government agencies. Perhaps she thought there was fraud and waste in other departments?

There is a meme circulating the internet that goes like this: “I never thought leopards would eat MY face”, sobs the woman who voted for the Leopards Eating People’s Faces Party.

So, it’s hard to feel sorry for people like Jennifer Piggott. It’s tempting to feel she got what she deserved, that her misfortune is the result of Karma. And to vent our anger on her: “You idiot, that’s what we’ve been trying to tell you for the last 10 years. It’s because of morons like you that we are in this mess.”

No, if we want to get out of this mess and salvage as much of our democracy as possible, we must embrace people like Jennifer. Welcome them to reality and invite them to become part of the resistance. The Democratic Party (or a new progressive party) needs to offer them a strong viable alternative. Bernie Sanders and AOC are doing that with their Fighting Oligarchy Tour.

America needs more Jennifer Piggotts.

Sources:

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-maga-voter-regret-fiscal-service-b2723454.html

https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/5224062-trump-approval-rating-dip-poll/

The Fentanyl Crisis

To hear Donald Trump tell it, the fentanyl crisis is caused by illegal immigrants coming across the border and he’s going to fix it with stricter border and immigration controls. Josh Levs in a March 27 article for The Contrarian claims both those statements are a lie.

The Biden administration had made progress on fentanyl and it got worse under Trump, but you would not know that listening to most media reports.

Trump’s penchant for exaggeration comes in to play too. “We lose 300,000 people a year to fentanyl” he’s fond of claiming. In 2023 drug overdose was responsible for 107,000 deaths with nearly 70% of those from fentanyl. So closer to 74,000. Significantly less than 300,000 but still, a lot of unnecessary deaths.

The vast majority of drugs seized at the border are at regular border crossings, not in between, so not from illegal immigrants and not because of an “open border”. About 80% of convicted fentanyl traffickers are American citizens; 20% are visitors or recent immigrants, legal or otherwise.

Fentanyl use went up during Trump’s first term. From 52,900 deaths in the last 12 months of Obama’s administration to 94,788 for the last 12 months of Trump’s first term. It continued to rise during Biden’s first two years to 107,000 and 109,745, then dropped to 105,480 in his third year and to 82,000 by October of 2024 (the last month data was available for the study quoted).

The CDC reported that the 12 months ending in September 2024 was a nearly 24% drop in overdose deaths. Allison Arwady, Director of CDC’s National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, commented:

“It is unprecedented to see predicted overdose deaths drop by more than 27,000 over a single year. That’s more than 70 lives saved per day. CDC’s public health investments, our improved data and laboratory systems for overdose response … mean that we are more rapidly identifying emerging drug threats and supporting public health prevention and response activities in communities across America.”

The Biden administration was working on cutting demand as well as supply through things like addiction treatments, mental health support, research and education programs. Things that the Trump administration are likely to cut as “wasteful”, if they haven’t already. I have no doubt that the trend will reverse and overdose deaths will start increasing again under this regime.

Trump isn’t interested in facts such as these. He doesn’t’ even really care about the people dying from a drug overdose. For Donald Trump the fentanyl crisis is just a talking point with which to attack immigrants, Mexico and Canada. And also his predecessor, Sleepy Joe Biden, and his “open border”.

 

Sources:

https://contrarian.substack.com/p/red-america-needs-the-truth-on-trumps

https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/drug-overdose-data.htm

https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2025/2025-cdc-reports-decline-in-us-drug-overdose-deaths.html

Chilling Dissent

In this morning’s Koffee Klatch Robert Reich made the statement that the Trump regime wants to “chill all dissent”. They are achieving this on multiple fronts.

·        Detaining and disappearing international students who have been critical of the Trump regime or some position of it (e.g. Israel/Palestine)

·        Detaining and disappearing immigrants who the Trump regime believes (no evidence necessary) are criminals (e.g. Venezuela gang)

·        Removing security clearance and federal building access to law firms that have any connection with previous lawsuits against him

·        Forcing universities to toe the line on DEI, Palestine, etc. or lose millions in federal funding.

·        Attacking journalists and media corporations who speak out against the Trump regime

These examples are just that - examples. Trump is setting them as examples of what he can do to discourage any future dissent by anyone. Reich: This is what every authoritarian, totalitarian dictator has done going right back to Hitler, Mussolini and Stalin. This is exactly what we have seen from Putin in Russia, Erdogan in Turkey, Orban in Hungary. These are attacks on individual’s freedom to speak out…”

It’s the end of March and Spring is coming soon here in Canada. But in America there is a chill in the air coming from Washington D.C., sending shivers up the spine of all freedom loving people.

Source:

https://robertreich.substack.com/p/is-the-trump-fever-breaking-saturday