Dark Comedy

Contraction, Tariffs, & NYT Discovers a Weird New Thing

Dear Friends,

Welcome to The Quarter Inch, a midweek attempt at pithy commentary on current events!

Before I get into it today, I’d like to recommend you go subscribe to the Substack of my friend Sarah Jane Souther. She’s living the dream (of some) of New York City, and she writes exceptional cultural commentary from her vantage point as a young, urban, single, Christian woman. I particularly enjoyed this essay about pop star Sabrina Carpenter. It is rather rare to find a Christian analysis of Carpenter’s kind of transgressive sexuality that doesn’t begin and end with, “Eew.” Souther’s empathy (I think we can still use that word) and diagnosis is really refreshing. And I’ll be honest: Souther is really helpful in keeping me up to date on what the young whippersnappers are up to; I had no idea who Sabrina Carpenter is. I feel kind of stupid. Go check it out!

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We are living through some kind of dark comedy, and I fear there is no escaping it.

This morning came the announcement that the economy contracted in the first quarter of this year. This is entirely the fault of the President’s creation of economic uncertainty by teasing “yuuge” tariffs at the outset of his term, then exacerbated by the eventual unleashing of said tariffs on “Liberation Day.”

Pay no attention to the stock market collapse!

President Trump is correct on one thing: Tariffs will “soon start kicking in.” The pain being felt right now is all anticipatory pain. The tariffs are not the cavalry coming to the rescue; tariffs are the thing from which we need rescuing.

As for whether this is “Biden’s” stock market, let’s take a closer look at the tape:

The only people who are going to latch on to the “this-is-Joe-Biden’s-fault” explanation are those who are in the business of lying on behalf of President Trump (i.e., grifters) or those who lack the intellectual capacity to know better. Sorry to break it to you, but those are the only options: bad or stupid.

But don’t worry. President Trump will come to his senses and alter course in reaction to events. Right? Right?

Nobody has the time—I certainly don’t—to attempt to explain yet again to the President that “buying things” is not “losing money.” Sigh. But this is his baked-in kindergartener economic worldview and it appears that this is what our country wanted and we are going to get it, good and hard, because ultimately we deserve it.

Don’t get me wrong: Donald Trump will cave. Someday. Because that which cannot continue will not continue, and his tariff policy is (though he doesn’t grasp it yet) at diametric odds with his other great, overriding passions: looking smart and being liked and admired. I suspect it is already too late to right the ship, this self-induced recession (every day that goes by without a course correction all but guarantees a real recession; if it goes too long it will be a depression) will hurt Americans in tangible ways in their pocketbooks, Republicans will get wiped out in the midterm elections, and Trump will be (is?) a lame duck far sooner than was necessary. Good job, everyone.