I was bored at work today so I wrote a short story about how I’d ideally like to see Donald Trump go down.

…drowning in eggs:

The once-proud leader, now stripped of title and dignity, stands in the center of the barren, concrete abyss. The abandoned Olympic swimming pool—thirty feet deep, dry as bone—has become their final stage. Above, the gathered masses stretch in every direction, a writhing sea of anticipation.

They do not jeer. They do not boo.

They simply chant.

“Eggs. Eggs. Eggs.”

It starts as a murmur, a low thrum of human voices vibrating in unison. Then it grows, swelling into a deafening roar that rattles windows, that shudders in the bones of every person present. A chant as ancient as it is absurd, a single-minded invocation of punishment.

The first egg arcs high overhead, tracing a lazy curve before splattering against the fallen leader’s shoulder. The yolk bursts, oozing down his baggy, ugly, now-useless suit. A streak of yellow, the first of many.

Another egg. Then another.

Then dozens.

The first impacts make them flinch, stagger—hands raised in a futile shield. But soon there are too many to dodge, too many to deflect. They curl inward as the sky rains viscous judgment. The chant never stops.

“Eggs. Eggs. Eggs.”

Shells crack. Yolk drips. The scent of sulfur and shame thickens in the stagnant air. It coats their skin, their hair, their pride, turning them into something less than human. Something… egg-like.

At the top of the pit, a child—no older than seven—steps forward. They hold their egg with both hands, cradling it like something precious. Reverent. With a deliberate motion, they lob it downward. It strikes the leader square on the forehead, exploding with an almost musical plap. The crowd erupts into a fresh crescendo of cheers, but the chant never falters.

“Eggs. Eggs. Eggs.”

No escape. No reprieve. The pit is smooth concrete, slick now with raw egg and humiliation. They can do nothing but stand there, endure, become part of the ritual.

Somewhere in the throng, a vendor hawks boiled eggs. Another sells cartons to the unprepared. A man in a chicken suit waves encouragingly at the crowd.

The night wears on, but the spectacle does not end.

It cannot end.

Not until the last egg is thrown. Not until the last voice is hoarse.

Not until the world is rid of this one, failed leader, broken not by swords or exile, but by the inescapable weight of public yolk and scorn.

“Eggs. Eggs. Eggs.”

Yup, any day now, especially if he adds another skin tone to the xenophobia.

By flooding information ecosystems with absurdist spectacles alongside draconian policies, the regime induces cognitive dissonance that paralyzes coherent opposition

Yes, by enacting a plan concocted by conservative shit holes over the last 40+ years and documented for everyone to see in Project 2025.

Reasonable people who are aware are freaking out. Reasonable people that are focused on more personal things are likely to catch on once the effects reach them personally.

Conservative cultists will just blame whoever their propaganda tells them to.

As long as he hates brown people, it’s all good.

So, first of all, I’m making this comment assuming that these tariffs are going to actually be imposed, then stick and not be quickly yanked. My guess is that they’re probably going to stick.

A tariff is a tax on consumers that benefits otherwise-uncompetitive domestic producers.

There are three items here.

For semiconductors, there’s been a – plausible, to me – argument that having domestic chip fabrication has national security implications. The US doesn’t presently do a lot of modern chip fabrication, and if you figure that AI and some other important things may be constrained by access to chips, or that physical access to chips might be security-critical, that may be a strategic good.

It has a downside in that it will make chips and the products they contain cost more for American citizens. But I don’t think that the idea that having domestic chip fabs is advantageous is all that strange. Under the Biden administration, we had legislation also passed, the CHIPS and Science Act, which subsidized domestic chip fabrication. Does basically the same thing, same rationale, just that with the Biden approach, the taxpayer pays and the government doles out money and under the Trump approach of using tariffs, the entities specifically using the chips pays a tax on those chips, and domestic manufacturers basically get a benefit relative to foreign competition.

The idea is that there’s a positive externality to having chip manufacture be domestic. I have no idea whether 25% is a reasonable tariff, but the idea of a tariff isn’t intrinsically unreasonable, I think.

For autos, I think that this is mostly domestic politicking. There are important swing states that manufacture automobiles, and transferring money from Americans purchasing autos to auto manufacturers has been a theme; in Trump’s first term, that was one area that he established a higher domestic parts requirement for within NAFTA->USMCA.

I guess that it’s theoretically possible that there’s a national security benefit – I mean, in World War II, American ability to domestically manufacture automobiles at scale was quite important – but I kind of doubt that we’re going to see that kind of sustained conflict. And I’m skeptical that we’re really at massive risk if we don’t produce autos domestically. I also think that it’s probably possible to have them manufactured in friendly countries.

So I think that that’s most-likely economically-inefficient. Americans who buy autos will unnecessarily pay a tax, which will benefit domestic automakers. Part of domestic politicking, and a result of the fact that Presidential elections favor swing states, and currently, swing states do auto manufacture. Call it an inefficiency baked into the way our political system works.

I don’t know the story about pharmaceutical manufacture. I mean, COVID-19 did highlight that it could be important, in a global pandemic, to have domestic or at minimum friendly supply chains of certain medical goods, but I think that the US did pretty well already on vaccines.

kagis

It looks like Elizabeth Warren, a prominent progressive Democratic senator, recently sponsored a bill aiming to benefit domestic pharmaceutical manufacture, with a public justification of national security:

https://www.warren.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/warren-smith-renew-fight-to-strengthen-us-pharmaceutical-manufacturing-capacity-and-end-over-reliance-on-foreign-countries-for-life-saving-drugs

The Pharmaceutical Supply Chain Defense and Enhancement Act would:

• Require the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and Defense Department to develop a confidential list of “critical drugs” essential for public health and national security.

It also says that she worked with Marco Rubio (Republican, and now a cabinet member in the Trump administration) on related material:

In October 2024, Senators Elizabeth Warren and Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) reintroduced the United States Pharmaceutical Supply Chain Review Act, legislation to require the Federal Trade Commission, in consultation with the Department of Commerce, to produce a report on the impacts of foreign investment in the United States’ pharmaceutical industry.

So I’m guessing that it may be that there’s some level of bipartisan support for protectionist policy for pharmaceutical manufacture on national security grounds.

https://www.bls.gov/mxp/publications/regional-publications/charts/top-6-pharmaceutical.htm

It looks like the top place in the US to do pharma manufacture is Puerto Rico, which I’d guess has something to do with its special tax and regulatory status.

kagis

Yes:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pharmaceutical_industry_in_Puerto_Rico

The pharmaceutical industry in Puerto Rico encompasses more than half of all manufacturing done in Puerto Rico. As the island’s most prominent industry, pharmaceutics generates more than 18,000 jobs, pays more than US$3 billion in taxes, comprises about half of total exports, and has generated more than 25% of the island’s GDP for the past four decades.

Pharmaceutical companies originally came to Puerto Rico in the late 1960s and 1970s to take advantage of the now-expired federal tax incentive known as Section 936. This incentive allowed U.S.-based manufacturers to send all profits from local plants to stateside parent plants without having to pay any federal taxes.

So my guess is that this one probably isn’t just domestic politicking; Puerto Rico isn’t politically-critical.

I have not read up on the material, and one could certainly go looking further, but I suppose that a pharmaceutical tariff could be reasonable, if we’re worried about access to medicines in a second COVID-19-style situation. At minimum, I doubt that support for such a tariff is something specific to the Trump administration.

Are there downsides? Sure. It’ll make medication more expensive for Americans. It’ll make cars more expensive for Americans. It’ll make electronics (and things made with electronics) more expensive for Americans. The real question is whether any benefits to having domestic sources are worth that additional expense, for each item.

My own guess is that there’s probably an argument for some level of tariff for chips, albeit maybe not 25% – which is a questionably nice, round number – probably not a very good justification for cars, and possibly some level of justification for pharmaceuticals, this last item based entirely on what I quoted above, as I’ve no prior familiarity with the situation.

People are purposely ignoring the news. They can’t be bothered until the shit hits the fan and then suddenly they’re going to be screaming and yelling , why nobody told them.

Why are people not freaking out?

The 88% that didn’t vote for him are. US Governance is slow to react to anything and has yet to figure out this is a real problem, those that aren’t bought and paid for by Orange Burger Troll.

The US has a lot of contributing factors that make it more difficult for individual citizens to react, so far.

• A lot of people can’t just up and take time off work or they’ll lose their jobs
  • In America, losing your job means losing your health insurance. That means a $15 medication can suddenly be $600
  • Many Americans live paycheck-to-paycheck, or worse, in arrears, and use payday loan companies to pay their bills and buy food
  • Saw some metric a while back that credit card debt and services like Klarna were both on the uptick as people used them… to buy food.
• America is a vast country, 2,800 miles from east to west
  • This makes it hard for the above people to just up and travel to the nation’s capital to protest en masse
  • People have been trying to protest at their local governments in-state, but the media is bought and paid for, so news of these protests is very limited in scope

Among many other reasons.

The steel tariffs were “signed” by Trump, due to take effect March 12, the general canada/mexico tarrifs were “signed” but then postponed, due to take effect March 4. He also last week signed a reciprocal tariff plan, I’ve not found a planned implementation date.

The auto and chips one are still just talk, but the former has been suggested to take effect April 2nd.

Lol, I thought the same. Ketchup and All Dressed are the two best flavours of chips, both are Canadian.

Tariffs on crisps are next week