Donald Trump and maga Republicans do nothing to push back on the inflationary impact of illegal Trump tariffs

Donald Trump insists he will never repeat Herbert Hoover's economic mistakes. 

In fact, Donald Trump repeatedly stated that he does not want to be remembered like Herbert Hoover, the president who took office right before the Great Depression. He has expressed this sentiment on several occasions, including a July 2026 CNBC interview where he emphasized, "I always said I don't want to be a president with a depression on his resume. I don't want to be Herbert Hoover". In fact, Donald Trump emphasized this again when he explained why he signed the surrender document called a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), for the purpose of engaging with Iran about opening the Strait of Hormuz. Iranians closed this free and open avenue of commerce when Donald Trump launched the illegal war against Iran.  Although Donald Trump said the reason for his illegal war was to prevent Iran from creating a nuclear bomb, the Memorandum of Understanding signed at the French Palace of Versailles, was agreed to because Trump wanted to open the Strait of Hormuz, and had nothing to do with preventing Iran's nuclear capabilities. Keeping the Strait closed, when it had been opened before February 28, 2026, was the only reason why Donald Trump surrendered.  He did not want to be responsible for a world wide Great Depression caused by his illegal war.

 

Is Trump unaware that he has already repeated one of President Hoover's mistakes❓ tariffs. Hoover signed the Smoot-Hawley tariffs. Trump initiated and continues to expand a similar program of tariffs. Is Trump unaware that he has already repeated one of those mistakes: tariffs❗ Echo opinion letter published in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel and in Yahoo.com

Herbert Hoover signed the Smoot-Hawley tariffs. Trump initiated and continues to expand a similar program of tariffs.

Trump's tariffs have contributed to inflation and increased everybody's cost of living. 

Were it not for that inflation, the Federal Reserve policy would likely favor lowering interest rates, which would lower the cost of living and promote economic expansion.

From Jim Rosenbaum, Whitefish Bay, in Wisconsin

Republicans are captives in the tRump cult of personality

This is one of the quotable quotes attributed to President Herbert Hoover, who is often referred to as one of America's worst leaders, because he did nothing to prevent the nation from entering the Great Depression:  “There are things in the world that cannot be brought about. There are mistakes that cannot be repaired. But there is one thing sure -- that loyalty and friendship are the most precious possessions a man can have.”― Herbert Hoover, president from March 1929 to March 1933.  His administration was succeeded by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

Yet, in the world of otherwise inspiring American presidential quotes, Donald Trump's (aka TFG's) polluting contribution is this:

"When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best. They’re not sending you. They’re not sending you. They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.”

Opinion echo letter published in Bakersfield.com in California:

I have to comment on the Republican Party's wrong minded support for the most cruel and anti-American president in the history of the United States. 

In our short American history, we have never had a president who divided our country with his racist statements about Mexicans being nothing but a bunch of murderers and rapists. He tried to undermine our election process by hiring false electors, and he continues his claims of a rigged or stolen election results. 

He incited a violent insurrection that tried to prevent a procedure of Congress confirming the 2020, election by starting a seditious riot, which resulted in the deaths of police officers and the destruction of government property.

The Republican Party once stood for morals and justice; it is the party of Abraham Lincoln. Now the extremist Republicans have turned out to be party of division, destruction and of Donald Trump. 

Rep. Liz Cheney post on social media. A follower named Delone Taylor commented, "A class act". 

Please heed the words of a true American hero, Liz Cheney. She will do whatever it takes to make sure Donald Trump is never again anywhere near the Oval Office.

"Republicans cannot be loyal to Donald Trump and to the Constitution,” Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), vice chair of the House Jan. 6 panel, said of the GOP’s future in a June 29, speech at the Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley. (Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)

— William Guerrero, Bakersfield, California

Cheney is the Republicans’ best hope for ending the cult of Trump

"I never thought I would live to see the day when the party of Abraham Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, Dwight Eisenhower, Ronald Reagan, the two George Bushes and other patriotic Republicans would bow down to a defeated authoritarian leader who stubbornly refuses to accept his election loss. A defeated leader who considers himself above the law and has only contempt for the institutions and norms that made America great in the first place."

Dear Donald Trump - family separations are extreme cruelty: New Mexico echo

A humanitarian echo opinion published in the New Mexico newspaper the Roswell Daily Record.

ROSWELL, NM -Throughout history immigrants have proven to be one of our many assets in making the USA the greatest nation on Earth. The focal point of the Trump campaign was his irrational fear and contempt of foreigners, and he has continued this xenophobia throughout his presidency. That Russell Scott, or any person in the world, would ask for further examples of Trump’s xenophobia is beyond me. There is simply nothing more than Trump’s own comments I could offer as an example.

As a parent, grandparent and great grandparent I think a government-endorsed policy of separating kids from their parents legally seeking asylum is extreme cruelty.

Previous mass deportations were during periods of economic stress and high unemployment so there was some justification for the motives. Herbert Hoover during the Great Depression*, and Eisenhower during the transition from a war-driven economy to a consumer-driven economy. That both were failures should have served as a lesson for all future generations.

The solutions are simple. (Although the solutions are not "simple", I understand Mr. Grogan's intention is to establish consistent policies and enforce employment documentation.) We need to recognize the immigrants coming here are legal under both U.S. and international law. History has proven they are overall an asset, not a problem.

Workers are coming here with the knowledge that there are employers who will hire them. The solution is to hold the employers responsible for verifying the legality of their employee, and providing the workers some form of legal permission to work.

The bad guys are the drug dealers supplying the drugs to satisfy the appetite of our drug users. Our drug war is a dismal failure. We have spent trillions, and drug use has actually increased. It is time to try a different approach.

As a solution we should try treating all drugs as we do alcohol. Tax and regulate the sales, and use the revenue for the betterment of humanity like treating addictions, healthcare and education.

To continue wasting billions of taxpayer dollars on the failed policies of the past is insane.

John Grogan,  Roswell

* America’s Forgotten History of Illegal Deportations

In the late 1920s and early 1930s, the U.S. carried out a wave of unconstitutional raids that affected as many as 1.8 million people. 

Historic tribalism was overcome by visionary leaders. "Who now?"

Does this history remind you of many Donald Trump voters in 2016? And the divisiveness has continued to the present. An "essay echo", published in the History News Network, written by Walter G. Moss, a professor emeritus of history at Eastern Michigan University and Contributing Editor of HNN.

Who will lead America out of the current political tribalism?  Senator John McCain's funeral was one step forward but who will take up a visionary standard to lead us?

In July 2017, Senator John McCain told his Senate colleagues that their deliberations had become “more partisan, more tribal more of the time than any other time I remember.” Conservative columnist David Brooks started off 2018 with a column entitled “The Retreat to Tribalism.” During the last year The Atlantic featured two essays, “The Tragedy of President Trump's Tribalism”and “Can America Survive Tribalism?”

But, consider this historic quote: “A steadily degenerating confidence in the future which had reached the height of general alarm. . . . We are in a pitiful position.” The American Dream “appears to lie shattered.”  Those words are not from the present Trumpian times, when political rancor and divisiveness are rampant, and the president continues to attack his predecessor’s legacy and despoils our environment? Nope. The quotes are from Herbert Hoover, a popular historian before FDR took office in March 1933—as found in Robert Dallek’s biography of Franklin Roosevelt.

In addition, Dallek tells us there “was the deep cultural divide between urban and rural Americans, or modernists and fundamentalists, as they were described.”

Moreover, in 1932, “rural folks who aggressively supported ideas and traditions largely in harmony with their established way of life” felt threatened by the growing dominance of the big cities. 

Many of these same folks especially distrusted all the southern and eastern European immigrants who had come to the cities before the 1924 National Origins Act discriminated against them and Asians.

“The belief that these groups could never be turned into citizens who fully accepted Anglo-Saxon economic and political traditions” was widespread.

Beginning with 1920, the USA had elected three successive Republican presidents. In the 1928 presidential election, the Democratic candidate, the Catholic Governor of New York Al Smith, was crushed by the Republican Herbert Hoover. Dallek believes that the election signaled “the extent to which the country remained split between cities and towns, Catholics and Protestants, southern and Eastern Europeans and assimilated voters.” And he quotes a Southern newspaper editor who wrote that the election indicated that the nation’s “Anglo-Saxon stock” would not be “overturned and humiliated,” that the “small communities and rural regions” had “risen up in wrath” against the country’s “great cities.”

Remind you of many Trump voters in 2016? And the divisiveness has continued to the present.

In July 2017, Senator John McCain told his Senate colleagues that their deliberations had become “more partisan, more tribal more of the time than any other time I remember.” Conservative columnist David Brooks started off 2018 with a column entitled “The Retreat to Tribalism.”During the last year The Atlantic featured two essays, “The Tragedy of President Trump's Tribalism”and “Can America Survive Tribalism?”

The first Atlantic essay accuses DonaldTrump of operating “in a uniquely tribal fashion that has ominously, and even deliberately, widened” our political divisions. Instead of, the essay advocates, “policies that resist tribal separatism and balances the interests of all Americans.”

The second Atlantic essay reviews Amy Chua’s Political Tribes: Group Instinct and the Fate of Nations(2018). Chua’s book explains how the changing demography of the USA has aroused fears among many white Americans that they are losing the dominance they once had—indeed, by 2045 demographers predictthey will be less than 50 percent of the U.S. population.

But now, as in 1932, Americans are unhappy with a Republican president’s performance. By late 1932, Dallek tells us that Hoover “became the butt of vaudeville comedians,” and that he “deepened the gulf between him and his critics by accusing them of ‘unpatriotic’ ” behavior. The same could be said for Trump if we substitute “late-night” for vaudeville. By late 1932, one of every four workers was unemployed. In the November election Roosevelt swept the Electoral College vote, 472 to 59.

In late 2018 unemployment is low, but there are many other reasons for voters’ dissatisfaction with Trump. According to an early September 2018 ABC News/Washington Post Poll, 63 percent of those polled thought that both Trump and the Republican Party were out of touch with the concerns of most people. Trump’s approval rating stood at 36 percent. This was the 10 points or more lower than presidents Obama, Clinton, and Reagan at a comparable time heading into their first midterm election.

As in 1932, so today, the American Dream seems shattered to many. In Chau’s book mentioned above, she insists that what we need is a new American vision that can unite our torn nation. She criticizes both the Right and Left for stoking the flames of tribalism. At the beginning of this year, I agreed with two conservative columnist David Brooks and Ross Douthat—both very critical of Trump—who also stated that we need such a new vision. But, unlike them, I suggested that two prominent Americans assassinated a half century ago, Martin Luther King, Jr.(MLK) and Robert Kennedy (RFK), offered us models for reconstructing our dream—in King’s words so that “we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood.”

Although acknowledging King’s importance, Chua ends her book by quoting from another source that can provide inspiration for any imaginative reconstruction of our dream, Langston Hughes’s 1935 poem “Let America Be America Again.” 

Hughes wanted America “to be the dream the dreamers dreamed,” to be a “great strong land of love.” But it had to be more inclusive than in the past. It had to go beyond “dog eat dog,” it had to extend justice to poor whites, blacks, Native Americans, and immigrants. Hughes’s final stanza reads,

Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death,

The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies,

We, the people, must redeem

The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers.

The mountains and the endless plain—

All, all the stretch of these great green states—

And make America again!

How appropriate that last stanza seems today! The first two lines speaking to the rot and lies of the present administration and the remaining ones to the need to undo all the environmental harm the Trump government has inflicted upon us. “And make America again” reminds us of the Trump mantra “Make America Great Again.”

But Hughes did not urge us to restore an age of white dominance (as Trump does), but beckoned us forward, as MLK and RFK did, toward creating a more inclusive American vision. One that could inspire us all, whether we be white, black, or brown; male or female; young or old; rich or poor.

Our finest Americans have long pointed us in this direction. In his First Inaugural Address, occurring about a month before the outbreak of the Civil War, Lincoln told his “dissatisfied fellow-countrymen”: “We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection.” Instead he appealed to “the better angels of our nature.”

In his Second Inaugural Address, occurring about a month before the end of the Civil War,Lincoln said, “but let us judge not, that we be not judged. . . . With malice toward none, with charity for all . . . let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.”

A century after Lincoln, MLK expressed a similar spirit in his “I Have a Dream Speech”in which he held out a vision of a “day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual: ‘Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!’”

In 1968, before he was assassinated, Robert Kennedy demonstrated (as aNewsweek article noted after his victory in an Indiana primary) that “in a painful era of racial polarization” one could still “bridge the chasm separating the gut elements of the traditional Democratic coalition. He swept the Negro vote while at the same time piling up big leads among backlashy white workingmen—the same group that whistled Dixie for Alabama's George Wallace in the primary four years ago.”

In recent decades there have been glimmers of hope that we can move more toward national unity and embrace a reimagined American Dream. In his2004 Keynote Address to the Democratic Convention,Barack Obama spoke against “those who are preparing to divide us” and urged us to remember that “we are all connected as one people.” Once he became president, he occasionally reminded us of the need for more civil political discourse. In 2010, for example, in a University of Michigan commencement address he toldthe graduates, “We can’t expect to solve our problems if all we do is tear each other down. You can disagree with a certain policy without demonizing the person who espouses it. You can question somebody’s views and their judgment without questioning their motives or their patriotism.”

Although the Trump candidacy and presidency has heighted political incivility, occasional hopeful rays continue to appear. The final words of Sen. John McCain and the funeral he planned for himself combined for one such powerful ray. In his last advice to the American people he stated, “We are 325 million opinionated, vociferous individuals. We argue and compete and sometimes even vilify each other in our raucous public debates. But, we have always had so much more in common with each other than in disagreement. If only we remember that and give each other the benefit of the presumption that we all love our country, we’ll get through these challenging times. We will come through them stronger than before.” To deliver eulogies at his funeral, he asked one former Republican president (George W. Bush) and one former Democrat president (Barack Obama). In The New Yorker, Susan Glasser wrote,“John McCain’s Funeral Was the Biggest Resistance Meeting [to Trumpism] Yet.”

Such words as those of Obama or McCain may seem fine, but 2018 is not, as 1932 was, a presidential election year. Unlike Hoover in late 1932, it is unlikely that Trump will soon vacate the presidency. But what does seem similar is our increasing disgust with our president and our yearning for new leadership that can help restore our fractured political body.

In a 1932 interview, FDR stated that what our country needed was “some one whose interests are not special but general, some one who can understand and treat the country as a whole. For . . . no interest, no class, no section, is either separate or supreme above the interests of all.” As Dallek writes, “If Roosevelt was to find the means to overcome the nation’s crisis, it would have to rest on shared support from every region and every ethnic, religious, and racial group.”

In his First Inaugural Address, he criticized “false leadership,” “self-seekers” who had “no vision.” But what vision did he have, and how did it differ from previous ones? He thought of himself as a liberal and progressive, but in a non-ideological, pragmatic, and imaginative sense, one open to compromise and experiment. In pursuit of the common good, which should be what a government pursues, he was prepared to defy the failed Republican bias against substantial government aid. 

Dallek tells us that in 1932 President Hoover thought that “Federal aid would be a disservice to the unemployed”; and “Roosevelt's New Deal reforms were giant steps in humanizing the American industrial system.”

It’s true that FDR did not please everyone. Many wealthy businessmen, conservative politicians, and the Hearst press, for example, thought him too leftist. But, overall, Roosevelt had a unifying vision – as indicated by his popularity with the American people. They elected him president four times, and generally approved of his policies; in the spring of 1941, for example, he had a 76 percent approval rating.

2018 is not 1932. But again most Americans are disgusted with a president’s behavior and ready to consider a revised and recharged American vision. Will it be forthcoming? Will it be inclusive enough? Who will provide it?

Donald Trump's promises - recreating a chicken in every pot?

So, there's a fairy tale world promised by Donald Trump, a political candiate with all the right messages but no issues answers. 


It seems like "Trump the Chump" can whine all he wants, with some legitimacy, about not getting good questions from the Fox News circus debate moderators on August 5th, especially from self proclaimed "super-duper" journalist Megyn Kelly. Nevertheless, Trump's strategy was like the promise of the proverbial "chicken in every pot", without any specifics about how to create a recipe for successful presidential leadership.


But, this messaging was tried and failed by President Herbert Hoover. Of course that was a long time ago, so perhaps history needs to give the Trumpism a reality check. Here's the scoop.  Donald Trump cannot be the leader of the free world by throwing around his Trumpisms and promising everybody, everything they want to hear. Sooner or later, his non -answers to difficult issues are bound to catch up with him.

Herbert Hoover's presidential campaign slogan in 1928-29:  

"A chicken in every pot a car in every garage".

At the time, this Hoover slogan became a metaphor for broken campaign promises because Hoover's lack of effective monetary policies led to the Great Depression.

So, now Mexico is saying, "Hello? Nobody asked us about paying for a Trump wall to keep illegal immigrants inside Mexico and out of the US!"  Well, Trump just lost about half of his "chicken in every pot" campaign promises. As a matter of fact, Mexico won't pay for a wall, like Trump has promised they would, if he's elected.

The Hill reports: August 13, 2015, 10:35 am

Mexico won't pay for Trump's border wall


The Mexican government says it won't help pay for a wall along its border with the U.S., a proposal pushed by Republican front-runner Donald Trump.  "Of course it's false," Eduardo Sánchez, a spokesman for Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto, told Bloomberg for a story published late Wednesday.  (cluck-cluck!)

"It reflects an enormous ignorance for what Mexico represents, and also the irresponsibility of the candidate who's saying it," Sanchez added, referring to Trump.  In fact, t


he billionaire businessman has advocated building a wall to stem illegal immigration, proclaiming this for months like a Wizard of Oz, and vowed that Mexico would pay for it.  In a Tuesday interview on Fox News, he said that Mexico will "probably just give us the money" to build it.

"They say you can't do it," Trump told host Sean Hannity, referring to pundits and politicians.

"I'll be friends with Mexico. I'm going to have a great relationship with Mexico," Trump said. "It's 100 percent they're going to pay. And if they don't pay, we'll charge them a little tariff. It'll be paid.

"But we need the wall. We have to stop these killers from coming in," Trump added.  He added that the Mexican government is not taking Trump's statements seriously.
The celebrity real estate magnate has claimed illegal immigrants are bringing drugs and crime across the border.  The Mexican president's spokesman threw cold water on Trump's remarks.

"Mexicans in the U.S. work with passion, they do their jobs well," Sanchez told Bloomberg. "His comments reflect an enormous lack of knowledge of the reality in the U.S."


It seems to me, if Trump the Chump really receives the "stupid party" (thank you Governor Jindal-Jandel) nomination, the result will be to see Mexicans flooding to their voting registration places with community organizers showing them the way.


There's virtually no way Trump the Chump can deliver on his litany of promises. He simply can't end illegal immigration, while he provides for fair trade and jobs with the Chinese (who he even uses in deals with his many companies), plus everything else he happens to think about, when he's thinking tangentially. 


Trump's claim to the popularity polls, where he's soaring above his GOP presidential rivals, are the result of two synergistic realities.  First, unfortunately, there's lackluster Republican communications among the circus tent of GOP presidential competitors. Second, Trump's celebrity status, as the star of a reality TV show, makes him a lightening rod for everything that happens to flow out of his mouth.


Somewhere, in the Republican circus tent of over a dozen and a half presidential competitors, there surely must be somebody who can challenge Trump the Chump and provide leadership to this clown car group of wanna-bees. Incredulously, not one of them has shown they can be the leader of the free world, because if they can't challenge Donald Trump the ,then it's impossible for any of them to be President of the United States.


America doesn't want another "chicken in every pot" president. Rather, we deserve an experienced world leader like Hillary2016.

Republicans won largest US House majority since 1920s! Is this their political legacy? OMG

Republicans are justifiably relishing their expensive victories for control of the US Senate in the 2014 mid term elections. Nevertheless, the fact is, the Republican margins as a Congressional majority has an ominous legacy. 

In fact, Republicans have more of a majority in the House than existed since the 1928 Herbert Hoover administration. Hello? This is certainly an startling comparison. Americans apparantly need another history lesson about the outcome of President Herbert Hoover's administration.  It was called The Great Depression.

Talking Points Memo blog (TPM) reports: Analysts: House Republicans May Win Their Largest Majority Since 1920s

After he successfully gripped the role of the Republican nominee in the 1928 race for the Presidency of the United States, Herbert Hoover embarked upon what most Americans assumed to be the natural successive step in his otherwise remarkable career. 

After a non-enthusiastic competition with his Democrat opponent, Alfred E. Smith, Hoover won the election in a landslide victory and thus became the 31st president of the United States of America.

Though President Hoover found a great deal of success in his first eight months of office, the accumulation of these successes would be rapidly extinguished by the most dramatic onslaught of economic downturns ever presented to the American people. 

In response to his inadequate policies adopted in regards to this economic travesty, Hoover’s stay in the Oval Office proved to be one of American history’s primary examples of administrative failure. During his dismal administration, Hoover oversaw the destruction of the American economic system of his time.  (The Myth of Herbert Hoover by John Wright 2011).



Possibly, the newly grown political GOP Congressional margin has a spell cast upon it's future. Unfortunately, the tragic consequences of this dark possibility will take a horrible economic toll on innocent middle class people. Ironically, this is the very same voter population who put the GOP majority in control in the first place.

It makes no sense for American voters to vote against their own best interest. Nevertheless, it's obvious many have forgotten the history lesson of the last large Republican Congressional majority.  

It's cliche but a spell with some historic precedence.  "Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it."