Cutting bureaucracy with a chainsaw is perfectly rational.
If you consult experts on what parts of the bureaucracy to prune, who do you consult? The bureaucrats! They will recommend dispensing with the most useful and most popular services, so as to arouse public [or business] outcry against cuts. [I've heard this called the "Sabotage Theory of Bureaucracy".] Politicians or bosses know this, so the "uniform across the board cut" has evolved to ameliorate the process.
What Musk is doing is something akin to that, and might be called "randomization". You learn along the way, and on average, its just like the uniform across the board cut. Randomization has one big advantage over across the board: It is far more entertaining!
The points about Trump are of course argued to death elsewhere, and also a whole lot in this comments section. Right or wrong, I doubt that either DF or we commenters are shedding much new light on Trump.
I think DF is likely mostly correct in his views on Vance, and as he suggests this could prove to be very important down the line. But as he notes he made these comments previously, and doesn't really add anything new here.
It is the Musk leg of the "Triumvirate" where imo DF adds most value here.
I in particular concur with the spot-on concise combo claim, that has been little cited by *either* Musk's current proponents or detractors, that:
"His record in the past is of overpromising, delivering much less than he claimed — but still much more than anyone else expected."
My one contribution to this entire discussion that imo has gotten little attention - and mostly incorrect revisionist history in the last few months - is:
Trump prior to his X interview by Musk had *never* been about reducing the size of government or making government more efficient; it was explicitly a non-priority for him.
Trump in fact pre-Musk has been a standard modern Democrat on spending, and decidedly a Democrat demagogue on entitlements, which are the major driver of spending. This purely Democrat orientation on spending and entitlements was the single thing this classical liberal *most* objects to about Trump 2015-2024.
It is Musk who put the idea of DOGE into Trump's head. Whether Trump truly believes in it or not, whether he is doing it purely for political reasons, or the similar reason that it's in Trump's interest to have Musk on his side, or some of each, or something else, imo no one can say.
Partly he and Musk clearly are doing it to eradicate DEI and Democrat "money laundering" government dollars going to leftist political special interests [mostly separate from the more typical crony capitalism stuff that all administrations have done to some extent] which had ballooned under Obama and especially Biden. And all save hard-core leftists agree that this part is an unabashed good thing.
But to me the reasons why Trump is for "government efficiency" and reduced government spending now really don't matter.
The fact that Musk has basically single-handedly made DOGE a thing and changed the Overton window is a massive contribution, and a wonderful thing for those of us who are for smaller government and more freedom.
Having observed Trump closely over the past 6–8 months, I can’t help but wonder what drives him to continue pursuing a path that has nearly cost him his life—twice. Is the power to impose tariffs on other countries really enough motivation to risk assassination?
For some, the prospect of being remembered for centuries is motivation enough to risk everything, but Trump from what I can tell seems much more interested in being alive than being dead and remembered.
Could it be that he mostly believes he’s doing the ‘right’. Benefiting himself greatly in the process of course…
I think this possible motivation is too often overlooked, especially, of course, by his opponents.
Also, if you accept the thought that "power attracts sociopaths", then most of his opposition is sociopaths who project their sociopathy on him. (Of course, he may also be a sociopath, but he wasnt apparently pursuing political power for the first 60+ years of his life as so many who engage in politics do.)
I always find it intersting that so few are willing to attribute his actions to being truly a patriot (in the best sense) who, upon seeing what he believes is a threat to the country he loves, and in which his descendants will live, wants to do what he can to defeat th threats.
Is that the case? Darned if I know, but why deny it out of hand? Was, say, Al Gore, serious about the dangers of "Global Warming", or was that just an excuse to gain and exercise power? I don't really remember many trying to argue that.
For Biden we have pretty clear evidence that he did not take the dangers of global warming as seriously as he claimed — his using tariffs to block the import of Chinese EVs when it became clear that if free to compete the Chinese producers would make EVs considerably less expensive hence much more common. For many of those who claim to see climate change as a dreadful threat their opposition to nuclear power is evidence that they don't believe their own rhetoric.
My reluctance to accept a favorable explanation for Trump is in part due to his routinely saying things that he knows, or easily could know, are not true. I find it hard to take seriously the idea of a politician whose motives are benevolent but who does not care whether what he says is true. That may be an error on my part. I discussed the general issue in:
Very serious question for you: do you take seriously AOC and Bernie Sanders who are routinely saying things that they know, or easily could know, are not true?
Do you take seriously Congressional Democrats who routinely vote for things that they know, or easily could know, are not in the best interests of the country?
As but one of many non-trivial examples, liberals support teachers unions and effective public school monopolies on education, despite knowing - or at least easily being able to know - that these cause worse results for the poorest students that they ostensibly are claiming to help.
I am certainly aware that you do indeed often call leftists to task as well. But why do you seem to hold Trump to a *much* higher standard than you hold most leftists?
Most politicians sometimes lie when there is a good political reason to, as in your examples. But Trump routinely makes up facts and states them with conviction — not occasionally but frequently.
You could argue that PolitiFact demonstrated partisan bias in choosing, for verification, Trump statements that were more likely to be false and Obama and Biden statements that were more likely to be true. Perhaps there was some degree of unconscious bias, but I haven't seen any evidence of intentional skewing of results.
There are many Trump supporters who comment here, some who admire the person, and some who don't admire his personal qualities but are pleased with his actions. But I think it is obvious that he tells more lies than most politicians (George Santos would not be included in "most").
"Or perhaps he really does want to make America America again ..."
Jim, could you provide detail on what this means? I hear so many people reference this or "Make America Great Again", but I don't really know what it means. Are you referring to American's historical standing as the only (or one of two) superpowers? Are you thinking of America which was seen as so attractive that smart people (engineers, scientists, intellectuals) throughout the world were immigrating? Are you thinking about a time when America was the dominant country in manufacturing?
I said make America America again, though I've no problem with great.
I'm thinking of a time when America was, or or was at least a close approximation of a constitutional democratic republic, not a bureaucracy. When elected officials represented their constituents, not special interests. When we had at least a few statesmen, thinking of the next generation, rather than politicians thinking of the next election and what they can slip into their own pockets. When government was limited and most could honestly say it did not affect them much. A time when we the people and the marketplace, not the government, decided what light bulbs, shower heads, gas or electric vehicles, etc. we would buy.
> Having observed Trump closely over the past 6–8 months, I can’t help but wonder what drives him to continue pursuing a path that has nearly cost him his life—twice.
Well, by that point there was no longer any off-ramp.
Compare Trump post-assassination attempt to Ross Perot dropping out of the race because his daughter was threatened with blackmail (or something), and then rejoining a month later (or something); that is not the kind of leader anybody wants or respects.
You are far too mainstream David. You ignore the drive for a Great Reset and World Government from the UN / Bilderberger / World Economic Forum that controls the DEM / LEFT in lockstep. We can only hope the Musk / Thiel forces represent a different faction of the ruling class in spite of Thiel being on the Steering Committee of the Bilderberg Group. To conspire is human nature.
It cracks me up, how easily we slide over the idea that Trump may be doing what he's doing for "love of country" and the future good and enjoyment of his descendants. I mean, it should at least be considered, shouldn't it, by at least non-TDS-sufferers?
Not to bring in Godwin's law, but so what? Hitler, Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, every dictator and king has always thought they were doing the right thing.
But Jorg is almost *certainly* at least partly correct. Yet critics of Trump almost never concede same - perhaps the main exception being when they criticize his mercantilist views.
The last part of which would be fair enough - except that in this they claim that said belief is the SOLE/overarching reason for all his policy on tariffs.
I share DF's belief that Trump has some mercantilist beliefs about what's best for the country - even though DF at first claims that Trump has no such beliefs ["So far as I can tell from his history he has no political views of his own"] but then says that when it comes to tariffs he does ["Tariffs make sense, for someone who does not understand the relevant economics, as way of reducing the trade deficit"].
And be clear that I find *some* of Trump's recent use of tariffs - the ones on steel and aluminum most notably - indefensible.
But even more than sharing DF's beliefs about Trump and mercantilism, I share Jorg's belief that most of Trump's policy choices are in service to what he believes is in the best interest of the country.
To get the U.S. a better deal.
Because of course, "getting a better deal" *is* Trump's single most important, consistent ideology.
The mistaken beliefs about tariffs I view as economic views, not political ones. I concede that it is not always a clear distinction.
If someone opposed the space program because he believed in Ptolemaic astronomy, expected space probes to crash on the crystal sphere at the moon's orbit, would you view that as a political view?
I understand tariffs have real economic demerits, but they exist and are a cause of endless bull-shucking. Like a moth to a flame, full of desire, Trump is drawn to bull-shucking.
I see Trump as a 90s D party centrist. Jerry Pournelle said 2016 Trump was like 90s D- Richard Gephardt and I think that's still true. 90s D were bland, weasely, but not especially unprincipled. Trump is personally flashy, but otherwise it fits.
I find it hard to understand your distinction between political views and economic ones here, and particularly on the issue of tariffs and mercantilism.
Re: your astronomy example, the leftist economic views espoused by Sanders and AOC, and no longer completely disavowed by the Dem Party establishment, to me have far more in common with your example than Trump's views on tariffs do. But all surely *are* political views. And most are economic views as well.
I would concur that Trump does not have a strong *ideology* completely consistent with any traditional [progressive / conservative / libertarian / establishment consensus] one, nor a particularly strong ideology, period.
But many recent presidents or major party presidential candidates [HW Bush, Dole, Bill Clinton, McCain (ex-foreign policy), Biden up through 2019 before his senility...] also didn't have strong ideologies.
Now of course all politicians do some things more - or entirely - for political reasons. Trump is surely not close to unique on that front.
But in any case not having a political *ideology*, even if true, is very different than the far stronger claim that he has no political *views* of his own.
He clearly does, and "reducing goods/services trade deficits" is *clearly* one of them.
Which he seems to hold *both* because he believes it is economically beneficial to America writ large *and* because he clearly believes it is good politics.
The fact that you and I believe strongly he is mistaken about the economics notwithstanding.
To be fair, I’m not aware of a single US politician who doesn’t become a mercantilist when elections roll around, despite nearly all economists recognizing this is a Very Bad Idea.
Also not to be forgotten is that NAFTA didn’t create a tarrif-free continent. There are many existing tariffs imposed by Mexico and Canada on various items the US exports.
Yes, and so did Washington, Lincoln, Woodrow Wilson, FDR, and so on? Why refuse to consider That motivation for Trump?
I generally assume of those who seek power rather than having it thrust on them (men like Cincinattus and Washington appear to be rare) believe that they're doing it for the good of their country (you might argue that was not the case for quite a few Roman Emperors, and there are other examples), but perhaps they are not.
I'm not saying he is either a Washington or a Hitler or even Pol Pot. I'm saying it's wrong to exclude that possible motivation.
I agree with this. I also think that we should assume that (to first order) all politicians are doing what they think is best for the country. Assume everyone is an honest actor. Then we can at least start to have the debate of what is the best for our country.
With the possible exception of tariffs (and it seems clear to me that Trump sees them as a tool different from the kind of 'tool' economist think of them), I see very few of Trump's stated beliefs that weren't routine mildly Left Democrat beliefs in 1995 or so. He is basically a Daniel Patrick Moynihan, NYC, Democrat.
"Most Republicans are pretty much the Democrats of a generation (30 years) previous"
I was ok with pretty much all of the above, but this last is way off base.
If you look in the Senate, you are accurately describing Murkowski, Collins and Romney.
You partly describe the next 15-20 or so least conservative GOP Senators, but they are almost all in fact somewhat to the right of those 90s Dems on economics and on judges. But I suppose if you wanted to say that they are close to where Bill Clinton forced the Dems to go from 1994 - 1999 (after Newt won the House), I couldn't argue with you *that* strongly.
But, c'mon. The other half of the GOP in the Senate is far more right of center on limited government and the judiciary, and even on spending, than centrist Dems from back then were.
And *only* on deficits/spending is your opposing POV even arguable.
And for the House it is even more clear that the average GOP Congressperson of today is far to the right of the average Dem Congressperson of 1995.
The GOP of today is far from perfect, no doubt. But claiming they are no better than mid-90s Democrats is just not credible.
I suppose I should have qualified that. I wrote in haste.
I feel like today's average Republican voter/supporter is about where Daniel Patrick Moynihan was in 1995 or so. I think that's why Trump resonates with so many.
I'm not claiming they're no better than the more Lefty elected Dem of 1995.
Our system tends to force (lately, anyway) the election of more Left or Right candidates in "safe" seats maybe than in the past, at least among Dems.
But in 1995 there were still moderate Dems who wanted at least closer to a balanced budget.
But maybe I should look at the Dem's professed 1996 platform to see what they claimed to want.
And the '96 Dole vs. Clinton election was the least consequential - in terms of policy differences between the two major parties - of at least the last 60 years, and likely far longer than that.
But that said, I still stand by my claim that with the notable exception of deficits/debt, the average GOP Senator/Congressperson today is indeed to the right of the average Dem equivalent from 1996 on economics and the judiciary.
What I will *not* try to argue is that the gap between those two groups is larger than the gap between the 1996 Dem and 2025 Dem groups, because there what you imply is almost surely correct.
Your take on the Triumvirate is probably closer to fact than mine George. However I voted for President Trump the wrecking ball to destroy, knock down the rotten oligarchic bureaucracy and then hopefully restore our constitutional democratic republic.
I am sure DF recalls that for decades the pessimists were right about American politics. Now, at last, we have conservative leadership with spirit and moral depth. We have reason to feel thankful and hopeful!
Trump a demagogue. Or a Demigod? Clinton a demagogue? He did not inhale. Obama a demo/magogue? Started multiple wars upon wining a Peace Nobel Prize. Jack? Ronnie? Milton?
Just one more thought on Trump's tariffs: Perhaps he wants them to raise revenue. I believe at least some in the administration have said as much, referring to history, but Trump's actions so far do not really support this explanation either.
I might add that when the US had high tariffs or moderate revenue tariffs immigration and capital flows were free. And free factor movements are a perfect substitute for free trade.
Tariffs would have to be 50-100% to replace income taxes or erase the yearly deficit. That would be a $2 trillion tax rise on everybody, except that high a tariff would drop imports drastically, not raise anywhere near the amount expected, hamstring the economy, and lower other tax revenue. I don't think even Trump is dumb to think even a $1 trillion tax increase is good for the economy.
Concise and, from my bleacher seat, accurate summaries of the three musketeers. Vance is really the largest enigma in terms of who he really is and what he’d do if ascending the throne someday. For now, merely one of the boot licking troop. The tariff actions are the most stunningly stupid exercises no matter what theory supposedly applies. But we’re all gonna be richer for it according to our Dear Leader.
My take on Trump and tariffs is slightly different. I have found too many people who don't understand tariffs in any sense except "protecting American industry". They don't believe tariffs are paid by Americans by way of the importers; they think foreigners (especially China) are subsidizing everything they send to us, so they can subsidize just a little more when they pay the import tariff. It is impossible to reason with them over this. It all comes down to protecting "Murica!" from them dirty furriners.
That is Trump's audience and his own belief, not because he has studied the matter, but because he, like the others, has not and sees no reason to listen to a bunch of academics, or even common sense such as the definition of "tariff" as an import tax. It's a trick from ivory tower elitists.
Given that people apparently believe that corporations pay income tax it is hardly surprising to me that they may think importers pay the tariffs.
And of course "free trade" (which I support) has never really happened in the real world. I would love for free trade exist in actuality. But in the Real World I am forced to inhabit, other countries (well, more-or-less industrialized ones anyway -- I don't know much about tariffs in Third World countries) tax imports from the US at much higher rates than the US taxes imports from them.
I used to ask my students, when you makes plans to go out on Saturday night, do you plan for every expenditues, including the taxes on your expenditures, or do you just decide on a more-or-less lump sum you're willing to pay for a probable good time?
Does anyone want to guess which answer was never, ever chosen even once?
Normal people don't think like economists, or accounts, or bookkeepers in their personal lives. Heck, I'll bet even economists, accountants, and bookkeepers mostly don't think that way in there personal lives.
Jorg, I think I am one of those people who believes that corporations (at least some) pay income tax. Is your statement a semantic one where you assert that it is the shareholders, employees, or consumers, who actually pay the taxes, or are you asserting that corporations don't actually pay income taxes? If the latter, could you explain why?
Just pointing out that corporate taxes are part of the cost of doing business and are therefore actually paid by whoever benefits from the business corporations do. Mostly the customers, of course, in the form of higher prices, but also employees through lower potential compensation, and shareholders through reduced earnings or reduced share prices. The corporation merely writes the check.
Tariffs work the same way and are paid by the same people.
I think there's confusion in Elon Musk's head between government efficiency and economic efficiency. He believes that his role should be to optimize the government, and for that he's using the same strategies he uses for his companies. But this is wrongheaded. His role should be to optimize economic efficiency, which comprises the government and society together, as the system under optimization. As you've told us, cutting down the size of a company can be a strategy for achieving company efficiency (Coase's firm); however, companies have to rely more often rather in increasing efficiency holding size constant. Due to scale, governments should rely more on the first strategy than the latter. More: it strikes me that for Musk's companies, due to his excellent management skills, the latter strategy is even more promising than the former for his own companies.
The US government needs economists, not businessmen. This appears to me to be so clearly the case with Musk, that it prompts a needs to re-examine Trump under the same lens.
Musk cannot be the one to deliver on optimizing economic efficiency, because really only the union of Congress and the president can do that (though the president can do some things in that regard on his own, I grant you).
You are suggesting boiling the ocean.
Making the government “more efficient” is surely a beneficial thing, do you not agree.
Whether or not it is the single thing you would focus on - or even in the top 10 - if you were king for a day.
Dear Mister Friedman, my name is Lucas Bretonnier, I am a French journalist. I sent you a direct message a few days ago here on your Substack "mailbox". Did you get it ? I would be glad to have a chat with you. Thank you. best regards. Lucas.
Yet another ignorant clown comment about Elon Musk. Suggest you learn about the man before you describe him and his activities as "small projects."
Taking the first steps to off-world humanity (within the next 10 years) to help guarantee its survival against the inevitable ELE (extinction level event) from asteroid or comet collision is not a small project. Driving solutions to the world's energy conversion from fossil fuels to solar (and batteries) is not a small project. Saving the world's premier liberal democratic economy from its devolution into a debt-ridden, bankrupt, kleptocratic and authoritarian hellhole is not a small project.
I should rant a little more about the Green Raw Deal.
Markets handled the transition from wood to coal, and coal to oil, smoothly and efficiently. Markets exist whether you or governments like them or not; just as water always flows downhill, whether dams delay it or not, so markets always exist and work no matter how meddlers interfere.
The Green Raw Deal is working exactly as predicted from its meddlers forcing "solutions" before they are ready. You can tell its proponents are not serious in the way they reject nuclear power with fingers crossed and garlic at the ready.
Fission and fusion are good guesses for the long term replacement of oil and natural gas, but markets will determine that. Not Musk, not Hansen and Greta, not Michael Mann and his lawfare, not Trump or Biden or any other politician. They will meddle and interfere and obstruct and slow the transition and make it more expensive, but they will not control it.
Look outside and you'll see solar in action. It's all around you. Solar at scale doesn't work without batteries or their analogs. Markets, as you say, are to facilitate the exchanges of goods and services at prices representing their actual. I have no problem with any of that.
If the climate science is settled, why does it need billions and billions in more research?
If solar and wind are so wonderful and cheap, why do they need billions and billions in subsidies?
Solar and wind are as free as coal and oil. It's turning them into useful resources that takes money, and once you do that, solar and wind are much more expensive and need massive subsidies. Look at all the projects being canceled as the subsidies disappear. Remember Solyndra? $500 billion, I think it was. Germany just announced their 15-year old offshore wind farm is going to be shut down due to the subsidies running out.
Proponents like to point to installed capacity for the price (not cost) and say, "See how cheap it is per MW!", neglecting to mention both the subsidies and the fact that solar doesn't work at night and winds don't always blow, and they generate much less power than the installed rating. Coal and gas plants generally run for 80-90% of the time. Solar is probably under 1/3 just from natural daylight cycles, and my guess is wind is even worse, but I'm not interested in looking up the stats.
Those batteries you mention are environmental disasters, in mining, manufacturing, and maintaining. They alone would cost trillions to be practical backup in winter or even just during the night.
The plants have to be located where the sun and wind are, not where the customers are, and that requires more transmission lines, more inefficiency, more maintenance, more eminent domain.
Perhaps you ought to try some due diligence on the economics and reality of the Green Raw Deal.
The idea of saving humanity by putting at most a few thousand on a planet where they will be utterly dependent on the at-risk home planet for centuries to come needs a bit of thinking too.
That one man could divert the historical trend of bureaucratic government expansion into a useless and expensive blob is hardly realistic.
The Mars colony will be a real-(off)world lab for testing and improving the technology needed for people to exist in environments other than earth's. Small steps, yes, but we'll learn how to live, work, and play in a model of what micro-, then mini- terraforming can provide. Advances in solar utilization and storage will provide the basis for growing a small-scale version of our earth-sized solar machine: the plant world. Yeah, realization of dreams is a long way away, but science and its benefits to all humanity is built on the shoulders of giants. Elon Musk is one of those giants.
Expecting Starship and Mars money pits to have any effect on saving Earth from existential planetary doom threats is a pipe dream. I'm glad he's spending his money on it. But it will be hundreds of years before there's any realistic independent self-sufficient off-world colony, and Elon Musk won't speed it up by any noticeable amount. Chemical rockets are useless for that. You might as well claim the ancient Assyrians sped up the timetable too.
Oh my, thanks for this. So given that history often rhymes, can we rhyme this with the Roman triumvirate? Trump the dealer is Crassus, Musk the doer is Pompey, which leaves Vance as Caesar... I'm not sure how well that rhymes.
So I formerly suffered from TDS. I'm now somewhat excited about this administration. (Mind you I pay no attention to the news, that's just too exhausting. Ignore what Trump says and only look at what he does.) The biggest corrupting influence I see in our country is all the money, money in pharma, money in the military, money in the food industry, in media, in banking and in our universities. And all this becomes a positive feedback loop when the money gets into our politics. We need to break that loop. In the past this would have been the work of the democratic party. The party of the workers. That's no longer true. And for the moment I'm placing my hope in the triumvirate, I just hope they don't sell us down the river.
My theory/speculation: Trump has decided that he will begin all negotiations with other nations by waving a big stick. For many nations, his preferred big stick is raising tariffs (or threatening to do so). So far, it seems to working fairly well.
Not speculation: Trump is talking about cutting income tax and raising money via tariffs instead. This is a very bad idea. (As someone who grew up on a Australian farm and followed international agripolitics, I think tariffs are rarely a good idea, and always bad in the long term.)
I just had a thought -- how much of Trump waving the tariff big stick is because it is one of the few weapons a President has such control over? Same with immigration. Congress has turned over a lot of their authority to the Presidency and seems devoid of interest in reclaiming it; much easier to whine than take responsibility.
I know Trump has praised tariffs before, but I don't know how serious he was, if it was just one of many things, or if people are cherry picking his past comments to find the tariff remarks.
What I believe is that he is focused on the art of the deal, of the big man making big decisions. No time for the details, that's what flunkies are for. Legislation? Plans? No time for that.
And tariffs as that big stick you mention fit that mentality very well.
Cutting bureaucracy with a chainsaw is perfectly rational.
If you consult experts on what parts of the bureaucracy to prune, who do you consult? The bureaucrats! They will recommend dispensing with the most useful and most popular services, so as to arouse public [or business] outcry against cuts. [I've heard this called the "Sabotage Theory of Bureaucracy".] Politicians or bosses know this, so the "uniform across the board cut" has evolved to ameliorate the process.
What Musk is doing is something akin to that, and might be called "randomization". You learn along the way, and on average, its just like the uniform across the board cut. Randomization has one big advantage over across the board: It is far more entertaining!
Going after USAID first was genius though. Gutting NGO funding eliminates funding for so many lefty projects and political activities.
That's a fair thought. However, we do not [yet] know whether USAID was the most egregious offender. :-)
By volume or total impact, likely not.
By percentage, it might prove tough to beat.
I've just learned that the "Sabotage Theory of Bureaucracy" is called "the Washington Monument Strategy" in Americanese.
The points about Trump are of course argued to death elsewhere, and also a whole lot in this comments section. Right or wrong, I doubt that either DF or we commenters are shedding much new light on Trump.
I think DF is likely mostly correct in his views on Vance, and as he suggests this could prove to be very important down the line. But as he notes he made these comments previously, and doesn't really add anything new here.
It is the Musk leg of the "Triumvirate" where imo DF adds most value here.
I in particular concur with the spot-on concise combo claim, that has been little cited by *either* Musk's current proponents or detractors, that:
"His record in the past is of overpromising, delivering much less than he claimed — but still much more than anyone else expected."
My one contribution to this entire discussion that imo has gotten little attention - and mostly incorrect revisionist history in the last few months - is:
Trump prior to his X interview by Musk had *never* been about reducing the size of government or making government more efficient; it was explicitly a non-priority for him.
Trump in fact pre-Musk has been a standard modern Democrat on spending, and decidedly a Democrat demagogue on entitlements, which are the major driver of spending. This purely Democrat orientation on spending and entitlements was the single thing this classical liberal *most* objects to about Trump 2015-2024.
It is Musk who put the idea of DOGE into Trump's head. Whether Trump truly believes in it or not, whether he is doing it purely for political reasons, or the similar reason that it's in Trump's interest to have Musk on his side, or some of each, or something else, imo no one can say.
Partly he and Musk clearly are doing it to eradicate DEI and Democrat "money laundering" government dollars going to leftist political special interests [mostly separate from the more typical crony capitalism stuff that all administrations have done to some extent] which had ballooned under Obama and especially Biden. And all save hard-core leftists agree that this part is an unabashed good thing.
But to me the reasons why Trump is for "government efficiency" and reduced government spending now really don't matter.
The fact that Musk has basically single-handedly made DOGE a thing and changed the Overton window is a massive contribution, and a wonderful thing for those of us who are for smaller government and more freedom.
Fair point.
Having observed Trump closely over the past 6–8 months, I can’t help but wonder what drives him to continue pursuing a path that has nearly cost him his life—twice. Is the power to impose tariffs on other countries really enough motivation to risk assassination?
For some, the prospect of being remembered for centuries is motivation enough to risk everything, but Trump from what I can tell seems much more interested in being alive than being dead and remembered.
Could it be that he mostly believes he’s doing the ‘right’. Benefiting himself greatly in the process of course…
He might believe that he is a winner, hence that any assassination attempts will fail.
Or perhaps he really does want to make America America again and is willing to risk his life, his fortune and his sacred honor supporting that cause.
Not saying it's necessarily so but hey, seems far more likely than him assuming that any assassination attempt will fail.
I think this possible motivation is too often overlooked, especially, of course, by his opponents.
Also, if you accept the thought that "power attracts sociopaths", then most of his opposition is sociopaths who project their sociopathy on him. (Of course, he may also be a sociopath, but he wasnt apparently pursuing political power for the first 60+ years of his life as so many who engage in politics do.)
I always find it intersting that so few are willing to attribute his actions to being truly a patriot (in the best sense) who, upon seeing what he believes is a threat to the country he loves, and in which his descendants will live, wants to do what he can to defeat th threats.
Is that the case? Darned if I know, but why deny it out of hand? Was, say, Al Gore, serious about the dangers of "Global Warming", or was that just an excuse to gain and exercise power? I don't really remember many trying to argue that.
Or even GHW Bush.
For Biden we have pretty clear evidence that he did not take the dangers of global warming as seriously as he claimed — his using tariffs to block the import of Chinese EVs when it became clear that if free to compete the Chinese producers would make EVs considerably less expensive hence much more common. For many of those who claim to see climate change as a dreadful threat their opposition to nuclear power is evidence that they don't believe their own rhetoric.
My reluctance to accept a favorable explanation for Trump is in part due to his routinely saying things that he knows, or easily could know, are not true. I find it hard to take seriously the idea of a politician whose motives are benevolent but who does not care whether what he says is true. That may be an error on my part. I discussed the general issue in:
https://daviddfriedman.blogspot.com/2013/12/lying-for-good-cause.html
Very serious question for you: do you take seriously AOC and Bernie Sanders who are routinely saying things that they know, or easily could know, are not true?
Do you take seriously Congressional Democrats who routinely vote for things that they know, or easily could know, are not in the best interests of the country?
As but one of many non-trivial examples, liberals support teachers unions and effective public school monopolies on education, despite knowing - or at least easily being able to know - that these cause worse results for the poorest students that they ostensibly are claiming to help.
I am certainly aware that you do indeed often call leftists to task as well. But why do you seem to hold Trump to a *much* higher standard than you hold most leftists?
Most politicians sometimes lie when there is a good political reason to, as in your examples. But Trump routinely makes up facts and states them with conviction — not occasionally but frequently.
This is from Trump's first presidency (https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidmarkowitz/2021/04/30/who-lied-more-during-their-first-100-days-biden-trump-or-obama/) and it cites PolitiFact who noted that Trump was a more prolific liar, in his first 100 days in office, than Obama or Biden were.
You could argue that PolitiFact demonstrated partisan bias in choosing, for verification, Trump statements that were more likely to be false and Obama and Biden statements that were more likely to be true. Perhaps there was some degree of unconscious bias, but I haven't seen any evidence of intentional skewing of results.
There are many Trump supporters who comment here, some who admire the person, and some who don't admire his personal qualities but are pleased with his actions. But I think it is obvious that he tells more lies than most politicians (George Santos would not be included in "most").
"Or perhaps he really does want to make America America again ..."
Jim, could you provide detail on what this means? I hear so many people reference this or "Make America Great Again", but I don't really know what it means. Are you referring to American's historical standing as the only (or one of two) superpowers? Are you thinking of America which was seen as so attractive that smart people (engineers, scientists, intellectuals) throughout the world were immigrating? Are you thinking about a time when America was the dominant country in manufacturing?
I said make America America again, though I've no problem with great.
I'm thinking of a time when America was, or or was at least a close approximation of a constitutional democratic republic, not a bureaucracy. When elected officials represented their constituents, not special interests. When we had at least a few statesmen, thinking of the next generation, rather than politicians thinking of the next election and what they can slip into their own pockets. When government was limited and most could honestly say it did not affect them much. A time when we the people and the marketplace, not the government, decided what light bulbs, shower heads, gas or electric vehicles, etc. we would buy.
When was this time?
Pre-1930 or so?
Touché.
How about we drop the 'again' and say, "Make America Great Already."
Never mind.
In what way is Trump benefiting himself? Not financially. Emotionally? Everlasting fame?
> Having observed Trump closely over the past 6–8 months, I can’t help but wonder what drives him to continue pursuing a path that has nearly cost him his life—twice.
Well, by that point there was no longer any off-ramp.
Compare Trump post-assassination attempt to Ross Perot dropping out of the race because his daughter was threatened with blackmail (or something), and then rejoining a month later (or something); that is not the kind of leader anybody wants or respects.
You are far too mainstream David. You ignore the drive for a Great Reset and World Government from the UN / Bilderberger / World Economic Forum that controls the DEM / LEFT in lockstep. We can only hope the Musk / Thiel forces represent a different faction of the ruling class in spite of Thiel being on the Steering Committee of the Bilderberg Group. To conspire is human nature.
It cracks me up, how easily we slide over the idea that Trump may be doing what he's doing for "love of country" and the future good and enjoyment of his descendants. I mean, it should at least be considered, shouldn't it, by at least non-TDS-sufferers?
Not to bring in Godwin's law, but so what? Hitler, Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, every dictator and king has always thought they were doing the right thing.
"Not to bring in Godwin's law, but so what?"
The so what is that DF ascribed motives to Trump.
He may well be partly correct.
But Jorg is almost *certainly* at least partly correct. Yet critics of Trump almost never concede same - perhaps the main exception being when they criticize his mercantilist views.
The last part of which would be fair enough - except that in this they claim that said belief is the SOLE/overarching reason for all his policy on tariffs.
I share DF's belief that Trump has some mercantilist beliefs about what's best for the country - even though DF at first claims that Trump has no such beliefs ["So far as I can tell from his history he has no political views of his own"] but then says that when it comes to tariffs he does ["Tariffs make sense, for someone who does not understand the relevant economics, as way of reducing the trade deficit"].
And be clear that I find *some* of Trump's recent use of tariffs - the ones on steel and aluminum most notably - indefensible.
But even more than sharing DF's beliefs about Trump and mercantilism, I share Jorg's belief that most of Trump's policy choices are in service to what he believes is in the best interest of the country.
To get the U.S. a better deal.
Because of course, "getting a better deal" *is* Trump's single most important, consistent ideology.
The mistaken beliefs about tariffs I view as economic views, not political ones. I concede that it is not always a clear distinction.
If someone opposed the space program because he believed in Ptolemaic astronomy, expected space probes to crash on the crystal sphere at the moon's orbit, would you view that as a political view?
I understand tariffs have real economic demerits, but they exist and are a cause of endless bull-shucking. Like a moth to a flame, full of desire, Trump is drawn to bull-shucking.
I see Trump as a 90s D party centrist. Jerry Pournelle said 2016 Trump was like 90s D- Richard Gephardt and I think that's still true. 90s D were bland, weasely, but not especially unprincipled. Trump is personally flashy, but otherwise it fits.
Um, meant 90s D CENTRIST were bland and weasely.
I find it hard to understand your distinction between political views and economic ones here, and particularly on the issue of tariffs and mercantilism.
Re: your astronomy example, the leftist economic views espoused by Sanders and AOC, and no longer completely disavowed by the Dem Party establishment, to me have far more in common with your example than Trump's views on tariffs do. But all surely *are* political views. And most are economic views as well.
I would concur that Trump does not have a strong *ideology* completely consistent with any traditional [progressive / conservative / libertarian / establishment consensus] one, nor a particularly strong ideology, period.
But many recent presidents or major party presidential candidates [HW Bush, Dole, Bill Clinton, McCain (ex-foreign policy), Biden up through 2019 before his senility...] also didn't have strong ideologies.
Now of course all politicians do some things more - or entirely - for political reasons. Trump is surely not close to unique on that front.
But in any case not having a political *ideology*, even if true, is very different than the far stronger claim that he has no political *views* of his own.
He clearly does, and "reducing goods/services trade deficits" is *clearly* one of them.
Which he seems to hold *both* because he believes it is economically beneficial to America writ large *and* because he clearly believes it is good politics.
The fact that you and I believe strongly he is mistaken about the economics notwithstanding.
To be fair, I’m not aware of a single US politician who doesn’t become a mercantilist when elections roll around, despite nearly all economists recognizing this is a Very Bad Idea.
Also not to be forgotten is that NAFTA didn’t create a tarrif-free continent. There are many existing tariffs imposed by Mexico and Canada on various items the US exports.
“I’m not aware of a single US politician who doesn’t become a mercantilist when elections roll around, …”
Rand Paul.
There might not be 5 others (though I suspect there are a couple…), but there is indeed at least one.
Yes, and so did Washington, Lincoln, Woodrow Wilson, FDR, and so on? Why refuse to consider That motivation for Trump?
I generally assume of those who seek power rather than having it thrust on them (men like Cincinattus and Washington appear to be rare) believe that they're doing it for the good of their country (you might argue that was not the case for quite a few Roman Emperors, and there are other examples), but perhaps they are not.
I'm not saying he is either a Washington or a Hitler or even Pol Pot. I'm saying it's wrong to exclude that possible motivation.
I agree with this. I also think that we should assume that (to first order) all politicians are doing what they think is best for the country. Assume everyone is an honest actor. Then we can at least start to have the debate of what is the best for our country.
The Triumvirate; the wrecking ball the dreamer, the doer.
'50s & '60s; the democrat party of that day was far to the right of the Republicans, if not of today, of last year.
With the possible exception of tariffs (and it seems clear to me that Trump sees them as a tool different from the kind of 'tool' economist think of them), I see very few of Trump's stated beliefs that weren't routine mildly Left Democrat beliefs in 1995 or so. He is basically a Daniel Patrick Moynihan, NYC, Democrat.
May well be, but most of the Republicans in office today are far left of Moynihan.
Most Republicans are pretty much the Democrats of a generation (30 years) previous, as far as I can tell.
"Most Republicans are pretty much the Democrats of a generation (30 years) previous"
I was ok with pretty much all of the above, but this last is way off base.
If you look in the Senate, you are accurately describing Murkowski, Collins and Romney.
You partly describe the next 15-20 or so least conservative GOP Senators, but they are almost all in fact somewhat to the right of those 90s Dems on economics and on judges. But I suppose if you wanted to say that they are close to where Bill Clinton forced the Dems to go from 1994 - 1999 (after Newt won the House), I couldn't argue with you *that* strongly.
But, c'mon. The other half of the GOP in the Senate is far more right of center on limited government and the judiciary, and even on spending, than centrist Dems from back then were.
And *only* on deficits/spending is your opposing POV even arguable.
And for the House it is even more clear that the average GOP Congressperson of today is far to the right of the average Dem Congressperson of 1995.
The GOP of today is far from perfect, no doubt. But claiming they are no better than mid-90s Democrats is just not credible.
I suppose I should have qualified that. I wrote in haste.
I feel like today's average Republican voter/supporter is about where Daniel Patrick Moynihan was in 1995 or so. I think that's why Trump resonates with so many.
I'm not claiming they're no better than the more Lefty elected Dem of 1995.
Our system tends to force (lately, anyway) the election of more Left or Right candidates in "safe" seats maybe than in the past, at least among Dems.
But in 1995 there were still moderate Dems who wanted at least closer to a balanced budget.
But maybe I should look at the Dem's professed 1996 platform to see what they claimed to want.
I'll rethink that statement though.
Ok, now we are largely in agreement.
And the '96 Dole vs. Clinton election was the least consequential - in terms of policy differences between the two major parties - of at least the last 60 years, and likely far longer than that.
But that said, I still stand by my claim that with the notable exception of deficits/debt, the average GOP Senator/Congressperson today is indeed to the right of the average Dem equivalent from 1996 on economics and the judiciary.
What I will *not* try to argue is that the gap between those two groups is larger than the gap between the 1996 Dem and 2025 Dem groups, because there what you imply is almost surely correct.
Hmm the wrecking ball doesn't quite work for me. How 'bout 'the dealer, dreamer and doer?
Your take on the Triumvirate is probably closer to fact than mine George. However I voted for President Trump the wrecking ball to destroy, knock down the rotten oligarchic bureaucracy and then hopefully restore our constitutional democratic republic.
I am sure DF recalls that for decades the pessimists were right about American politics. Now, at last, we have conservative leadership with spirit and moral depth. We have reason to feel thankful and hopeful!
Trump a demagogue. Or a Demigod? Clinton a demagogue? He did not inhale. Obama a demo/magogue? Started multiple wars upon wining a Peace Nobel Prize. Jack? Ronnie? Milton?
ISWYDT
Just one more thought on Trump's tariffs: Perhaps he wants them to raise revenue. I believe at least some in the administration have said as much, referring to history, but Trump's actions so far do not really support this explanation either.
I might add that when the US had high tariffs or moderate revenue tariffs immigration and capital flows were free. And free factor movements are a perfect substitute for free trade.
Not a perfect substitute. Land and climate affect production costs and don't move. And even if immigration is not restricted it is not free.
Tariffs would have to be 50-100% to replace income taxes or erase the yearly deficit. That would be a $2 trillion tax rise on everybody, except that high a tariff would drop imports drastically, not raise anywhere near the amount expected, hamstring the economy, and lower other tax revenue. I don't think even Trump is dumb to think even a $1 trillion tax increase is good for the economy.
Concise and, from my bleacher seat, accurate summaries of the three musketeers. Vance is really the largest enigma in terms of who he really is and what he’d do if ascending the throne someday. For now, merely one of the boot licking troop. The tariff actions are the most stunningly stupid exercises no matter what theory supposedly applies. But we’re all gonna be richer for it according to our Dear Leader.
Peter Thiel is JD Vance's fairy godfather, one of the PayPal Mafia along with Musk.
My take on Trump and tariffs is slightly different. I have found too many people who don't understand tariffs in any sense except "protecting American industry". They don't believe tariffs are paid by Americans by way of the importers; they think foreigners (especially China) are subsidizing everything they send to us, so they can subsidize just a little more when they pay the import tariff. It is impossible to reason with them over this. It all comes down to protecting "Murica!" from them dirty furriners.
That is Trump's audience and his own belief, not because he has studied the matter, but because he, like the others, has not and sees no reason to listen to a bunch of academics, or even common sense such as the definition of "tariff" as an import tax. It's a trick from ivory tower elitists.
Given that people apparently believe that corporations pay income tax it is hardly surprising to me that they may think importers pay the tariffs.
And of course "free trade" (which I support) has never really happened in the real world. I would love for free trade exist in actuality. But in the Real World I am forced to inhabit, other countries (well, more-or-less industrialized ones anyway -- I don't know much about tariffs in Third World countries) tax imports from the US at much higher rates than the US taxes imports from them.
I used to ask my students, when you makes plans to go out on Saturday night, do you plan for every expenditues, including the taxes on your expenditures, or do you just decide on a more-or-less lump sum you're willing to pay for a probable good time?
Does anyone want to guess which answer was never, ever chosen even once?
Normal people don't think like economists, or accounts, or bookkeepers in their personal lives. Heck, I'll bet even economists, accountants, and bookkeepers mostly don't think that way in there personal lives.
Jorg, I think I am one of those people who believes that corporations (at least some) pay income tax. Is your statement a semantic one where you assert that it is the shareholders, employees, or consumers, who actually pay the taxes, or are you asserting that corporations don't actually pay income taxes? If the latter, could you explain why?
Just pointing out that corporate taxes are part of the cost of doing business and are therefore actually paid by whoever benefits from the business corporations do. Mostly the customers, of course, in the form of higher prices, but also employees through lower potential compensation, and shareholders through reduced earnings or reduced share prices. The corporation merely writes the check.
Tariffs work the same way and are paid by the same people.
I think there's confusion in Elon Musk's head between government efficiency and economic efficiency. He believes that his role should be to optimize the government, and for that he's using the same strategies he uses for his companies. But this is wrongheaded. His role should be to optimize economic efficiency, which comprises the government and society together, as the system under optimization. As you've told us, cutting down the size of a company can be a strategy for achieving company efficiency (Coase's firm); however, companies have to rely more often rather in increasing efficiency holding size constant. Due to scale, governments should rely more on the first strategy than the latter. More: it strikes me that for Musk's companies, due to his excellent management skills, the latter strategy is even more promising than the former for his own companies.
The US government needs economists, not businessmen. This appears to me to be so clearly the case with Musk, that it prompts a needs to re-examine Trump under the same lens.
Musk cannot be the one to deliver on optimizing economic efficiency, because really only the union of Congress and the president can do that (though the president can do some things in that regard on his own, I grant you).
You are suggesting boiling the ocean.
Making the government “more efficient” is surely a beneficial thing, do you not agree.
Whether or not it is the single thing you would focus on - or even in the top 10 - if you were king for a day.
Dear Mister Friedman, my name is Lucas Bretonnier, I am a French journalist. I sent you a direct message a few days ago here on your Substack "mailbox". Did you get it ? I would be glad to have a chat with you. Thank you. best regards. Lucas.
I didn't get it, would be happy to chat. My email is ddfr@daviddfriedman.com.
Yet another ignorant clown comment about Elon Musk. Suggest you learn about the man before you describe him and his activities as "small projects."
Taking the first steps to off-world humanity (within the next 10 years) to help guarantee its survival against the inevitable ELE (extinction level event) from asteroid or comet collision is not a small project. Driving solutions to the world's energy conversion from fossil fuels to solar (and batteries) is not a small project. Saving the world's premier liberal democratic economy from its devolution into a debt-ridden, bankrupt, kleptocratic and authoritarian hellhole is not a small project.
Do your due diligence next time, Mr. Friedman.
They were much smaller projects, organized many fewer people, used much less money, than revising the Federal government.
Saving the US is the project I was saying the others were small in comparison to.
I should rant a little more about the Green Raw Deal.
Markets handled the transition from wood to coal, and coal to oil, smoothly and efficiently. Markets exist whether you or governments like them or not; just as water always flows downhill, whether dams delay it or not, so markets always exist and work no matter how meddlers interfere.
The Green Raw Deal is working exactly as predicted from its meddlers forcing "solutions" before they are ready. You can tell its proponents are not serious in the way they reject nuclear power with fingers crossed and garlic at the ready.
Fission and fusion are good guesses for the long term replacement of oil and natural gas, but markets will determine that. Not Musk, not Hansen and Greta, not Michael Mann and his lawfare, not Trump or Biden or any other politician. They will meddle and interfere and obstruct and slow the transition and make it more expensive, but they will not control it.
Look outside and you'll see solar in action. It's all around you. Solar at scale doesn't work without batteries or their analogs. Markets, as you say, are to facilitate the exchanges of goods and services at prices representing their actual. I have no problem with any of that.
If the climate science is settled, why does it need billions and billions in more research?
If solar and wind are so wonderful and cheap, why do they need billions and billions in subsidies?
Solar and wind are as free as coal and oil. It's turning them into useful resources that takes money, and once you do that, solar and wind are much more expensive and need massive subsidies. Look at all the projects being canceled as the subsidies disappear. Remember Solyndra? $500 billion, I think it was. Germany just announced their 15-year old offshore wind farm is going to be shut down due to the subsidies running out.
Proponents like to point to installed capacity for the price (not cost) and say, "See how cheap it is per MW!", neglecting to mention both the subsidies and the fact that solar doesn't work at night and winds don't always blow, and they generate much less power than the installed rating. Coal and gas plants generally run for 80-90% of the time. Solar is probably under 1/3 just from natural daylight cycles, and my guess is wind is even worse, but I'm not interested in looking up the stats.
Those batteries you mention are environmental disasters, in mining, manufacturing, and maintaining. They alone would cost trillions to be practical backup in winter or even just during the night.
The plants have to be located where the sun and wind are, not where the customers are, and that requires more transmission lines, more inefficiency, more maintenance, more eminent domain.
" Remember Solyndra? $500 billion, I think it was."
The loss to the US government in its loan to Solyndra was $525 million, not billion.
Well, shoot, call me Biden for a moment. That's just one letter different :-) Now trillion, that would have been two letters, much more grave.
It is worth getting factual claims right if you want people to treat what you say as anything more than rhetoric.
Perhaps you ought to try some due diligence on the economics and reality of the Green Raw Deal.
The idea of saving humanity by putting at most a few thousand on a planet where they will be utterly dependent on the at-risk home planet for centuries to come needs a bit of thinking too.
That one man could divert the historical trend of bureaucratic government expansion into a useless and expensive blob is hardly realistic.
The Mars colony will be a real-(off)world lab for testing and improving the technology needed for people to exist in environments other than earth's. Small steps, yes, but we'll learn how to live, work, and play in a model of what micro-, then mini- terraforming can provide. Advances in solar utilization and storage will provide the basis for growing a small-scale version of our earth-sized solar machine: the plant world. Yeah, realization of dreams is a long way away, but science and its benefits to all humanity is built on the shoulders of giants. Elon Musk is one of those giants.
Expecting Starship and Mars money pits to have any effect on saving Earth from existential planetary doom threats is a pipe dream. I'm glad he's spending his money on it. But it will be hundreds of years before there's any realistic independent self-sufficient off-world colony, and Elon Musk won't speed it up by any noticeable amount. Chemical rockets are useless for that. You might as well claim the ancient Assyrians sped up the timetable too.
"Expecting Starship and Mars money pits to have any effect on saving Earth from existential planetary doom threats..."
Without suggesting that I think it a worthwhile investment (especially of taxpayer money), your phrasing shows a massive disconnect.
The claim is that it could save *humanity* from extinction, not "Earth".
Yes, another mistake. I'm pretty sure most people understand the meaning without needing to quibble.
It's a legitimate distinction. One argument for settling other planets is in case we cannot save Earth from doom.
Oh my, thanks for this. So given that history often rhymes, can we rhyme this with the Roman triumvirate? Trump the dealer is Crassus, Musk the doer is Pompey, which leaves Vance as Caesar... I'm not sure how well that rhymes.
So I formerly suffered from TDS. I'm now somewhat excited about this administration. (Mind you I pay no attention to the news, that's just too exhausting. Ignore what Trump says and only look at what he does.) The biggest corrupting influence I see in our country is all the money, money in pharma, money in the military, money in the food industry, in media, in banking and in our universities. And all this becomes a positive feedback loop when the money gets into our politics. We need to break that loop. In the past this would have been the work of the democratic party. The party of the workers. That's no longer true. And for the moment I'm placing my hope in the triumvirate, I just hope they don't sell us down the river.
My theory/speculation: Trump has decided that he will begin all negotiations with other nations by waving a big stick. For many nations, his preferred big stick is raising tariffs (or threatening to do so). So far, it seems to working fairly well.
Not speculation: Trump is talking about cutting income tax and raising money via tariffs instead. This is a very bad idea. (As someone who grew up on a Australian farm and followed international agripolitics, I think tariffs are rarely a good idea, and always bad in the long term.)
I just had a thought -- how much of Trump waving the tariff big stick is because it is one of the few weapons a President has such control over? Same with immigration. Congress has turned over a lot of their authority to the Presidency and seems devoid of interest in reclaiming it; much easier to whine than take responsibility.
I know Trump has praised tariffs before, but I don't know how serious he was, if it was just one of many things, or if people are cherry picking his past comments to find the tariff remarks.
What I believe is that he is focused on the art of the deal, of the big man making big decisions. No time for the details, that's what flunkies are for. Legislation? Plans? No time for that.
And tariffs as that big stick you mention fit that mentality very well.
Good point. Thanks.