this post was submitted on 08 Apr 2025
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United States | News & Politics

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Sen. Chris Murphy explains how the goal of Trump's tariffs has nothing to do with the economy—it is about forcing businesses into loyalty (feddit.org)
submitted 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago) by Novocirab@feddit.org to c/usa@midwest.social
5 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

Here you can also watch video of Murphy giving essentially the same points (may require a BlueSky account): https://bsky.app/profile/oknotle.bsky.social/post/3llxgvgztjk2u

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[–] justOnePersistentKbinPlease@fedia.io 9 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

Just for everyone, the dear senator is doing some historical revisionism that needs correcting.

The guy is completely wrong about number 4. The king did not levy taxes on the colonists to oppress them.

After the seven years war, both England and France were functionally broke. The taxes added after the war were added for two reasons:

  1. Get the colonists to pay for their part of the war.
  2. A new tax that would incidentally track and identify people who were committing loan fraud on British banks. This was a very common enrichment method of the upper class of the colonies, and includes most of the founding fathers of the US.
[–] Novocirab@feddit.org 2 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

Thanks, this is the first time I hear of this.

[–] justOnePersistentKbinPlease@fedia.io 1 points 3 weeks ago

I highly recommend Crucible of War by Fred Anderson.

[–] Today@lemmy.world 6 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

And showing the world that he can control their markets and no one will stop him.

[–] Amoxtli 1 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago)

Trump's view on the economy is pretty common among his supporters. Cowboy democracy allows such people into power, wielding a high degree of power in this case. The executive needs to be neutered to minimize the flaws of Western democracy.

Donald Trump shows that Western democracy is not this great, fantastic system that produces automatic stability and prosperity. Voters typically support a candidate based on how well they match their own beliefs, not whether if they are good solving problems, or they have an expertise for any particular subjects. Mainstream American politicians know this all too well, but they play the system, such as pretending to be communist to get votes. Western democracy is anti-meritocratic. Whatever stability Westerners attribute to democracy has little or nothing to do with democracy.