Donald Trump takes the stage at a campaign rally on October 12, 2024 in Coachella, California.
(Mario Tama/Getty Images)
last week, New York Times columnist Paul Krugman warned about the invasion of crony capitalism in every corner of poisoned America. It’s easy to imagine companies pandering to Trump and the GOP to curry favor and be exempt from tariffs, economic centers indulging in pay-to-play deals (hosting conferences at Trump resorts, etc.), and corporations asking for immigration enforcement. withholding pay attention turn a blind eye to their group of undocumented workers.
And that’s not to mention the conflicts of interest involved in the placement of Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy — Abbott and Costello hurting federal employees (Who’s first? Nobody’s first, fool. We’ve cut that base. You can only play if you’re born at third base) — is in charge of deregulation and government budget-cutting efforts that this billionaire duo could profit handsomely from. Musk’s witness against extending a $7,500 federal loan on the purchase of electric vehicles, and his stated belief that eliminating that subsidy would hurt Tesla’s competition far more than it would hurt Tesla.
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In a normal political moment, such obvious conflicts of interest would not even be considered. But at this point, with the Justice Department about to be reined in, regulators soon to be neutered, and congressional oversight reduced to something between a joke and a prayer, no one is going to step up to block such self-service.
On the same day that Krugman’s column was published, news broke that one of Trump’s close aides, Boris Epstein, was is being investigated for a conversion scheme in which he demanded large “consulting fees” from potential administration nominees in exchange for promoting their candidacies to Trump. It would almost be funny if it weren’t so depressing.
Then, in the middle of the night, Trump announced on social media that on the first day of his presidency, in apparent defiance of the free trade agreement struck by his previous administration, he would impose 25 percent tariff on goods entering the United States from Canada and Mexico. This will no doubt spark a fight over exemptions, which are likely to involve backroom deals between individual companies and the Trump team—for if policies with global implications can be dictated, surely exceptions to those policies can also be dictated. And since the Supreme Court, in its infinite wisdom, preemptively granted Trump immunity for violating the law in any way that could even remotely be related to the president’s “official acts,” it’s not exactly a leap to see how easily favors could be directed the way of the Trump syndicate. as part of the boss’s “official actions” in negotiations on a new regime of international tariffs.
It’s all exhausting, and Inauguration Day is more than two months away. In addition to Trump’s absurd desire to return US economic policy to 18th-century mercantilism and bidding for high office, MAGA-man made cabinet nominations on Thanksgiving eve, indicating that large and critical parts of the US government are falling into what may be terminal dysfunction. These include the Department of Health and Human Services, which now looks set to cannibalize its own public health assets just as bird flu looms as the next pandemic threat –about one third California dairy farms are now reporting its presence among their herds, and the virus was recently found in raw milk sold in the state and the EPA, which will be sterilized once Trump pulls the U.S. out of the Paris climate change accords for a second time and when climate scientists believe that global temperature increases will soon reach a point of no return. We are approaching disaster here.
At the same time, the Trump team has made it clear that a massive attack on immigrant communities is their top priority and that they will rush into blue states and cities in an attempt to neutralize all opposition to the program. Arriving border king Toma Goman has pondered aloud of arresting Denver Mayor Mike Johnston if he does not allow his police to cooperate with these plans. If the Trump team succeeds in achieving these goals, they will cause massive economic disruption across the country, leaving states like California with agricultural economies desperately short of workers. Disruptions in the food supply chain will almost certainly lead to both shortages and price spikes.
An awful lot of people voted for Trump because they believed he was evil; they bought into the fantasy that he would magically lower food and gasoline prices, that he would somehow return the economy to pre-pandemic days, and overnight unravel the failures and complexities in all of our complex political and economic systems. However, there are already signs that instead of a return to good times, Trump’s second presidency will be extremely chaotic. Trump seems set to usher in an era of staggering government austerity for programs that benefit the poor and middle class. It should also be an era of skyrocketing inflation coupled with excessive tariffs and draconian immigration laws.
No part of the country will be immune from the devastating effects of this policy. While it’s tempting, living in California, to look at the train wreck and assume that the worst effects won’t be felt deep in the blue country, I’m not sure that’s the case. Yes, California’s safety net is strong, its environmental policies are second to none, its expanded health care system is close to universal coverage, its investment in health care, though too small, is better than many states, and its well-resourced Department of Justice is ready to go toe-to-toe with the feds in the coming years. But the state is also in Trump’s sights. He wants to get California’s independent politics right. He is determined to get rid of state waivers that allow it to develop its own environmental standards. And he intends to use the financial leverage of the federal government to punish California and its cities if and when they don’t cooperate with his extreme agenda, especially around massive immigration sweeps and deportations.
As if that wasn’t already clear enough, at the end of last month Marjorie Taylor Green– Who will come in January a mouthfulto chair the House Oversight Committee on Government Efficiency – went on Fox News to say she wants to use congressional powers to collect federal money owed to states and cities that follow sanctuary policies.
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As strong as California’s safety system is, it still needs federal dollars. If the Trump administration tries to withhold Medicaid dollars from California, for example, the state will certainly sue and almost certainly win. But in the meantime, programs that rely on the certainty that dollars will continue to flow from D.C. to the states will be severely damaged.
And even if Trump isn’t specifically targeting California in this way, Project 2025 is the goal massive cuts to Medicaid by turning it into a block grant program, California could find itself in the unenviable position of either allowing millions of its residents to disappear from Medi-Cal rolls or collecting huge amounts of additional state tax revenue to offset the federal deficit. currently, 70 percent California’s Medi-Cal budget comes from the feds. Those tens of billions of dollars would be nearly impossible to recover simply by tweaking the state’s tax code or budget process.
The same applies to massive cuts to SNAP what Project 2025 and the incoming administration envisions. Whether or not California is subject to specific targeting and fines from the Trump administration, across-the-board cuts to the program, which currently serving more than 5 million Californians will devastate low-income families in this high-cost-of-living state.
By the way, no matter what part of the country you live in, it won’t be an easy trip. The country is approaching the period of gangster rule; it will be partly corrupt, partly clownish and partly authoritarian, and states that try to fight back will likely be governed by punitive or simply financially and economically destructive policies.
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