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TNR / Greg Sargent: Trump's Own Aides Keep Him in State of Delusion About Tariff Fiasco
TNR / Greg Sargent - (archived: https://archive.ph/SyfE9 ) Trump’s Own Aides Keep Him in State of Delusion About Tariff Fiasco
His inner circle is telling him that working-class voters are with him. In the real world, all the tariff chaos gives Democrats an opening to try to crack his vaunted coalition.
Greg Sargent
April 10, 2025
President Trump’s top allies and advisers know that when the going gets tough, the way to keep Trump from flying entirely off the rails is to slather him with unctuous flattery. “Everybody in Washington, whether they want to admit it or not, knows that this president is right when it comes to tariffs,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt lied on Tuesday, plainly intending to calm the Audience of One, who has been raging lately about the domestic and global backlash to his tariff fiasco.
Now this approach to managing Trump has apparently spilled over into misleading him about public opinion on the tariffs as well. Politico reports that Trump’s inner circle “feels strongly that levying tariffs was a promise made to working-class voters, and that they’re delivering.”
The basis for this, relates Politico, is private polling that “shows the tariff strategy is playing well among working-class voters who agree with Trump that other nations have taken advantage of the U.S.”
But is it really true that working-class voters agree with Trump on this? Not according to a good deal of public polling. Indeed, public polls actually suggest that Trump’s tariffs threaten to alienate such voters—in a way that provides Democrats an opening to fracture the working-class coalition that elected Trump in 2024.
Trump has now temporarily paused some tariffs, but a universal 10 percent tariff is still in place, and he’s jacked up tariffs on China further, locking us in an intensifying trade war. In 90 days—or, who knows, nine—Trump could flip-flop yet again. The politics of this will get worse, including with working-class voters.
/snip
His inner circle is telling him that working-class voters are with him. In the real world, all the tariff chaos gives Democrats an opening to try to crack his vaunted coalition.
Greg Sargent
April 10, 2025
President Trump’s top allies and advisers know that when the going gets tough, the way to keep Trump from flying entirely off the rails is to slather him with unctuous flattery. “Everybody in Washington, whether they want to admit it or not, knows that this president is right when it comes to tariffs,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt lied on Tuesday, plainly intending to calm the Audience of One, who has been raging lately about the domestic and global backlash to his tariff fiasco.
Now this approach to managing Trump has apparently spilled over into misleading him about public opinion on the tariffs as well. Politico reports that Trump’s inner circle “feels strongly that levying tariffs was a promise made to working-class voters, and that they’re delivering.”
The basis for this, relates Politico, is private polling that “shows the tariff strategy is playing well among working-class voters who agree with Trump that other nations have taken advantage of the U.S.”
But is it really true that working-class voters agree with Trump on this? Not according to a good deal of public polling. Indeed, public polls actually suggest that Trump’s tariffs threaten to alienate such voters—in a way that provides Democrats an opening to fracture the working-class coalition that elected Trump in 2024.
Trump has now temporarily paused some tariffs, but a universal 10 percent tariff is still in place, and he’s jacked up tariffs on China further, locking us in an intensifying trade war. In 90 days—or, who knows, nine—Trump could flip-flop yet again. The politics of this will get worse, including with working-class voters.
/snip
2 replies
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