They write these stories like this isn’t the result he is looking for. The point is to crash, not rebuild;

I'm noticing a slightly different pattern with these actions. I don't think trump and his cronies were actually seeking to hurt farmers, but something else.

1. hurt everyone temporary to see who screams.
2. Those that scream that are opponents, continue to deny them the government benefit
3. Those that are allies, extract concessions and/or pledges of fealty before returning the same benefit they had before.
4. For those that don't scream, or don't scream loud enough, simply pocket the benefit for himself and his own goals.

nothing the Trump administration is doing is geared to help, rebuild, or make America great.

Agreed.

And on the way down, connected rich people have already shorted select industries' stocks, then will buy in bigtime after the crash to profit on the long way back up.

The rich get richer.

EDIT: the way back up won't be so long, as theh recovery will be aided by big bailouts (or bail-ins) at the taxpayers' expense. So we'll get screwed not one, not two, but THREE ways.

Capital leverages instability to transfer wealth to itself from the working class.

Having control over the levers of chaos means that they can not only leverage instability whenever and however they want, they are also singularly able to predict when the chaos will subside. This increases their economic power exponentially.

That's basically what all the instability of the early 20th century was all about. On one end of the spectrum, you had communists and socialist looking at the old order and then reacting by destroying it all. On the other end of the political spectrum, you had the far right movements of the Nazis in Germany who saw the writing on the wall with the socialist wave moving in and instead wanted to create a counter movement to all the socially minded. The wealthy capitalists, millionaires, monarchs and historic aristocracy were more than willing to back the far right conservative movements who were willing to work with them than to let communists in who clearly just wanted to get rid of all the old wealthy class.

The same thing is happening all over again. Different playing field, new dynamics but still the same old ball game. Modern wealth can't work with the current system and they know things have to change so its better to back the far right than to let any kind of social democratic system take over. They'd rather destroy everything because they know that whoever is first to build whatever that remains will be the new kings and rulers of the future. Rather than accommodate and grow in any democratic system, they'd rather watch the world burn and then take over the masses who will crawl out of the ashes.

Destabilization is 100% the point. Create problems, sell solutions. Make the people reliant on the government for everything so they fully own and control you.

destabilize and rebuild

destroy and cash-out.

"May have thought" - that would be to strong for him. Thinking has never been his strong point. He reacts to what people around him tell him. He picks up ideas at random and turns them into executive orders.

The famous chess move: king's gambit. Sacrifice your king for victory. Wait a minute . . .

It's the normalization blues

If they didn't learn last go around, do we expect them to this time. I remember during his first term, his tarrifs made China reduce purchasing (I forgot which crop) from the US. Instead, they looked to other countries like Brazil. To combat the lost revenue to farmers, he created a fund to aid them.

But they just wanted to have someone to punch down on the trans, the brown people, and force everyone to go to their church, that's all!

... "government doesn't do anything for ME" as an actual thing you believe.

This happens because people take completely for granted all of the things government quietly does for them.

It's kind of the same as "Why do we even have an IT department? Everything works, what are they even doing?"

"Haw haw!"

I had some nutjob on a local group tell me that Trump has removed federal taxes as if I and everyone else can't clearly see that we're still paying the same federal taxes on my paystubs. I can't believe how brainwashed some people have become.

Also tangentially related but I filled out my tax return today and owe a lot more this year thanks to his bullshit 2018 tax bill that capped SALT deductions, removed the child tax credit, and only gave temporary cuts to people who aren't in the 1%. I can only imagine that his supporters are either retired, unemployed, or on social security to also not realize how much more he's forcing us to pay to the government.

Yeah, they couldn't possibly be cruel or incompetent, not them!

According to AOC this whole cutting nonsense is because they need to come up with up to 4 billion dollars to get the votes to pass their new tax reduction plan for the rich.

Dustbowl 2025, fuck yeah! Bringing back the classics!

(Farmers won't or can't spend money to plant -> too many fallow fields -> giant walls of airborne topsoil)

Basically all of foreign "giving" by America is done by purchasing American goods and giving them in exchange for goodwill, soft power, regional stability, favorable trade deals, or other political capital.

Many Americans don't understand any of that and think their tax money is going in the form of a check to people who don't care and don't give us anything in exchange. And it's not like this is a secret, it's just kinda gauche for the government to explicitly state it

That's the thing about how headlines mislead. When they say, "US sends $x in aide or weapons," what they really mean is that the US is subsidizing an American lobby group. Not to say that is bad thing, just that it gives the wrong impression.