The Sunday Subject: April 6, 2025
Week eleven: Trump Tariffs Put Economy Into Freefall; Massive Protests In Buffalo and Nationwide
Buffalo United March Just One of Series of Protests Nationwide
Millions of Americans in over 1200 demonstrations around the country gathered to protest convicted felon Donald Trump and unelected campaign donor Elon Musk’s unconstitutional dismantling of federal agencies, unconstitutional cuts to funding approved by Congress, and mass firings of critical government employees. Here in Buffalo, crowds spilled out of Niagara Square for blocks in every direction, and people held signs decrying Musk and Trump and supporting education, labor, immigrant rights, LGBTQ rights, Social Security, Medicare, and other bedrock American institutions and values that have come under attack since the man who tried to overturn the 2020 election returned to power.
Stock Market Collapses In Response to Trump Tariffs
Wall Street lost $6 trillion in the two days since convicted felon Donald Trump announced massive tarrifs on virtually every country on Earth, reports The Wall Street Journal, in the worst week of trading since the beginning of the Covid pandemic. Trump campaigned on massive tariffs, made it very clear he did not understand how tariffs work, and spent the first two months of his turn announcing and then abruptly cancelling tariffs with our closest trading partners. After those false starts, he launched an all-out trade war, with some tariffs as high as 54%, and foreign trading partners rushing to pass reciprocal tariffs on US goods.
Because of the US economy’s dependence on cheap goods from other countries, the expected result is higher grocery prices and rising inflation — both things Trump campaigned on reducing — as well as weakening the dollar, and damaging America’s relationship with once-reliable trading partners around the world. Business Insider predicted the tariffs would cost the average American $3,800 this year alone, and Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman bluntly asked, “Will Malignant Stupidity Kill the World Economy?“, pointing out to his readers that Trump’s tariffs are larger than 1930’s Smoot-Hawley Tariff, widely blamed for causing the Great Depression.
Fortune reports that this blow to the incredibly complex global economy was based around an incredibly simple formula that didn’t take into account any country’s trade policy or which goods from which countries US companies depend on. The billionaires who helped put Trump into power, including Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, and Elon Musk, each lost massive amounts of money this week, and it’s an open question how long the would-be oligarchs will continue to support someone who’s costing them so much money.
Republicans have already began to revolt, as Texas Senator Ted Cruz predicted Trump’s trade war, “would destroy jobs,” and warned of a “bloodbath” for Republicans in the next Congressional elections. Congressional Republicans have already broken ranks to reverse Trump’s earlier tariffs against Canada; it’s possible Congress could still act to reverse the current wave of tariffs and minimize some of the economic fallout.
Cory Booker Makes Record-Breaking 25-Hour Speech To Senate
New Jersey Senator Cory Booker broke the record for the longest speech in Congressional history, airing a long list of complaints about the Trump administrations “reckless actions” and assaults on Americans’ rights and livelihoods. Booker read letters from constituents worried about dying without Medicaid or being peniless without Social Security — both programs Elon Musk and Republicans in Congress have promised to make severe cuts to (and whose recipients have been paying into those programs their entire lives with the reasonable expectation of receiving benefits when needed.) He also called out Trump’s assaults on education, immigrants, the nation’s farmers, and much more.
Senator Booker also made an impassioned plea to his fellow Americans. “I’m begging people: Don’t let this be another normal day in America,” and invoked his mentor, long-serving Congressman and civil rights hero John Lewis, saying, “This is a moral moment… Let’s get in good trouble.”
Booker’s speech broke the previous record held by white supremacist South Carolina Senator Strom Thurmond, who mounted a 24-hour filibuster to attempt to present a 1957 civil rights bill. (The bill still passed.) But while Thurmond filled the hours by reading from the dictionary, simply attempting to stall the business of the Senate, Booker remained emotional from beginning to end.