Epitaph for Trump II – Fat Tail Daily | Term Deposits

‘Maybe it’s time to start an obituary for MAGA.’

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—Dan Denning

‘To sum it up, gentlemen… we’re in deep sh*t.’

—General Hentz in ‘Stalingrad’

Today we ‘jump the gun.’ The race hasn’t even been introduced.

We’re speaking in regards to the sprint to write down an obituary for Trump II, Donald Trump’s second go-spherical within the White House.

It is, of course, far too early to cross judgement. More than three-and-a-half years are left for this administration. A eulogy can be reckless and untimely. An applicable epitaph may be like praising the Titanic earlier than its encounter with the iceberg…or writing a historical past of the Lincoln presidency, earlier than his go to to Ford’s Theater.

But we’ll take a shot at it anyway. A presidency is usually outlined by its ‘first 100 days.’ Those are over. What’s more, it is vitally doubtless that Republicans will lose their slim majorities within the House and/or the Senate within the midterms (analysis exhibits that the occasion holding the Presidency has misplaced control of the House six occasions in American historical past within the mid-time period election…however the final 3 times have been in 2010, 2018, and 2022). From the National News Desk:

In the House, Republicans presently maintain 220 of the 435 seats. That means in the event that they lose simply three seats, Democrats might reclaim the bulk with 218. The Senate image is barely more sophisticated: Republicans have a 53–47 edge, however 35 seats are up for grabs in 2026, together with two particular elections in Florida and Ohio. For Democrats to flip the Senate, they’d need a internet gain of 4 seats.

If Republicans lose control of Congress, they’d be unable to behave on any new initiatives…if that they had any.

So dangle the black crepe…sing the unhappy songs…and light-weight a candle. Trump II is lifeless.

The actual hope of Trump II, like Germany’s assault on the Soviet Union in 1941, took the form of a three-pronged assault. But as within the Third Reich’s ‘Barbarossa’ strategy, one thrust proved futile, one other was suicidal, and the third…the one that actually mattered… struck on the coronary heart of the system, however lacked the help it needed to succeed.

There was additionally the climate; however who might have foreseen that?

And whereas WWII nonetheless had almost two and a half years to run, the top was clearly in sight after the US declared warfare on Germany in 1941 and General Paulus surrendered at Stalingrad in 1943. A nicely-written death discover might need helped the Germans deliver the warfare to a close then, and prevented hundreds of thousands of pointless casualties.

So, on the risk of being manner too early…and flawed…allow us to have a look at right now’s battlefield… in Washington, DC.

Amid a lot distraction — deporting immigrants and de-woking the society — Trump’s first severe assault was launched in opposition to ‘waste, fraud, and inefficiency’ and headed up by Elon Musk. Field Marshal Musk had already confirmed to be an virtually invincible commander. In space, or deep underground…on the web…or on the freeway — Elon was unbeatable…arguably probably the most profitable human being who ever lived. If he couldn’t determine waste, fraud and inefficiency, no person might.

At first, his blitzkrieg rolled alongside properly…sending the bureaucrats fleeing in riotous retreat. One company was focused…then one other. Thousands of federal hacks have been pressured to put down their laptops and switch of their security badges.

The DOGE effort, headed by Musk, would discover financial savings of $2 trillion — it was promised — enough to eradicate the whole federal debt. Musk later confessed that that determine was ‘aspirational.’ One trillion was the new goal. And lastly, when Musk gave up his command, two weeks in the past, his web site confirmed $170 billion in financial savings, of which solely $70 billion was considered real.

Still, many taxpayers held out hope of a ‘DOGE Dividend,’ by which they’d share some of the financial savings. Few seen that distributing the financial savings would defeat the aim. No ‘savings’ in any respect can be left within the fingers of the federal authorities…and no discount in deficit or debt can be potential.

Like the northern prong of the German assault on the Soviet Union, Musk’s assault went nowhere. German forces arrived at St. Petersburg — aka Leningrad — in August 1941, and will go no additional. The Wehrmacht tried to starve town into give up…tied down 750,000 of its own troops, together with innumerable tanks, weapons, plane, vehicles, and fuel…and failed.

And so did DOGE fail too. Begun with great fanfare and high hopes in January, by Memorial Day Musk was out of uniforms…and DOGE was, successfully, out of business.

And on May twenty second a federal decide ruled that the entire marketing campaign strategy was flawed from the get-go. USA Today:

A federal decide on Thursday mentioned President Donald Trump’s administration can not restructure and downsize the U.S. authorities with out the consent of Congress and that she would doubtless prolong her ruling blocking federal businesses from implementing mass layoffs. U.S. District Judge Susan Illston during a listening to in San Francisco agreed with a group of unions, nonprofits and municipalities that layoffs that started final month are doubtless unlawful and would trigger widespread hurt to the public.

Die-hard Trump followers don’t wish to hear that their champion has failed.

But formidable empires at all times decline. And they accomplish that, typically, with a mixture of over-spending… and overextending themselves militarily. Those dangers, and their penalties, have been well-known for a minimum of 2,000 years.

And whereas Trump made headway in scouring the woke bias out of the federal authorities, universities, the media, and elsewhere… the deeper challenges have been ignored and allowed to worsen.

Today, we’ve seen how the Wehrmacht’s assault to the north bumped into a brick wall — actually — at Leningrad. Tomorrow, we’ll see how the thrust southward suffered a a lot worse setback. The German high command made the very silly choice to ship more than a million troops — German, Italian, Romanian and Hungarian — into the battle for Stalingrad. Only about half of them survived.

We’ll take a look, too, at Donald Trump’s second main line of assault — a exceptional assault on the entire construction of worldwide trade and world prosperity.

Wait…on Friday morning got here yet one more frontal assault!

Stay tuned.

Regards,

Bill Bonner,
For The Daily Reckoning Australia