THE DEEPER DIVE: Mega MAGA Meltdown

So many stories about Trump v. MAGA and MAGA v MAGA broke out this week that it is hard to know where to begin and how to organize it all.

Some rifts opened; others widened significantly, as separation between Trump and several of his biggest MAGA supporters expanded to levels that were referred to by one supporter as a complete divorce. Social media grew red with the anger, if not blood, in a battle of MAGA v. MAGA because of Trump’s twist and turns and a sense many supporters are getting of betrayal and failure to deliver on the economy.

When I asked this week for readers to direct where I should go with my weekend Deeper Dive, here was the first request that came in:

I am thinking about lost confidence in Trump, USA, US Treas and especially our dollar. Gold and silver are in sync with this lost confidence but not the NASDAQ that I understand is now approx 40% owned by foreigners. I would expect ABUSA (anything but USA) on the part of foreigners. Why are they sticking with us?

Given the deluge of news this week about lost confidence in Trump, I’m going to focus on that part, but then come at the end to what it might all come to mean for the economy as well as what the economy has to do with creating some it. Actually, lost confidence in stocks and particularly the NASDAQ were an equally large story this week to lost confidence in Trump. The stock market experienced its own broad and deep meltdown, but I’ve already covered that fairly extensively.

You can see in this chart that the NASDAQ has been on a continuous meltdown of its own for the entire past month, losing almost 10% of its value:

MarketWatch

Trump has often gauged his economic success by the stock market, so if we used his own rule, we’d have to say things are not going well in Trump’s economy; but, as I say, let’s come back to the economy and focus first on the serious loss of confidence in Trump by his own supporters.

How rape tore the Trump house apart

Epstein Island became the hill Trump decided to die on. It became the place where Trump v MAGA really lit on fire. The Epstein Files, in fact, became Trump v. nearly all of America. No one but the rich pedophiles who played on Epstein Island (and Epstein’s mansion and any other places Epstein haunted) is left on Trump’s side on this one. All but but a solitary congressman turned against him.

All of America is seething over the years of stonewalling that came to an obvious head under Trump when he chose to oppose even his own supporters as they demanded help for all the young women who say they were raped. The lies told to keep the cover up became intolerable to MAGA supporters who once listened to Trump, Bondi, Patel and Bongino all say the files must be disclosed … until they took office.

Politically, the right side to take on this one is clear to everyone, and legally it could easily have been done in a way that didn’t prejudice the outcome of any future trials, as it is not necessary to hide matters entirely in order to avoid prejudicing them. Names of victims and “alleged” offenders are always released in cases that go to court. (Nor did Trump ever state “prejudice” in trials was one of the concerns that justify his stalling; rather, he had his team declare there were no trials to bring! Outrageous in everyone’s view (except the pedophiles)!

Before you think I’m overstating things by saying this is the hill Trump chose to die on, given how Trump appeared to completely come around in the past week on this matter by telling congress they should vote to release the files, consider the fact that the ONLY thing preventing the release of all those files all along was Trump. (He can even, as he has said many times, declassify anything he wants to declassify.)

The non-partisan bill in congress to divulge all Epstein files was nothing more than a demand that Trump’s DoJ release the files they were choosing to hide. So, if Trump was sincere about wanting those files released, he wouldn’t have told congress to pass the vote and then he would sign it; he would have simply done the easiest thing of all and order his AG at the DoJ to release all of the files.

That was ALWAYS the only thing necessary. So, the vote in congress by almost an absolutely unanimous Republican faction (all but the one idiot) was a massive repudiation of the president’s position on a matter the entire nation finds deeply offensive. The obviously smart political move here would have been to avoid that disgrace, which leaves me to wonder why Trump didn’t get ahead of the inevitable by doing exactly that and, at least, pretending he was taking the lead.

Clearly, he still intends to find ways to hold back the files, such as having AG Bondi argue there are cases pending in court—a limited case or two that his DoJ only just began (against only Democrats he hates, of course) in order to make that kind of claim. In fact, Republicans clearly see that move coming because numerous Republicans became very vocal this week in trying to head it off at the pass by saying, “You had better not even try such a move.”

I can only think Trump has many rich people he is protecting with his stonewalling (if he’s not protecting himself) and doesn’t want to be seen by his billionaire cronies as the one who made the move to take those long-time friends and patrons of Mar-a-Lago and other Trump properties down. With a vote from congress, he can tell them all at dinner in Mar-a-Lago that clearly it was ripped out of his hands. Congress did it.

Why else would he make this the hill he’s chosen to potentially die on, rather than make himself the champion of the women and all those who care about them, given the massive MAGA fallout that has developed over over the months in which he and his DoJ (obviously under his orders) stonewalled release of the details about all the statutory rape that happened in Epstein’s trafficking operation? (Why else unless he’s also guilty of statutory rape, but no such allegations have been made by any of the women.)

Team Trump has claimed protection of the women as their reason for withholding the files, but that is beyond stupid as an excuse—an insult to every man and woman’s intelligence in America—because so many victims have been the ones demanding he release all the information for months now! (I’m open for suggestions of other explanations as to why else he would take the fall as he has, for clearly this has been the largest wedge of all between Trump and his MAGA family.)

Why protect rapists when they have so many victims willing to testify against them who are making a huge public uproar against Trump (as well they should)? Why not show himself to be their strong supporter? Why not interview ALL of the victims to create a list of alled perpetrators to go after when that is exactly what the FBI always does to start building such cases, given that the victims are begging Trump on public television again and again to have the DoJ depose them? The Trump team act as if they need a ready-made list handed to them by the late Epstein, or they can go no further, as if such lists ever exist. It’s beyond being an obvious stall.

Constantly taking the wrong stand on something that is so obviously riling all of America has become the biggest most tone-deaf cause of division between Trump and MTG and a number of other megaphonic MAGA voices.

The great Greene divorce

I will lead off with the biggest split—a very public divorce between Trump and Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, who used the language of divorce this week to describe it. She split from Trump so spectacularly as to resign from office, saying she is not about to drag the MAGA family through the destruction of her divorce, believing solidly as she does that Trump has ruined things for the family to a level where she is certain the next election will slaughter the Republican majorities in both her House and the Senate.

MTG has been, in the view of many, one of Trump’s longest and strongest supporters until the sexual violations of the Epstein Files damaged the marriage, resulting in one of the most ruinous defeats for a president in congress of all time.

I’ll start with a summary of MTG’s words on the final split-up.

Americans are used by the Political Industrial Complex of both Political Parties, election cycle after election cycle, in order to elect whichever side can convince Americans to hate the other side more.

And the results are always the same. No matter which way the political pendulum swings, Republican or Democrat, nothing ever gets better for the common American man or woman….

I have fought harder than almost any other elected Republican to elect Donald Trump and Republicans to power, traveling the country for years, spending millions of my own money, missing precious time with my family that I can never get back, and showing up in places like outside the New York Courthouse in Collect Pond Park against a raging leftist mob….

And I will never forget the day I had to leave my mother’s side as my father had brain surgery to remove cancerous tumors in order to fly to Washington DC to defend President Trump and vote NO against the Democrat’s second impeachment in 2021….

Through it all, I never changed or went back on my campaign promises and only disagreed in a few areas like my stance against H1Bs replacing American jobs, Al state moratoriums, debt for life 50 year mortgage scams, standing strongly against all involvement in foreign wars, and demanding the release of the Epstein files. Other than that my voting record has been solidly with my party and the President….

Loyalty should be a two way street and we should be able to vote our conscience and represent our district’s interest because our job title is literally, “Representative….”

Standing up for American women who were raped at 14, trafficked and used by rich powerful men, should not result in me being called a traitor and threatened by the President of the United States, whom I fought for….

I have too much self respect and dignity, love my family way too much, and do not want my sweet district to have to endure a hurtful and hateful primary against me by the President we all fought for, only to fight and win my election while Republicans will likely lose the midterms. And in turn, be expected to defend the President against impeachment after he hatefully dumped tens of millions of dollars against me and tried to destroy me.

It’s all so absurd and completely unserious. I refuse to be a “battered wife” hoping it all goes away and gets better. [The part where she alludes to all of this in terms of a divorce.]

If I am cast aside by MAGA Inc and replaced by Neocons, Big Pharma, Big Tech, Military Industrial War Complex, foreign leaders, and the elite donor class that can’t even relate to real Americans, then many common Americans have been cast aside and replaced as well.

There is no “plan to save the world” or insane 4D chess game being played.

[Says the one who once promoted QAnon conspiracy theories about Trump’s odd moves being 4D chess to capture the Reptilians who fill the halls of congress disguised as people like the Clintons as was explained to me by a major QAnon publisher.]

I find it hard to be sympathetic to MTG, as she says both parties work to create hatred between Americans, given that she has done more than most to stir hatred with her own arrogant responses and name-calling against her political adversaries at nearly every turn. She complains that Washington never accepted her, but her constant brash manner may have had more to do with that than her ideology. People rarely like anyone who comports themselves that way, even if they wear a cross to look like one of the nice ones as she does in her video resignation.

It’s clear also that her kind of divisiveness is Trump’s kind of divisiveness; so they were a match made in hell. That new low norm set for American politics has pervaded throughout congress, but especially in people like Greene, and it has done so because it has been sanctioned by President Trump multiple times a day. It is no surprise that the language of hate and spite is now turning on itself because that kind of thing always will in the end. It is destroying itself … legitimately.

Nevertheless, Trump’s response to the public resignation of his former champion MAGA-hat-wearing advocate was a pathetic:

I think it’s great news for the country. It’s great.

So, you can strongly support him for years with enormous effort (knowing, of course, that hitching your own wagon to his, as Greene did when she rode into office, was a pathway to political success), yet stand against something as basically wrong as protecting rich pedophiles, and Trump will absolutely destroy you in a heartbeat for taking that stand against him and say, like many a divorcee has done, that your filing of divorce against him is great news—good riddance. Thus, the two arm-in-arm candidates have gone from literal hugs and kisses to good riddance.

One of the other things on which MTG stood strong against Trump and her fellow Republicans was their shutdown of the government over Obamacare. As she pointed out elsewhere in her long resignation letter, Republicans could have stayed on the job and actually governed by devoting the entire shutdown to finally coming up with the replacement plan for Obamacare, which Trump 1.0 promised would be “easy, so easy” and a “great plan, the best plan ever.” Yet, in all these years—a wasted decade—the Republicans and Trump have never come up with ANY plan whatsoever to replace Obamacare entirely that would be more affordable for all Americans and provide better insurance.

(Note: I don’t like Obamacare because it provides far worse insurance than the plan Obama promised I would be able to keep, yet lost entirely due to Obamacare; and it is so much more expensive for my employer. However, the reason the Republicans failed to “repeal and replace” Obamacare, as they and Trump always promised they would do during his campaign for Trump 1.0, is that EVERYONE knew they had no plan of their own and could see they were clearly incapable of governing in a manner that would ever result in a plan. The proof is that they NEVER DID. I want Obamacare repealed, but ONLY when they clearly have a better plan for everyone.)

Loomering evidence of how deep the meltdown runs

Trump’s second-strongest female MAGA supporter is the megaphonic Laura Loomer, who has become the arch nemesis of MTG. The two have often gone at it like a jealous wife and the other woman. Loomer was quick this past week to claim victory in a one-word cheap shot by indicating MTG’s resignation was due to her.

X

Loomer took last week’s divorce as opportunity to sling some arrows upon her rival by ramping up their longtime acrimony toward each other:

Concluding that MTG’s resignation is timed to create maximum impact for the Republicans, Loomer laid into her online opponent in a series of messages following the news.

“She will probably get a deal with CNN or MSDNC to s--t talk Trump all day throughout the midterms,” Loomer wrote. “She wants the Democrats to win. How much was she paid? That’s what I want to know.” (MSN)

That is a disingenuous claim because Loomer has, herself, been claiming that Republicans are setting themselves up to lose the election. In fact, she even alluded to her own claims along those lines in her criticism of MTG:

“She knows she can’t win. She’s doesn’t want to be in the House when the GOP loses the House in 2026, and she knows she can’t survive a primary in 2026.”

Loomer own claims about the next election were particularly against Republicans, rather than Trump. However, the things she criticizes are entirely due to the fact I mentioned above about Trump bringing the worst people out of the woodwork by giving their behavior political legitimacy via his own and by his personal embrace of many of them:

The far-right conspiracy theorist-turned-Trump whisperer warned Republicans of an impending blue wave if the party fails to address what she described as its “Nazi problem.”

Loomer, 32, cited “Gen Z glorifying Hitler and doing Seig Hiels all over TikTok” and former Fox News host Tucker Carlson suggesting that “people who killed Jesus killed Charlie Kirk” as examples of antisemitism among conservatives.

“I hope the GOP is ready to lose the midterms in a landslide and have President Gavin Newsom,” she wrote in an X post on Tuesday. “The GOP won’t address it, so they have nobody to blame but themselves when they lose.”

Trump is the one who has been at the center of embracing groups like Neo-Nazis to get their additional votes (if not because he also likes Hitler whom he has repeatedly praised). Presidential approval has given those groups political standing in American politics where before they were largely ignored by candidates. As we even see below, Trump openly embraces (with a smile!) being called a “fascist” by a communist, whom he suddenly seems to love.

Loomer truly got into it like a high-school competitor for some boy’s attention:

“I hate when women pretend like they are done so you will chase them and beg them to stay. It’s such female behavior,” she wrote. (MSN)

Maybe it is typical female behavior for Loomer. Petty high-school jealousy perhaps:

The host of the online show Loomer Unleashed has previously bragged about having a direct line to the White House, with at least 16 officials removed after failing her “loyalty tests.”

However, the White House has tried to distance itself from the so-called “Trump whisperer,” saying “her influence is vastly overrated.”

Loomer has been having plenty of her own spats with Trump or, at least, with his White House, claiming they are going to cause the Republicans to lose the next election. (See: “Trump’s Biggest Ally Turns on Him Over Shocking Move:”)

“I am not voting in 2026 and won’t be able to encourage others to vote either,” Laura Loomer said….

Far-right influencer and informal Trump adviser Laura Loomer blasted the Trump administration on Friday for gifting Qatar an air force base in Idaho.

“Does this mean the call to prayer will be broadcasted in Idaho 5 times a day?” she asked sarcastically on X.

Perhaps Loomer feels like the underdog in the former contentious battle with MTG for Trump’s top attention because of her obviously failed plastic surgeries.

The List

Yikes!

Still, this was not the only time Loomer took a stand against her man, though oddly she slammed MTG for speaking in favor of release of the Epstein Files. (One wonders how anyone can take that position.) She has taken several positions against Trump, herself lately, saying she has been “super pissed off” by some of the president’s decisions:

• Trump hosting Syrian President Ahmed Hussein al-Sharaa.

• “I hate the fact that the Emir of Qatar is flying around on Air Force One when he belongs in GITMO.”

• His support of H1B visas to take American jobs.

For some reason, she found all of this as reason enough to need to declare that “MAGA is not dead.”

Other MAGAphonic voices speak out

The cascading confidence in Trump goes much deeper than these two rivals, making it particularly salient for this weekend’s Deeper Dive.

Even Nick Fuentes, once a Trump supporter who was invited to Mar-a-Lago and lauded by Trump, says,

Marjorie Greene was forced out of Congress by Donald Trump for criticizing Israel and voting to release the Epstein Files.

In other words, Trump destroyed his biggest loyalist for putting America First.

This is why I didn’t vote. MAGA is dead.

It may be that Loomer’s claim that “MAGA is not dead” was an answer to Fuentes’s claim that it is. Either way, the fact that megaMAGA voices are arguing about whether the movement is dead while the Greene Queen has divorced Trump quite publicly, is indication of much more than just a little trouble,

MAGA’s discontent doesn’t stop there.

Morgan Ariel, a Christian cultural commentator, shared a photo compilation of several people posting “MAGA is dead” on X: “This is ridiculous. Nobody is paying me. After Trump stabbed his entire base in the back yesterday with his push for H-1B visas, his continual gaslighting over the Epstein files and his obsession with pandering to Israel it’s evident that everybody is thinking the same thing. What even is MAGA at this point? It’s over.”

Joel Webbon of Right Response Ministries said in a Thursday X post: “Nothing but memes and vibes from the Trump admin. Zero action. MAGA is dead. America First will replace them.” (Newsweek)

Conservative journalist Jonah Goldberg doesn’t see his social media activity as “some deep and profound philosophical mission.” But he’s getting “really tired of the bulls--t.”

He was referring to the current tempest in right-wing media which threatens to upend what has been one of the most effective tools of Republican politics, a juggernaut of Fox News, talk radio, podcasts, and websites like Breitbart….

Goldman’s [sic.] comments illustrate how media and political figures on the right have gone to war over Carlson’s kid-gloves treatment of Fuentes and the Jeffrey Epstein saga, a fracturing that includes The Daily Wire’s Ben Shapiro accusing Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of trying to sell a “knock-off” or “Temu version of MAGA.” These fissures may continue to grow as right-wing media personalities compete for audience share and try to shape the GOP ahead of 2028. (MSN)

When asked about the division Trump’s wide-ranging actions that offend many of his supporters these days are causing in major media, such as Fox, Goldberg said,

“There are a lot of people in right-wing media who I would just argue are not conservative,” he said, adding that “burn-it-all-down populism is definitionally not conservative.” And in the “right-wing influencer sphere,” as he dubbed it, “things are a hot mess.”

He was referring to other battles lately that have centered around Tuckered Carlson, as I call him, particularly after Carlson’s friendly soft-ball interview with Nick Fuentes with whom he seems to find common cause. Goldberg worked with Carlson at Fox and resigned from Fox in response to Carlson’s conspiratorial Jan. 6 special on Fox Nation. Ben Shapiro from The Daily Wire has also been very critical of Carlson. The point is that sharp divisions are growing among the media that have generally been Trump’s major support.

Howard Polskin, who tracks right-wing media coverage on TheRighting, told TheWrap he’s observed “a vibe shift” in terms of more critical coverage of Trump in conservative precincts of the internet.

Trump has weathered countless crises, and his power remains unmatched on the right. But there are signs that his grip on the party is loosening, evident in Republicans giving in on releasing files related [to] Epstein.

Young men flee Trump

It is not all about Epstein, though that has certainly driven the wedge in deep because it is a moral matter and legal matter of crystal clarity to many Amercans, and it’s not all about divisions among major Trump supporters or in the right-wing media that supports Trump either.

We can see how much deeper and broader the trouble is than all of the big voices by looking at some polls where the dying of MAGA support has grown astoundingly evident, partially over Epstein, but largely over the economy, which I said we’d get back to at the end.

An article in The Daily Mail, could be called The Daily Male today because it said that the “young men who crowned him king are fleeing.” Fuentes has been a social leader among the far-far-right males who lean toward Hitler but who have been encouraged into Trump’s fold by the king, himself.

The article points out that young men wearing MAGA hats were a big part of campaign rallies in the past but were thinning and getting less red faster than Trump’s hair during the last election.

In 2024 a stunning wave of enthusiasm for President Donald Trump among men in their 20s helped propel him to the White House. They were a key part of the MAGA coalition he built. But this time, many of them stayed home or, worse, switched sides.

And it could be a harbinger for Republicans, that whoever succeeds Trump will not be able to count on the ‘manosphere’ next time.

I am sure that a good part of the manosphere is greatly discontent over Trump’s refusal to stand up for the young women, though many seemed to be fine with his bragging about being able to grab certain parts of them with impunity if you are celebrity.

I would hope it is true that most men still feel standing up for young women who are being misused and abused is something any real man should always do. It used to be, but with the direction conservativism has taken under Trump in recent years, I am no longer sure that it is. I hope that is. I think it probably is, and maybe this movement of young men away from Trump and even away from Republicans who institutionally helped him cover by leaving the House and government closed for a long time is part of what has driven some away.

Just a year ago in the presidential race, Trump won male voters between the ages of 18 and 29 over Kamala Harris by a margin of 49 to 48 percent. The race for this demographic was largely won on the issue of the economy, according to pollsters.

It was an extraordinary 12-point shift from four years earlier, the biggest of any demographic group.

But in the Virginia governor race, Democrat Abigail Spanberger won young men by 17 points. In the New Jersey governor race, Democrat Mikie Sherrill did so by 14 points.

In New York, it was an avalanche as Zohran Mamdani won 67 percent of men under 30, compared to his rival Andrew Cuomo’s 26 percent. Only five percent voted Republican.

Those are liberal areas, but clearly something shifted in the demographics of those areas in a big way, whether it was over the Epstain on Trump and Republicans or their gross mismanagement of the economy—especially inflation—it is clear a huge shift away from Republicans has taken place in a short time.

It was a striking turnaround - which some Republicans argued only reflected the fact that Trump himself was not on the ballot.

That is their desperate hope in order to not look, ahead of the next election, like they are already the world’s biggest losers; but that is all it is. One would think that, if they are thrilled with how things are going, they would have fueled up with enthusiasm and some determination to drive the victory home and flush Democrats out. Instead, they almost all stayed home.

The decision of many young men in 2024 was to vote for Trump because they felt personally enthused by him.

However, other polling data shows a deeper concern for Republicans, revealing that the slump in the president’s own popularity among young men began almost immediately after he took office.

Eight months since his inauguration, the honeymoon looks to be over - and it is traceable largely to one issue: the cost of living.

This brings me to the economy and to the point of saying the loss of confidence in Trump is going to effect the economy by bringing more intense pressure to look at the real numbers that are affecting us all with high inflation. Clearly the vast majority, even among MAGA, are realizing at a gut level that, as I have been saying, inflation is a lot higher than the numbers the Trump government is feeding to us. They know what they are feeling in their own budget; they know what they are seeing in grocery and other retail stores, and they are no longer buying the government’s fake news, which has always tended to understate inflation anyway.

It’s just not selling anymore!

John Della Volpe, a pollster for SocialSphere and a renowned expert on youth in politics, conducts a monthly survey of independent young men, asking them whether Trump is making their lives better.

In February, shortly after Trump was sworn in, it stood at 50 percent approval and 34 percent disapproval.

However, by October, Trump’s numbers had fallen to 31 percent approval and 51 percent disapproval.

That represented a precipitous 36-point swing among young male independents in just nine months.

Key to their growing disillusion was the affordability crisis.

Trump wants Republicans to start talking more about how affordable everything IS. It’s not going to work. People who had been falling for that lie are now seeing through it. (I wish I could say that is because they are reading The Daily Doom where I have spent several years ranting against the lie—no less under Trump than under Biden when the Fed was claiming inflation was just “transitory.” Clearly, however, reading The Daily Doom is not the cause of this change. Reality is. And that is what I have always said will be the winning argument in the long run. Eventually reality cracks through delusions and lies. Eventually. It has just taken a very long time.)

People are done with fake talk, especially about how well the economy is doing and how prices are coming down. Trump is losing the lie … at least on two issues—inflation and the claim that there are no cases to be made from the Epstein Files. Almost no one is buying.

In Virginia and New Jersey, Spanberger and Sherill succeeded with young men by running on concrete economic issues - rent and grocery costs - rather than vague warnings about Trump being a threat to democracy, which featured heavily in 2024 Democratic campaigns.

I’ve always said, in agreement with others, that America votes its pocket book. Get on the wrong side of inflation, and you’ll almost always lose in American politics. PEOPLE HATE INFLATION. I've been saying that since the Fed was calling it nothing. I’ve been telling people who didn’t live through the seventies that, once inflation gets high enough, and it doesn’t have to be all that high, it becomes THE TOPIC OF POLITICS AND ECONOMICS. That is why I’ve harped on it so much. Politicians and central banks need to understand they HAVE to get inflation down. Don’t and you’re voted out of office.

‘For young men watching their rent climb while Trump governed like every other president they’d learned to distrust, that was enough to give Democrats another look,’ Della Volpe told the Daily Mail.

Of course, Democrats are not worth another look. Neither party is. The biggest part of what is wrong with America is party politics. Both parties have endless served themselves, and that includes particularly by talking up hatred however they can in order to try to divide America into two parties (by driving it away from the other party.) If either party had the answers, we wouldn’t have the problems. Both of them have had plenty of opportunity to control; but they have become too obsessed on destroying each other to save America.

Trump was a last-ditch hope for conservative Republicans. Now some are turning away from him; but what they will turn to is an unanswered question. Yes, some turned to Democrats. A huge mistake. Others are probably turning to nothing—just staying home.

‘Nine months later, their rent was still $2,500 for a shoebox, their friend was still living in someone’s spare room at 29. The job market was still brutal. The timeline to [financial] stability was still impossibly long.’

And the president is saying, “Let them eat cake.”

What the president has actually been doing is delivering endless rounds of shifting tariffs, claiming that tariffs don’t cause inflation, even as he lowered tariffs on some South American countries in order to reduce the extreme inflation on coffee, cocoa and bananas. Now, that’s insane! Lower your own tariffs to cut the bite out of inflation, while you keep claiming that tariffs do not impact inflation???

Sadly, what it has meant in New York is something we’ve seen in other countries where the status quo and the ruling elite failed—people turned to communism. Historically, that has been where and when communism prevailed. That ideology, too, has NEVER given a satisfactory result, but it convinces young minds that it will care more for the average worker than the ruling parties of overseers ever will.

The ruling parties establish the climate for a swing to communism, but communism has proven repeatedly that it fails to deliver any good economic results. Only to the extent that China has “liberalized” toward some embrace of capitalism has it finally begun to flourish …but only to a point. So, it may be that loss of confidence in Trump will drive people either back to Democrats, if they were in the middle to begin with, or to communism, though I hope not, but New York just showed how possible that is.

According to a recent report by the Speaking with American Men group, young men under 30 feel they are ‘falling behind.’

‘[Young] men are overwhelmed by the cost of living, the instability of work and the distance between what Mamdani promised and what’s real,’ the report said.

‘Young men’s top concerns are inflation, affordability and housing. Pressure to provide hasn’t gone away, but the tools to meet it feel broken….’

Only 26 percent of men under 30 thought the economy was ‘good’ under Trump, and dissatisfaction was higher among young white men than black or Hispanic ones….

According to a recent Economist/YouGov poll, the president’s standing with the under-30s (men and women) has fallen further and faster than it has with any other group….

His approval ratings among all young people (male and female), have plummeted:

On jobs and the economy, Trump’s approval rating among young people is now minus-22, and on inflation and prices minus-31.

(Meaning his approval has fallen that many percentage points, not that he has a negative percentage of the total, which is not possible.)

Worse still, Trump has embraced the new communist mayor-elect of NYC, whom he formerly disparaged; but that just shows how vacant of any values and morals as a compass the man is.

So, it is not that loss of confidence in Trump is affecting the economy, but that Trump’s failure to make the economy better, as he presides over it clearly getting worse, is causing the huge loss of confidence in him. However, there is always the risk seen in many other nations that when confidence in the leadership plummets as the economy fails, people turn in yet another misguided hope toward communism, as they seem to have just done in large, otherwise inexplicable, numbers in NYC.

Della Volpe, who conducted dozens of focus groups with young men this year, said, in early 2025 more thought Trump would have a positive impact on their lives, but that has now ‘flipped,’ with more believing he has had a harmful impact.

‘That’s mostly related to economic policy and impact,’ he told the Daily Mail. ‘They voted for Trump so they could be better providers for themselves, and also for the people they care about, that’s it.

‘Nine months into the term, they’re asking themselves, has Trump and his policies made it easier for me to provide for myself, for the people I care about? And the answer is no. I think they... cut him a fair amount of slack, they told me that it takes time to implement certain policies.’

Della Volpe said Trump’s approval declined within the demographic quickly after announcing the tariffs. The researcher said that was apparent in the recent elections.

So, the economic aspect to voters’ loss of confidence is not only huge and especially dominant among young voters (the very ones who are always most inclined to turn to communism in times like this), but confidence fell when tariffs began; and that is why I have also pounded the tariffs from day one, claiming when so many were saying otherwise, that they would certainly cause serious inflation problems.

Clearly young voters are seeing through the lies by personal experience and turning away from those who have lied to them. The inflation from tariffs is real, and they know it, no matter how many times Trump and Bessent and others try to tell them it is not happening and even that the opposite is happening. They know they are being gaslighted.

“I think with younger men, which is different than younger women, it’s not about party, it’s not about ideology. It’s about, ‘Do you hear me, and are you part of the establishment or outside…?’”

He said young men were ‘pragmatic’ and believed ‘there’s not a lot of evidence in their short lifetime that government has made a significant difference in their lives.’

And that is where communism and its fairer sister, socialism, have tended to gain footholds. As power and money aggregate toward billionaire capitalists in America, as they have more clearly under Trump with his grand gold-laced ballroom for billionaires, his selling of presidential access again and again to billionaires at Mar-a-Lago, his total sell out to Muhammed bin Salman (MBS) and Salman’s billionaire Arab contingent, giving them access for $100-million purchases of $Trump, Trump’s new personal crypto currency, the sell-out of America to billionaires now appears to many to be complete. So, the ground for communism in America has been tilled and fertilized with Trump’s excriment. That is what we saw in New York.

Communism will not deliver. It never has; but that doesn’t matter to many when they feel completely disenfranchised by their nation and their leadership. So, the AOC’s and the Mamdanis may have the upper hand in the next few election cycles. Sad as that would be from this economic writer’s perspective; but it IS what happens when institutions of government fail to deliver and when the gap between the rich and the rest becomes as everlastingly wide as it has been growing since the days of Ronald Reagan, but reaching fever pitch now under Trump. The disillusioned reach out for a different choice.

THAT, I think is the economic risk as confidence in Trump is lost among those who can see neither Dems nor Repubs have ever served their needs.

Trump’s near embrace of communism

Speaking of NYC Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani, here is one area where Trump looks out of touch with his whole MAGA base in a way they are likely to find extremely offensive and concerning.

The problem is not just that Trump has embraced Mamdani but that his embrace was so ebullient that one article in the New York Times referred to it as “Piggy Gets Polite.”

The solipsistic Trump, with the parasitic tech emperors and the internet itself, is degrading American values, making honor and integrity seem anachronistic.

Still, some moments shock as beyond the pale. Whatever the pale is anymore.

We can expect that kind of comment from the Gray Lady, Trump’s hometown rag with whom he has had numerous quarrels since the days of 1.0. Nevertheless, the paper was quite kind about his taking to their new communist mayor:

Trump was his most charming self on Friday in his “fascist vs. socialist” meeting with Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani of New York. He had blasted Mamdani earlier as a “Communist” and “JEW HATER” and threatened to withhold federal funding for New York and send in troops.

The sudden switch to sheer praise might be further evidence that dementia is taking hold of Trump, or maybe it was just a desperate attempt to get the news cycle off the release of the Epstein Files. The old Trump, however, would have been shrewd enough, I think, to distance himself from Mamdani for MAGA reasons, as he had been doing right up until this meeting. Making nice-nice now seems so weird everyone was commenting on it.

By the end of their Oval news conference, the two were so lovey-dovey, a Fox News anchor warned that JD Vance might have to move over for Mamdani. And Trump, who once warned that wealthy New Yorkers and businesses would flee if the democratic socialist were elected, dramatically flipped, saying he would feel very comfortable moving back to Gotham under this mayor.

Truth Social

Such a gushing bromance for the new commie in New York City! One has to wonder what is going on there. As I say, many did:

Elise Stefanik, the Republican who’s running for governor of New York…

broke away from the president on this issue, doubling down and posting Friday evening that Mamdani is “Kathy Hochul’s jihadist.”

Politico put the weirdness this way:

A weekend wellness check on the MAGA coalition: Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), who on Friday announced her resignation, is spurned by its leader. And incoming New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, held up as a midterm Republican bogeyman, is now welcomed by him.

It is as if Trump traded his political marriage with Marjorie for a gay muslim man—not that Mamdani is actually gay, as he is not, but that the bromance was so mushy as to look that way:

In the space of a whipsaw few hours from Friday and into Saturday morning, Trump — who has said he knows what “MAGA wants better than anybody else,” — celebrated the impending departure of “Marjorie ‘Traitor’ Brown” on Truth Social (“Marjorie went BAD,” he said) and fangirled over Mamdani.

“A world turned upside down,” Steve Bannon, the onetime White House aide and MAGA media booster, said in a text.

MAGA’s Friday trip to The Upside Down all unfolded in a week during which Reps. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) and Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), another frequent intraparty Trump target, effectively cracked Trump’s hold on his congressional coalition with their Epstein Files Transparency Act….

Trump and Mamdani’s Friday meeting ended worlds away from where most expected it to go. The get-together, which Fox News previewed as a “showdown with socialism,” ended as a friendly back-and-forth between the democratic socialist and president….

For some of the president’s most ardent supporters, Trump’s praise of Mamdani … was agonizing.

“What’s the purpose of people voting in 2026 if the Democrat policies are ‘rational?’” Trump whisperer Laura Loomer said in a interview, referencing Trump’s answer to an Oval question in which he said of Mamdani, “I met with a man who’s a very rational person.”

The White House tried to spin this meeting as just another way to Make America Great Again:

“The fact that President Trump met with the newly elected mayor of New York City shows he is willing to talk to anyone to Make America Great Again,” she continued. “Only Politico would try to spin bipartisanship as a bad thing.”

However, even MAGA is having a really hard time trying to figure out why Trump needs to cozy up to a communist mayer as a from of “bipartisanship” that will make America great. Why does a president need bipartisanship with a mayor? Especially a president who has never tried for any bipartisan with actual members of congress during his second term, but just steamrolls over them all the time! If that doesn’t sound like lame White House spin, nothing does!

Still, Democrats — particularly those close to the incoming mayor — were thrilled with how Friday went down. “Trump respects strength and winners,”

And that’s the problem. In the end, what does Trump stand for but standing with big winners, whether billionaires or communists. Epstein became a loser, so Trump turned against him, but many of his clients are still big winners.

And some Democratic strategists focused on 2026 [and] celebrated Trump undermining Republicans’ attempts to paint Mamdani as the midterm bogeyman he entered the day as. Did Speaker Mike Johnson’s entire 2026 strategy just crumble?

“Pour one out for the NRCC/NRSC staffers who saw their 2026 ads go up in smoke. Sad!” said the veteran Democratic strategist Jesse Ferguson.

Don’t worry, Trump will flip on Mamdani. He’s always been good at that just as he was with MTG. When his embrace of Mamdani doesn’t play, he’ll find a way to flip quickly … like the fishy thing he always is.

Donald Trump and New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani’s Oval Office meeting turned into a surprising love fest between the two New Yorkers….

Trump, the 79-year-old billionaire Republican president, warmly and repeatedly patted Mamdani’s hand….

“I expect to be helping him, not hurting him – a big help,” Trump said, “because I want New York City to be great.”(USA Today)

How cozy. Trump welcomed Mamdani just like he did MBS, compared to how he bullied Zelensky.

Mamdani was treated like the prince.

The president even said with a huge, bright smile, it was fine if Mamdani went ahead and called him a “fascist” when asked about Mamdani’s former statements to that effect—perfectly fine!

“Some of his ideas are the same as my ideas,” the president said. “He wants to see housing go up, see a lot of housing created, apartments built. ... People would be shocked, but I want to see the same thing.”

Yes, except Mamdani wants to see housing for the poor, while Trump only ever builds housing for the fabulously wealthy. So, maybe not quite “the same thing.”

Mamdani’s plan for affordability is “freezing rent, making buses free, making universal child care a reality,” hardly the talking points of conservative Republicans!

With Trump, however, it is often about who you know not ideology:

Trump also credited Mamdani for keeping on current Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch, who has overseen drops in crime.

Trump said his daughter Ivanka Trump is friends with Tisch, whose multibillionaire family owns the New York Giants and Loews Corp., among other investments, and includes major Republican donors. The women both grew up on Manhattan’s East Side, and Tisch has been friends with Trump’s husband, Jared Kushner, since college.

“She is a good friend of some of the people in my family, Ivanka, and they say she’s really good, really competent,” Trump said. “And he just retained her, so that’s a good sign.”

So, what were the two men love-festing about? To discuss the “affordability crisis.” Who better than a communist to discuss how to get the nation’s inflation back on track because we all know what great history communists have with keeping inflation down! A good communist-informed answer to affordability bodes well for MAGA supporters … said no one ever! Maybe Trump has decided he needs a divorce with the whole movement.

So, finally, more on the affordability issues to end on the economy:

The Baier facts

Some Trump voters already turned to communist economics as an answer to inflation:

“A lot of my voters actually voted for him,” Trump said.

“One in 10,” Mamdani interjected.

“And I’m OK with that,” Trump responded.

However, it was not necessarily MAGA voters that Trump lost to Mamdani. He is also losing independent voters, who are the swing voters in nearly every election that decide the ultimate winner. Trump has lost hyuge confidence with that group:

Democrats Open Up Biggest Polling Lead Over Republicans in Eight Years…

The PBS News/NPR/Marist poll also showed substantial support for Democrats among independents, with 61 percent saying they would vote for Democrats, while 28 percent said they would vote for Republicans. This gives the Democrats a +33-point advantage….

Nearly 69 percent of independents said Republicans are mostly closed-minded in political conversations, while 53 percent said Democrats generally approach such discussions with a more open-minded attitude….

Meanwhile, the poll also showed Trump’s approval rating at -17 points, with 39 percent approving and 56 percent disapproving. That is down from -12 points in September.

The poll follows a string of Democratic victories in recent elections. In New York City, Zohran Mamdani beat former Governor Andrew Cuomo to become the city’s first Muslim mayor earlier this month.

Looking into the economic issues, I think there is no doubt that MTG has her ear to the ground properly in bringing up inflation in another part of her resignation letter to America where she alludes to a big Republican fail being likely in the next election as in the last. There is no doubt that Trump’s tone-deaf ear on inflation and his considerable contribution to our inflation problem through his tariffs, drove the losses seen in this year’s election. Next year’s election—the one from which MTG resigned—will likely be far worse.

The outcry against Trump BY MAGA REPUBLICANS over inflation with criticisms that show they think he sounds a lot like Marie Antoinette with her purported “then let them eat cake” response to the public not being able to afford basic bread, is becoming stronger than just background noise.

Fox News host Bret Baier presented the plea of a MAGA supporter to the president in an interview, asking, “I want the Republicans to keep control of Congress in 2026, but something has to be done fast! I don’t see the best economy right now. Wall Street numbers do not reflect Main Street money. Please do something, President Trump.”

Baier noted that the person who texted him, asking him to present that to the president in the interview, is a “a registered Republican all her life. She voted for you three different times, but she is not happy about how her prices have not come down, that she sees.”

Trump responded by leaning on how much he has done to bring inflation down, but that backfired because anyone who buys their own groceries knows it is an utter lie.

I think of groceries, you know, it’s an old-fashioned word, but it’s a beautiful word,” Trump stated. “Beef, we have to get down, but we’ve got prices way down.

Right away people started commenting on social media about how obvious it is that Trump has never bought his own groceries. The response has been as harsh as when President George H.W. Bush went out buying socks for Christmas to encourage everyone to support the economy by going out and doing their Christmas shopping, acting as if this is something he and Barbara actually do. Problem was that Bush gave away the ruse when he commented to the camera, “Isn’t that new technology amazing” when they scanned his socks to add up the price. The technology had been in widespread use for a decade, so clearly he had not bought anything for himself for, at least, that long.

That caused the American public, going into Bush’s next election to claim he was “out of touch with America.” This interview with Trump starts to raise the same kind of response. Whether it takes wings and flies like Bush’s sock-hopping through the mall did, we’ll have to see.

The president seemed to think the only real problem with inflation is optics:

I think the biggest problem is, the Republicans don’t talk about affordability.

No, Sir, that is not only the biggest problem; it is not even part of the problem. America does not want talk about affordability. America wants action against inflation. Talk is cheap. Inflation is, by definition, NOT.

While one person wrote on Tik Tok,

“Regina Foley is getting EXACTLY WHAT SHE VOTED FOR,” outrage permeated the comments. “He has never stepped into a grocery store. He has no clue and doesn’t care,” stated one. “He’s not even acknowledging that our prices have gone up,” another said. “This is actually insane….” “He couldn’t care less, literally, he could not give any less thoughts or care to any of this.” (The Atlanta Black Star)

They might not all have been Republicans, but these were people watching Bret Baier on Fox News where certainly most viewers are Republicans.

Because Trump likes to lean on speaking the truth into being by saying something over and over until people believe it is true, rather than just on speaking the truth, his answer about inflation sounded completely unhinged to many. Meanwhile, his efforts to control the price of beef by selling out American Ranchers while trying to proclaim a truth into being with the claim that he loves American farmers did not sell among ranches at all. They loudly decried his decision to import more Argentine beef in order to help bring beef prices down.

On November 7, he took to Truth Social to announce he’s ordering the DOJ to investigate meatpackers, accusing them of “Illicit Collusion, Price Fixing, and Price Manipulation,” in a move widely seen as an attempt to deflect political criticism.

“We will always protect our American Ranchers, and they are being blamed for what is being done by Majority Foreign Owned Meat Packers, who artificially inflate prices, and jeopardize the security of our Nation’s food supply,” he wrote.

I don’t think anyone bought that “malarky,” as his former nemesis would have called it. Trump’s ability to keep convincing his MAGA supporters that he is on the job for them seems to be fading. Sure, some will always stand by their man; but MTG, Loomer, Fuentes, and other megaMAGAmouths clearly are moving on.

Now, where all that goes with respect to Treasuries, the dollar and precious metals, as I was asked about, I cannot say because it depends on where the MAGA defectors turn when they run from Trump. Many will likely just bow out of the next election, as MTG claims she is doing and as Laura Loomer says she will do if she sees more of Trump selling out to Muslims. She just saw a lot more of that with Mamdani after making that comment, so maybe she’s about there.

If the youth turn to communism as sometimes happens during these kinds of crises where people feel no one is doing a good job managing the enconomy for the average person, all parties serve their elites, and, so, capitalism is failing to deliver, then I can say where all of this will go for Treasuries, the dollar and PMs. Quite simple. Look at where nearly all communist countries eventually go with those things—toward higher inflation and precious metals being more favored than the national currency.

Hopefully, that kind of turn doesn’t happen, but it did in New York City … to such an extent that Trump is cozying up to Mamdani because he’s such a huge success in Trump’s hometown where Trump made his own first billion. That’s the big fear here.

If Republicons and Demorats cannot find real answers to fight inflation and get wealth in this nation to distribute fairly without always aggregating to the top 1%, where Trump has hung out most of his life, then communism becomes the most likely answer that younger people turn to in order to wrest the money away from the wealthy. People may find those candidates in the Democratic Party, but it means that party will become more communistic if more centrist Dem’s fail to deliver. History has shown that turn again and again, even though communism has always failed to live up to its promises.

With Trump, everything he is doing seems to cater to billionaires as the answer because they are his natural crowd. With Democrats, they’ve really got as much to cover for in the Epstain fiasco as Republicans do. (Trump claims more, but I doubt it. Pedophilia does not come from a political cause.) More covering on the part of either group will bring greater disdain for the stain. A fair part of what flees the two deeply corrupted parties may well go toward socialism on some scale, as it did to Mamdani. History says that is the likely pattern.

Remember capitalist Republican Rudy Giuliani was once mayor of New York City. Looks at where NYC is now!

Sometimes Counterpoint sees the news before it happens, too.