WTF Weekly | The Trump Slump
- Tyler
- Mar 14
- 9 min read
"When stupidity is considered patriotism, it is unsafe to be intelligent" - Isaac Asimov
Friday March 14, 2025
Hello from the Blue Bubble, Fellow WTF'ers!
There’s a light touch of green to the grass, buds on the trees, the lake gulls are cawing, and spring is in the air here in the Midwest. But there’s something else in the air…can you feel it? A resistance building? I can feel it, and so can Tesla’s stock price. Just ask John Larson who yelled at the top of his lungs at MAGA when Elon didn't show up to attend an oversight committee meeting. It's glorious to watch:
...that resistance usually isn't coming from centrist Democrats - we'll get to that - but Agent Orange is crashing the stock market, playing tariff tic-tac-toe, and trying to destroy the department of education, social security, and the NOAA, so we have a LOT to catch up on:
Highlights:
Tracking Donald Trump’s Ascension to Becoming Russian Asset
I'm writing a new multi-part series that will be coming together over the next few weeks
called 'Tracking Trump’s Ascension to Becoming a Russian Asset'. Is it sarcastic and full of swears? Not so much, but it does highlight Trump's tangled, tangled web with Russia. This week, Part 1 is being
released, which covers 1977 to 1987. This was a critical decade in starting Trump's first ties with the Kremlin, including his first marriage, real estate deals, and his first trip to Russia. See the full piece here.
Building a New Democratic Party
Holy Krasnov - I don't know if you're getting as pissed as I am watching folks like Ro Khanna go on Fox admonishing fellow Democrats and censuring Al Green, but I am.
And what's worse, last night Chuck Schumer cowered down from fighting the Republican funding bill, something Republicans used against Democrats every time and probably the most leverage the Democrats have to stop Elon's gutting of the federal government and social programs like NOAA, Social Security, USAID, and the Department of Education. House leader Hakeem Jeffries was against supporting the bill while Schumer went from being against the bill to suddenly being for it.
The day before Schumer told Democratic Senators he would vote for the bill, he went to the Senate floor to say he wouldn't vote to advance it:
Then he completely changed his mind and said he WOULD vote for the bill, rubber stamping Elon's continued cuts to important programs:
So we're back to pink suit, black suit, auction paddle, gold cane and the democrats not being unified on a damn thing while MAGA is unified on everything. It's a great time for the party to start a conversation about how to build a NEW Democratic party beyond the
octogenarians and Wall Street insiders. Folks are even calling for AOC to primary Schumer for his New York senate seat - an excellent idea.
So we're going to start a new page here at WTF called Building a New Democratic Party, and we'll make periodic updates as "moderates" within the party continue to bend the knee to Trump - and we'll call them out.
The Trump Slump: The "Golden Age" of America
Agent Orange is crashing all of our 401K’s, so we need to talk about one of my least favorite topics - the stock market.
Over the last two weeks, the stock market has lost 10% of its value. It’s called the Trump Slump. Is this the Golden Age he was talking about? Because it feels more like we're all going to be bartering railroad bonds on the streetcorner soon. Trump wants to take us back to an era of smokestacks, chain watches, top-hats, trading posts, and monocles.
Here’s Trump in Iowa after winning Iowa caucuses for the GOP nomination:
"As soon as it becomes clear on election night that we've defeated crooked Joe Biden, you will see your 401(k) soar and you already see it…"
LOL – I love when he adds that “and you already see it”! Let's all just start throwing that on the end of sentences. “Sure honey, I’ll take out the recycling – and you already see it!”
So WTF’ers…do you see it? What do your 401K’s look like? Because mine looks like SHIT compared to three months ago.
His tune on the stock market has changed a lot since that Iowa speech. Now that the markets are in freefall, he says “You can’t really watch the stock market”. He definitely wouldn’t want us to – because it’s in shambles due to his tariff-on tariff-off mean girl temper tantrums.
Is he crashing the economy so his buddies can buy low and sell high?
Is he crashing the economy to lower interest rates?
Let me propose an alternative theory: There is no subtlety with Donald Trump. He's a complete idiot, and I wouldn't put it past him that these tariffs are just settling personal vendettas against countries whose leaders don't treat him like Kim Jong Un. Of course, I also believe Trump is a Russian asset, so crashing the US economy is par for the course.
No one in the military told him it was a good idea to go to war with Panama or Greenland - there was no genius or alternative clever plan there...he just wants to be an imperialist, land-grabbing autocrat like Putin is with Ukraine. And there's no empirical evidence that tariffs would have worked to do anything. Their history, as I said last week, is only negative. When Trump tried agricultural tariffs on Chinese imports in his first term, his administration ended up having to pay $28 billion in taxpayer-funded aid packages to farmers so they wouldn't shut down - mostly here in the Midwest. Many farmers never recovered. I'd say aid for Ukraine is a better use of taxpayer money than funding farmer aid packages that are self-inflicted from letting Trump dick around with tariffs we know aren't going to work...but 2024 voters forgot about that, too...
As Trump recently said to Fox News anchor (and possibly even Joseph Goebbels granddaughter), Maria Bartiromo, on the topic of a potential recession:
"I hate to predict things like that. There is a period of transition, because what we're doing is very big. We're bringing wealth back to America. That's a big thing. And there are always periods of—it takes a little time. It takes a little time. But I don't—I think it should be great for us. I mean, I think it should be great."
Remember when everyone was going batshit cray about grocery prices?
Can you imagine if Biden got on TV and said: “I know your prices are high, but we’re doing something great and it’s going to take time. It’s going to cause a little pain, but it will be great!”
How would people have responded? Isn’t it interesting the standards we collectively hold either party to? If we still want to call it a party – I’m sticking to my guns that MAGA isn’t a Republican Party or a party at all but a fascist, authoritarian shift of government.
If you’re curious about the interview on Fox, and I don’t know why you would be since it’s state-sponsored horse shit, the link is here.
Lastly, he keeps calling the Stock Market the fallout from Biden...
“Biden gave us a horrible economy with horrible inflation”.
Let’s take a look at that bullshit statement.
Below, Take a look at market performance that was handed off to Trump before he began - even a neanderthal like Marjorie Taylor Green can see "chart go up!".
Now let’s take a look at Trump's other statement - 'Biden gave him horrible inflation':
Huh…also strange. It appears to have been normal since May 2023.
HOWEVER - that inflation spike in 2022 is one of the reasons Trump won. Americans are quick to forget drawing hurricanes with sharpies, telling CDC staff how to treat COVID by injecting bleach, baseless election fraud claims, blackmailing Zelenskyy, or my favorite – trying to overthrow the government in 2021. Plus, they don’t seem to give a shit he’s a Russian asset. But they do remember the price of eggs from two years ago. That's the America we live in.
As it turns out, inflation was a global post-COVID reality and not an American phenomenon or President-induced economic error. Since most Americans aren’t willing to walk 50 yards in a Wal-Mart parking lot to the store front door, it shouldn't surprise anyone that we don’t think further than our own shores on issues like inflation.
Democrats also never made the case that inflation was global because they're afraid to talk about the economy, just like they're afraid to respond to any attacks on trans people...which is why you should read my notes on Making a New Democratic Party.
Something else you should check out - USA Today has an amazing satire piece by Rex Huppke called "With Dow dropping unpatriotically, Trump should threaten tariffs on stocks'. We love to see it.
Astronaut vs. Dumbass: Elon and Astronaut-Senator Scott Kelly spar
Let’s talk about the rough and tumble convo between Elon Musk and Mark Kelly this week.
Here’s what happened:
Mark Kelly recently visited Ukraine, as US House and Senate members frequently do. Kelly
was briefed by the embassy and Ukrainian military leaders on the current situation on the front lines. He also visited a military hospital and spoke with wounded soldiers and paid respects at Ukraine’s Wall of Remembrance for the Fallen of Ukraine.
On returning, Kelly publicly said suspending military aid and intelligence sharing with Ukraine would weaken their defense capabilities.
Elon didn’t like that, and since he’s a puppet for the Kremlin, he called the Senator and former astronaut a “traitor”.
And since we don’t link to Nazi Twitter or promote signing up for an account to read threads there, here’s a screenshot of the dialogue:
So WTF is with Elon calling Kelly a traitor simply for visiting Ukraine, the country the US is supporting against Russia's illegal invasion?
Well, Elon and his South African tech bros - libertarians or fascists or whatever you want to call them - have always loved Putin (and hated Ukraine). Their remarks on Ukraine and Zelenskyy are almost verbatim what the Kremlin says. I realize I end a lot of sentences with this phrase, but the reason Elon called Kelly a traitor for visiting Ukraine is because he's a Russian asset.
Here are some Elon tweets on Ukraine (sourced from The Independent)
"Ukraine needs to hold an election. Zelensky would lose by a landslide."
"Zelensky wants a forever war, because he loses his spotlight on the international stage as soon as peace is achieved."
"Zelensky destroyed himself in the eyes of the American people."
"Zelensky should be offered some kind of amnesty in a neutral country in exchange for a peaceful transition back to democracy in Ukraine."
And here's Dimitri Medvedev, Putin's right hand man and former President of Russia, also calling for Zelenskyy to be removed. (Russia has had success in the past installing Kremlin puppet leaders in Kyiv.)
"Ukraine will be free from Zelenskyy and his gang of drug addicts and Nazis."
and Lavrov, Russia's foreign minister:
"The West is keeping Zelenskyy in power artificially."
and here's Elon's South African Tech Broligarch, David Sacks (sourced from X itself):
"Zelenskyy has become a wartime autocrat. He has banned elections, eliminated political opposition, and seized control of the press."
"The U.S. has spent over $100 billion on this war while our own borders are wide open and our economy is struggling. This is not America First."
I like that last one because Sacks' quote from the past directly contradicts Trump's continued claims we've given $350 billion to Ukraine, which is not true.
Protests, Tesla Takedown, and Opposition Merch
One of the most satisfying things that have unfolded over the last couple of weeks has been the protests and takedown of Tesla - globally.
Tesla has lost 45% of its value since December 17, 2024 - that's $652 billion in value.
$2.7 trillion has been lost in the seven big tech stocks - Alphabet, which is the mothership of Google, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, Meta, Nvidia, and Tesla.
After they all showed up on the front row of his inauguration, gave him millions in donations, and renamed their map apps to show "Gulf of America", I can safely say - GOOD. I'm glad they're paying a price for their actions. While it sucks for our 401K's, I believe they only listen to money. I'll be fine getting lost in the woods using MapQuest to locate the nearest Popeye's Chicken.
DO SOMETHING
So here's a way you can feel a few percent less helpless in our slide towards fascism: Attend a Tesla Takedown protest. There's actually really good organization around the protests and almost certainly one near
you every weekend, including this Saturday. Use the hashtag #teslatakedown
Opposition Merch
If you're not going to protest, the least you can do (in my humble opinion) is a more subtle form of resistance - grabbing some resistance merch. Etsy has all the goodies and unlike Amazon (where you'd be supporting a Trump supporter to buy anti-Trump merch), you're supporting individual shop owners that share our hatred for fascism:
And I'm prototyping a WTF, America? hoodie that I'll be releasing soon. More to come!
Something Positive
I said spring's around the corner, and because of the time change I'm making it out early enough for sunrises on the lake again. It's pretty glorious. Every day gives a new painting…and summer's around the corner.
Take care,
Tyler
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