Trump is 100% wrong on tariffs
Wake Up, MAGA! Trump’s celebration of “Liberation Day” is the perfect example of the children’s story, “The King’s New Clothes,” come to life. Just as the king believed his weavers had made him wonderfully beautiful clothes of an invisible fiber, Trump and his economic “yes men” believe new, more and higher tariffs will bring American into a “Golden Age.”
It was a child who first recognized the king was actually naked, and this awakened his subjects that he was not wearing any clothing at all. The day after “Liberation Day” saw Trump’s tariffs go into effect, stock markets around the world fell. And there are threats of trade wars. And rumors of real wars.
The belief behind tariffs is that they will protect American businesses from foreign competition. This they may do, but while doing so they keep consumer prices higher than necessary. Tariffs have always been controversial in the U.S. – in the 1930s, they deepened the Great Depression and led to new roles for the federal government.
Donald Trump talks loud and tough but incorrectly on many subjects, especially tariffs.
Grady S. Burgner
Blackburn proves loyalty to Trump
Sen. Marsha Blackburn revealed her embrace of President Trump’s love of insults when she responded to a Times Free Press request for a comment on the recent town hall rally in Hixson.
Summoning as much rancor as possible, she denounced the Democracy in Action event thus:
“It is absurd that the [newspaper] would reach out requesting comment on a sham ‘town hall’ that is being organized by radical left wing activists” and damned the TFP for not disclosing that one of the organizers is a former reporter there.
House Speaker Mike Johnson recently advised GOP members not to hold town hall meetings lest they’d be confronted by angry constituents. Last week, eight-term GOP Sen. Charles Grassley faced a crowd of Iowans angered by the reckless downsizing of the government upon which they depend.
Blackburn and Sen. Bill Hagerty may be wary because they approved most, if not all, of Trump’s feckless cabinet members. So obviously neither she nor Sen. Hagerty are likely to show unvetted constituents (public) respect. Nor, it hardly needs be said, will Rep. Chuck (a profile in cowardice) Fleischmann.
Michael Loftin
Never give up; demand town halls
Why Marsha Blackburn, Chuck Fleischmann and Bill Hagerty don’t do town halls is pretty simple. They don’t know how to defend the indefensible.
You really can’t expect these Republican legislators to stand up in front of perhaps hundreds of their constituents and explain why their convicted felon President Trump, his First Pal Musk and the abomination Trump considers an administrative cabinet can trample on the Constitution and blatantly break the law. You really can’t openly support that unless are you willing to be a part of it.
Besides if either of these politicians says one word out of line, Trump will primary them. And there goes their cushy jobs, all the perks and the dark money slipped in for their next campaign or whatever they’d like.
You can call, text and email or letter-write them. Doesn’t matter. You won’t get anywhere.
Even though you elected them to represent you, their loyalty is not to you. Still, the sight of all the citizen protesters around the country demanding these cowards show up at town halls to face the music is what this country is all about. Never give up.
Greg Williams
Signal Mountain