Not for the first time, many people – including some leading Republicans – are asking themselves: “Who can save us from Donald Trump?”
A man who has lived his life disregarding conventions, the law, even the constitution of the United States, the better to aggregate wealth and power, has now set himself against the rest of the world. With his unprovoked and irrational trade war – one that now finds him playing chicken with President Xi of China – the gangster-in-chief has gone global.
To those rightly concerned about the damage being inflicted on the US and world economy, the president has issued this typically solemn and statesmanlike statement: “The United States has a chance to do something that should have been done DECADES AGO. Don’t be Weak! Don’t be Stupid! Don’t be a PANICAN (A new party based on Weak and Stupid people!). Be Strong, Courageous, and Patient, and GREATNESS will be the result!”
Well, it doesn’t feel that great yet, but Trump may have inadvertently given rise to a new resistance movement: the Panican Party.
Far from being cowardly and weak and stupid, Panicans are the people who put country before party – and have the guts to stand up to a deluded bully trashing American workers’ living standards. These Americans are the strong, courageous and patient people who understand that America is not Trump’s personal real estate.
“Panicans” should wear the label with pride, put it on T-shirts, bumper stickers and, yes, red baseball caps.
Thus far, the traditional guardrails against the abuse of power have proved almost entirely ineffective, and where they threatened to actually make some impact, they have been dismantled – notably, certain federal agencies and access for the media.
But with the Trump tariffs looking increasingly likely to deliver a Trump slump, the Republican Party, long somnolent, is beginning to stir. So are some business people. The Panicans are mobilising.
The most, and also least surprising Panican is Elon Musk. Surprising, because he’s been such a buddy of Trump; unsurprising, because Trump’s policies will wreck his Tesla car company and have already wiped billions off his net wealth. Fear not, he still has enough to get by on.
Musk reposted a charming old clip of the great free-market economist Milton Friedman using the example of making a pencil to extol the virtues of free trade. Musk also took a swipe at Peter Navarro, Trump’s clever but misguided trade advisor, remarking of Navarro: “A PhD in Econ from Harvard is a bad thing, not a good thing. Results in the ego/brains>>1 problem”.
Another Trumpian billionaire-turned-Panican is Bill Ackman, who rightly attracted much attention with his remark that “We are heading for a self-induced, economic nuclear winter, and we should start hunkering down.”
In Congress, there’s also vocal opposition, and not confined to Democrats. Ted Cruz, for example, no one’s idea of a liberal globalist, warns that “tariffs are a tax on consumers, and I’m not a fan of jacking up taxes on American consumers, so my hope is these tariffs are short-lived, and they serve as leverage to lower tariffs across the globe”. The congressional midterm elections next year, he predicts, will be a “bloodbath”.
Former Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell, senator Rand Paul and others tend to agree: the Trump tariffs make little economic or financial sense.
Can they and their allies stop Trump? The answer is that if the Panicans don’t panic, in the sense of being intimidated by Trump, and work across the aisle with their political rivals, they could do.
The great irony in this is that trade policy, including setting tariffs, is a matter assigned to Congress in the constitution, ie in Article 1, Section 8. It ought to have the power to take back control over trade policy, provided the Supreme Court permits it to do so. There are efforts to make this happen, but at the moment, it looks like the grip Trump has on the House of Representatives will stymie any such move.
More realistically is simple political pressure from within the Republican Party, or at least those elements of it that haven’t fallen prey to the Maga mind virus.
Behind the various senators and congressmen and congresswomen are millions of Americans – workers, consumers, savers… and voters. When they get laid off by firms struggling with collapsed supply chains, when they are faced with a huge rise in prices for imported goods, and when they see how devalued their pension funds have become, they will take their anger out on the party they hold responsible.
Either Trump changes course soon, in the knowledge that a disaster awaits him when the Democrats reclaim Congress, or he defies the Panicans and blunders into that electoral “bloodbath” talked about by Cruz.
Using the grip that the Maga movement has over Republican candidate selection, Trump can always threaten dissidents with getting “primaried” – sacked by proxy. Congressman Thomas Massie from Kentucky is only the latest to be intimidated in this way over the budget bill. So America is headed for yet another test of the resilience of its system of governance and a constitutional crisis – to add to the trade crisis and the international security crises Trump has also caused.
But, as Trump might put it, if the Republicans don’t do something about the guy, they won’t have a country, let alone a party, any more.
Panicans of America, get ready to fight, fight, fight!
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