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Last week, I wrote about how the centerpiece of Paul Ryan's tax reform plana border-adjusted corporate tax, or BATappeared to be all but dead thanks to overwhelming opposition from key senators. On Wednesday during an interview on Fox Business Network, however, President Donald Trump left open the possibility that he would support the idea, and even suggested that a little creative rebranding could revive its prospects.

Jordan Weissmann is Slates senior business and economics correspondent.

Unfortunately for Republicans hoping that the president might be able to play a useful role in brokering a tax reform deal, Trump's comments demonstrated that he is either illiterate on this particular policy issue, or thinks that he'll be able to skirt by peddling incoherent talking points that anybody with a passing familiarity with the subject will see through.

To quickly recap, the House GOP's tax reform plan would effectively put a tariff on imports and subsidize exports. It has met furious resistance from retailers like Walmart who sell lots of goods made overseas and are afraid that the proposal would hurt their business by forcing them to pass on higher prices to their customers. Economists have suggested this wouldn't be the case, because foreign exchange rates should theoretically adjust to cancel out the effect of the new import tax. But that promise hasn't pacified the idea's opponents, because what retailer would bet their business on an academic theory about currency markets?

Trump has sent mixed signals on border adjustment. At one point he said it could lead to a lot more jobs in the United States. But at another, he called the idea too complicated. So given that this is still the single most talked about issue in the tax reform debate, Fox Business host Maria Bartiromo asked the president whether he'd made up his mind on it. Trump sort of evaded the question, but then suggested the concept needed a name change. Instead of border adjustment people should call it a reciprocal tax, he argued, because really we'd just be doing to other countries what they already do to us.

As always, we need to untoss the president's word salad to make sense of this. Trump is pointing out that certain countries impose heavy tariffs on goods that the United States exports. India, for instance, really does slap a 100 percent duty on motorcycles with engines larger than 800cc, much to the frustration Harley-Davidson. To Trump, a border adjusted tax would merely be a fair and proportional response to such protectionist measures. So we should call it a reciprocal tax instead, since he views it as retaliatory. Also, we're not losers. And border adjustment sounds like something for weakling losers. Like Paul Ryan, presumably.

This is not a politically promising argument. The entire point of border adjustment, according to its advocates, is that it won't really turn into a tariff, thanks to the magic of shifting exchange rates. Retailers, and the senators who love them, oppose it because they're worried currencies won't adjust fully, and so the tax will indeed turn into a tariff. Trump is not going to win over a bunch of tariff opponents by arguing that the BAT is a tariff. He's rhetorically shoveling dirt onto its grave.

Having given Ryan & Co. ample reason to spend their morning staring despondently into their watery House cafeteria coffee, Trump moved on to suggesting that even our foreign trade partners would have to accept the logic of a reciprocal tax.

Where to even start here? First, the premise of the argument is silly. Responding to India's or Thailands or China's duty on select product like motorcycles with a worldwide, across-the-board tariff on imported goods would not be reciprocal. It would be insanely disproportional.1

Not only would China, India and the rest of the world get angry about itthey'd probably try to stop it. Right now, it is unclear whether or not Ryan's border adjusted tax is actually legal under World Trade Organization rules. But other countries are already preparing to challenge it. Germany's finance minister says he warned Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin to scrap the whole thing, and has promised to call the WTO if necessary.

Trump appears to have zero understanding of the economics underlying this issue. He has just as little comprehension of either the domestic or international politics of it. If he were to try and go to bat for the idea, he would almost certainly do more harm than good.

This should deeply worry Republicans. One of the major reasons Obamacare repeal turned into such a debacle was that Trump knew too little about the subject to effectively broker a deal. He reportedly urged Republican lawmakers to forget about the little shit and instead focus on the political necessity of just passing something. But health policy is a vastly complicated issue that can hinge on seemingly obscure details. There's no way to negotiate over it without a firm grasp of the minutia.

Tax reform is in many ways just as complicated and politically unwieldly. And at the moment, the president isn't demonstrating any kind of firm grasp on the single topic that has defined the debate so far. Even if he decides not to support border adjustment, that bodes poorly for his ability to close any kind of a deal before the GOP's various factions inevitably start battling amongthemselves. Trump's intellectual vacuum could end up swallowing his whole party's agenda.

1 It's possible that Trump is conflating high duties on individual products, like India's tariff on motorcycles, with a slightly separate issuenamely that other countries rely in part on border adjusted value-added taxes, while the U.S. relies on a corporate income tax that exempts imports and hits out exports. This is a source of frustration to some Republicans, and one of the motivating ideas behind the BAT, but, as I've written it's also kind of a red herring.

See the original post:
Shocker: Donald Trump Also Sounds Illiterate On Tax Policy - Slate Magazine (blog)

U.S. President Donald Trump holds a listening session on health care with truckers and CEOs from the American Trucking Associations in the Cabinet Room at the White House on March 23, 2017 in Washington, DC.

Molly Riley-Pool/Getty Images

In an interview that aired Wednesday on Fox Business, President Trump was asked by Maria Bartiromo whether he had planned to strike Syria during his dinner with Chinese President Xi Jinping. Trump proceeded to set the scene:

Its brilliant. Its incredible. Its genius. Its war described in precisely the manner a schoolchild would relay the details of a field trip to a science museum. Food, of course, figures largely. Trump went on.

After this, Trump presumably returned happily to his cake, which, according to that nights menu, matches the description of Mar-a-Lagos signature Trump Chocolate Cake provided by Caity Weaver in a piece for GQ last year. A slice is typically served with four dots of vanilla sauce. Its also accompanied by a scoop of dark chocolate sorbet and a diamond of white chocolate. The white chocolate is stamped TRUMP.

Read this article:
Donald Trump, Our Kid President, Ordered Syria Strike During Dessert - Slate Magazine (blog)

The butchers bill continues to grow. While he was apresidential candidate, Donald Trump promised to uplift his white working class voters, a group he described as the forgotten Americans. As president, Trump has enacted policies that will hurt them. As I have written beforefor Salon, I have no pity for Donald Trumps voters. They have agency. They are adults. They made the choice to support a neofascist who has quickly made America less great before the eyes of the world.

It will be glorious to see Trumps voters continue on their highway to hell.

The butchers bill now includes Donald Trump and the Republican Partys efforts to end environmental protections for clean water that will disproportionately harm rural red state America, removing mandatory overtime pay for low- and middle-income employees and cutting back and ending programs that provide infrastructure, heating and fuel assistance for the poor. Againthis will disproportionately affect those communities that voted for Trump.The president will also target the Americans he views as useless eaters by taking money away from programs such as Meals on Wheels, which feedpeople who are elderly orhomebound. He will also remove support for programs that help the victims of domestic violence and sexual assault.

There was a momentary pause in adding another entry to the butchers bill when Donald Trump and the Republican Partys effort to end the Affordable Care Act was derailed. Trump and the Republican Party, however, are continuing their efforts to take away health care from millions of Americans. It is estimated that if the Republican Party and Donald Trump get their way and the Affordable Care Actwere to repealed,at least 43,000 Americans a year woulddie.

The jobs Donald Trump promised his voters continue to leave the country. And Trumps vowto drain the swamp has been replaced with an overflowing cesspool of greed and malfeasance.

With the election of Trump, the American news media has discovered a new subgenre of pseudo-anthropological writing akin to stories from an earlier era about dirty hippies or how hillbillies had descended upon Chicago and Detroit.

The American news media now sends intrepid reporters out into the hinterlands of the Rust Belt and exurb America to speak with the denizens of Trumplandia.

What have these reporters discovered?

Some of Trumps loyalists are dismayed and angry at how their champion has been exposed to be a liar and a fraud. Nevertheless, most of Trumps voters continue to support him. There are few voices of dissent. Even factsshowing that Russia undermined the American election do not diminish their devotion. Trump is a Svengali. His voters remain beguiled by his gaze.

But even by the bizarre norms of Trumplandia, some stories stand out more than others. The New York Times Nicholas Kristof recently journeyed to Tulsa, Oklahoma. There he spoke with Judy Banks. She is a senior citizen who is dependent on the programs that Donald Trump has promised to either eliminate or greatly reduce. Banks also voted for Donald Trump.

The New York Times explained:

Judy Banks, a 70-year-old struggling to get by, said she voted for Trump because he was talking about getting rid of those illegals. But Banks now finds herself shocked that he also has his sights on funds for the Labor Departments Senior Community Service Employment Program, which is her lifeline. It pays senior citizens a minimum wage to hold public service jobs.

This program makes sense, said Banks, who was placed by the program into a job as a receptionist for a senior nutrition program. Banks said she depends on the job to make ends meet, and for an excuse to get out of the house.

If I lose this job, she said, Ill sit home and die.

Yet she said she might still vote for Trump in 2020. And thats a refrain I heard over and over. Some of the loyalty seemed to be grounded in resentment at Democrats for mocking Trump voters as dumb bigots, some from a belief that budgets are complicated, and some from a sense that its too early to abandon their man. They did say that if jobs didnt reappear, they would turn against him.

Donald Trump is quite literally a threat to Judy Banks health, safety, security, well-being and livelihood. Yet, she continues to support him.

It is easy to mock and laugh and enjoy Schadenfreudes warm embrace as Trumps voters are made to suffer at the hand of their chosen leader. But this does not explain Donald Trumps hold over his supporters and why they remain so loyal even while he increases their misery.

His power is drawn from several sources.

Trumps voters have been conditioned and programmed by the right-wing news entertainment complex to believe disinformation and lies. As such, Trump has found a ready public for his fraudulent presidency. This is shown by how only 3 percent of Trumps voters regret supporting him.

Donald Trump leads a cult of personality in a celebrity-obsessed culture. For his voters, Trump is a type of personal avatar. This is demonstrated by how according to a recent poll, Republicans trust Donald Trumps administration more than the mainstream news media to be truthful.

The right-wing media news media has created an alternate reality for its public. As detailed by a recent report inthe Columbia Journalism Review, this alternate reality is remarkable for how it circulates disinformation and talking points to its public (and affects the broader news media and public discourse). Bursting this bubble is verydifficult.

Extreme political polarization and the phenomenon known as information backfire have combined to make Trumps supporters and other Republican voters hostile to empirical reality.

Conservative authoritarians are binary thinkers who view the world in simple terms. They are also highly resistant to change and new experiences. Conservative authoritarians also in-group loyalty and obedience to authority figures. Together, these factors compel them to support Donald Trump.

Christian evangelicalsare some of themost enthusiastic supportersof Donald Trump. Radical religion and radical politics combine to excuse and rationalize hisfailures in office.

The white rural and Rust Belt communities that elected Donald Trump are in disarray: they are suffering from high levels of social disorganization caused by drug addiction, declining life spansand an increase in suicide, a breakdown in family structure and high levels of economic anxiety. Ultimately, many of Trumps white working class voters are facing a crisis of meaning and value in their own lives. He offered them an elixir. It has instead been provedso far to be a poison.

And with almost every area of American political and social life, the color lines influence is great. Donald Trumps ascendance was fueled by white supremacy, nativism, racial authoritarianism and a promise to make America great again by punishing nonwhites and elevating (even more) white America. Trumps voters remain willing to pay the butchers bill because they know and hope that he will hurt those people and take care of people like us. This transactional politics of race and class was explained by W.E.B. Du Bois more than 80 years ago:

It must be remembered that the white group of laborers, while they received a low wage, were compensated in part by a sort of public and psychological wage. They were given public deference and titles of courtesy because they were white. They were admitted freely with all classes of white people to public functions, public parks, and the best schools. The police were drawn from their ranks, and the courts, dependent on their votes, treated them with such leniency as to encourage lawlessness. Their vote selected public officials, and while this had small effect upon the economic situation, it had great effect upon their personal treatment and the deference shown them. White schoolhouses were the best in the community, and conspicuously placed, and they cost anywhere from twice to ten times as much per capita as the colored schools. The newspapers specialized on news that flattered the poor whites and almost utterly ignored the Negro except in crime and ridicule.

Trumps white working class voters in red state America are dead enders. They remain loyal to a man and a cause that has no use for them except as fodder. Trumps voters have not yet accepted this grim truth. When they do, the question will become against who and what groups will Donald Trumps whiteworking class voters direct their rage and anger at having been played as useful idiots.

See the article here:
The butcher's bill keeps growing: Donald Trump abuses his voters and yet they love him - Salon

In September, Germans will head to the polls to elect a new parliament. One of the parties expected to enter the Bundestag for the very first time is the Alternative fr Deutschland (or Alternative for Germany). Over the course of two years, as AfD has transitioned from an agenda of economic reform to one of nationalist populism, they have morphed into something resembling the American alt-right.

In 2012, a group of German conservatives and classical-liberal economists whohad defected from Angela Merkels center-right and the traditional liberal-democrat party found themselves associating with independent-voter groups in order to run for office on the local level. Soon, these conservatives, who were heavily critical of the European Unions economic interventionism and especially the European common currency, found themselves alienated by these existing platforms, and in 2013 they founded the AfD.

Soon after its creation, the party began to struggle with internal disagreements about the priorities of its political message: the classical liberals were keen on developing a German brand of Euroscepticismwhich, relative tothe Anglo-Saxon brand, would appear less aggressive and more academicwhile nativists and those who were religiously inspired pushed for more nationalism and social conservatism on issues like gay marriage (which remains illegal in Germany). These were internal fights over these differences during the 2013 election, which contributed to the AfD narrowly failing to enter parliament.

In 2014, the party continued its rise in the polls. It won electoral success in the European Parliament, local parliaments, and municipal councils. Former AfD chairmanBernd Lucke, a classical-liberal economist known for his numerous appearances on German TV shows dedicated to debates on the Euro and its effect on the European debt crisis, became the target of the nationalist wing of the party. But AfDs moment in the spotlight was short-lived. As the issue of Greece leaving the Euro was swept off the table and the Euro-crisis became uninteresting for the German media, so did the focus on the AfD.

Meanwhile, the stream of Syrian refugees coming into Germany intensified and a new right emerged. The so-called Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamisation of the West movement, or PEGIDA, rallied thousands of people throughout the country against the permissive immigration policy of Chancellor Merkel. Some PEGIDA demonstrations contained controversial chants,including the iconic Nazi media slur Lgenpresse, or featuredspeeches that smacked of modern-day Nuremberg rallies. The AfD split over some of its members support for PEGIDA, marking the beginning of the alt-right takeover of the AfD.

In fact, these gatherings bear strong similarities to what commentators in the United States refer to as the alt-right. What is all the more remarkable is that protagonists of the American movement, such asRichard Spencer, seem to follow the AfD handbook. Instead of starting their own political movement, they parasitically infest other groups and turn them inside out. This is precisely what happened to the AfD.

In 2015, one the AfDs most controversial high-ranking members, Bjrn Hcke, co-authored theErfurter Resolutionrequesting a major policy shift in the party. According to this manifesto, the new focus of the AfD should be A movement of the German people against the societal experiments of the past decades (like Gender-mainstreaming, multiculturalism).

Hcke is no stranger to controversy: he hasdescribed Judaism and Christianity as being in opposition toone another and haswished Germany a prosperous 1,000-year future, a well-known Nazi reference.

The partys moderates, appalled by the support behind the nationalist takeover, defected from the AfD and splintered into insignificant groups.

The now-radicalised right-wing party quickly backed off of any economic liberalism. The new chairwoman,Frauke Petry, performed complete u-turns on major policies. For instance, while she had previously called the newly introduced minimum wage a product of neo-socialism and loudly suggested abolishing it, today the AfDinsists on its existence in order to protect workers.

In this fashion, the nationalist right of the party is dismantling preceding leaders small-government approach in order to morph into a German version of the French National Front or Geert Wilderss Freedom Party in the Netherlands. This is the alt-right in practice: not only do they reject social democracy and pursue nativism, but their political goals have turned them into socialists and opponents of limited government.

Bill Wirtz is a law student at the Universit de Lorraine in Nancy, France. He blogs in four languages and has been published by the Foundation for Economic Education, the Mises Institute, the Washington Examiner, and daily Luxembourgish newspapers.

Read more here:
Meet Germany's Alt-Right | The American Conservative - The American Conservative

Ive always said that I appreciate all my readers, both those who agree with me and those who dont. But lately Ive been puzzled by the new slurs directed at me by some of the latter. Many I didnt even understand, so I did some digging.

Apparently, tried-and-true insults such as fag, fairy, kike and hebe (yes, Im Jewish) are old-school, especially among the alt-right. That small, far-right movement that seeks a whites-only state is developing new coded language, much as the Nazis once did, says noted linguist George Lakoff, a professor emeritus at the University of California at Berkeley.

For instance, in February I wrote about Milo Yiannopoulos, the now-disgraced Breitbart News editor and alt-right poster boy. I heard from many readers about that column, which took Yiannopoulos to task for his incendiary language. But one email caught my eye: Milo is far less bigoted, misogynist, and hateful than those of you sick sociopathic and psychotic SJWs who smear him so desperately. Sick, sociopathic and psychotic, I knew. But SJW? I had no clue. In a personal ad it might mean straight Jewish woman, but two of those dont apply to me. So what was this snarky new gem of an insult?

I emailed back, What is an SJW? The reply: An SJW is a social justice warrior. In the press, this particular public predator tends to be big on PC [political correctness] virtue signaling but happy to smear others viciously with false accusations of sexism, racism, white nationalism, hate speech, etc.

Well, that was certainly clear Im a public predator allegedly guilty of smearing Yiannopoulos by referring to his very own, widely reported hateful language.

I started looking into other slurs readers hurled at me. There was libtard, and one I really liked at first snowflake, because theyre magical, in moderation.

But heres the nasty undercurrent: These new words are intrinsic to the alt-rights rise, according to Lakoff. He connects this to the Nazis and the coded language (prime example: the master race) that eventually allowed them to topple governmental institutions. The strategy is to control discourse, Lakoff points out. One way you do that is preemptive name calling . . . based on a moral hierarchy.

I asked what he meant by a moral hierarchy. God above man, man above nature, men above women. The strong above the weak. Christians above gays, he said, continuing with even more examples. Lakoff emphasized that this is different from the Democrats labeling some conservatives racist, sexist or homophobic which they do if only because that usage is not as canny or strategic.

Take Donald Trumps repeated characterization of Hillary Clinton as Crooked Hillary, Lakoff said. Say it often enough in public, and people start to believe it, and before you know it people such as Clinton are discredited. The whole idea is not to be civil, Lakoff says. The idea is to win.

With that in mind, heres a short primer on some of the alt-right coded language making the rounds:

Snowflake. This is no compliment, even if you like to think that youre one of a kind. At best, its a derisive term for someone considered entitled, which to those using it includes people of color, LGBT folks, students even Meryl Streep for her pro-kindness stance at the Golden Globes. Sarah McBride of the Human Rights Campaign told me that its often used against LGBT people in reference to pronoun usage, particularly nonbinary pronoun use, and the efforts on college campuses to be more aware and affirming of peoples pronouns. Used in a sentence, via Urban Dictionary: Hey snowflake, Trump won, deal with it. With one word youre dismissed as weak, feminine, juvenile a loser.

Libtard. Lib is for liberal, while tard is shorthand for retard. Bingo! If youre two thumbs down on political correctness, then what better insult than this combination? It even allows a bonus zing at folks with special needs.

Cuck. I heard this one while watching Bill Mahers HBO show several weeks ago. One of his guests kept using it. Its short for cuckservative, which is a word cocktail made up of equal parts conservative and cuckold. Urban Dictionary defines it as a racial slur for a White person that is not loyal to White Supremacy and offers this sample of use in a sentence: Jeb is such a cuck.

Masculinist. Im an out and proud feminist, but Id never heard of masculinist. According to Merriam-Webster, its an advocate of male superiority or dominance and is often used to promote traditional gender roles. The Oxford Dictionaries use it this way, in reference to the 1990s: The newly unified German parliament replicated the same masculinist pattern, celebrating its debut with less than 10percent women representatives. Thats the same as in pre-World War II Germany and theres that Nazi thing again.

Bottom line: It pays to increase your word power these days. Theres much more to alt-right coded language than meets the eye or the ear. Steven Petrow is a Social Justice Warrior, a public predator, a devotee of political correctness, and happy to tar and feather others with false accusations. If they say it often enough, you might believe it, and then you might not believe anything I write or say. Thats their whole point.

Agree or disagree with my perspective? Let me know in the comments section below.

You can reach the author on Facebook at facebook.com/stevenpetrow and on Twitter @stevenpetrow. Join him for a chat online at washingtonpost.com on April18 at 1p.m.

More:
The coded language of the alt-right is helping to power its rise - Washington Post