Fascism is a Cancer

Fascism is like cancer.  You either have it or you don’t.  Let’s check the health of the country to see what symptoms of fascism it might be experiencing.

  1. ruling by decree instead of legislation – ✓
  2. making arrests without warrants – ✓
  3. sentencing (deporting) without due process –  ✓
  4. ignoring court orders – ✓
  5. moving against the will of the legislature (closing down Congressionally funded agencies) ✓
  6. coercing educational institutions to a prescribed curriculum – ✓
  7. freeing criminals (executive pardons) – ✓

The patient (country) is showing signs of the cancer.  Like cancer, to cure the patient, the cancer needs to be eradicated.  This means at a minimum, that all legislators that ascribe to the cancer must be removed from office at the next election cycle.  That’s if the patient survives. 

Trump the Destroyer of Wealth

I hope you haven’t looked at your IRA or S529 College Savings plans. Trump’s tariff policy sure has the markets voting that this is a bad move, increasing the probability of a recession later in the year. With the Fed data dependent (they have to see the monthly data points first), there’s no way interest cuts are going to rapidly make up for a slowing economy.

Somebody needs to tell this Administration that it takes years to build manufacturing plants, if their intent is truly to onshore manufacturing. Given the variety of explanations from the Administration, I’m not sure they know why they’re doing it. American workers won’t want to work for low hourly wages, so as a consumer, you can say goodbye to inexpensive goods, even if “made in America.” If you are a U.S. manufacturer, you’ll raise your prices to match the price of imports to increase your profit (unless you want to grab market share). From many perspectives, the people loose, with great wealth destroyed in the last six weeks.

The Government on X

Here’s a theory, but it’s based on no proof and lacks any counterarguments. It suggests that Musk might be trying to make the U.S. government a client of the X platform for personal gain. Let me explain my reasoning.

Musk’s team wants access to government systems and data. But why? There have been articles about them wanting to send data offsite (from the government) to where? I guess X systems.

So, why do they want access? Well, with access, they can figure out the system’s design and database layouts. That’s perfect for building new versions. But here’s the catch: they want to replicate these systems on X servers so Musk can charge the government to recoup his Trump campaign contributions. Once they have their hands on the data, they can set their AI engine to learn mode and use all the U.S. citizen’s data. The Eye believes this is their secret weapon. His team is totally unsupervised, so they can do whatever they want. And guess what? Elected representatives have no idea. They’ve given up on their responsibility of oversight and are trusting Musk’s motives.

Now, the right way to redesign government systems is to follow the federal procurement processes. That means issuing requests for proposals and contracting with the winning company. It should be just plain old commercial competition. But here’s the thing: Musk and the Trump Administration are not following any rules. They’ve set themselves above the law.  If I were a big corporation doing business with the government, I’d be furious at not being able to compete.

Another example of Musk trying to recoup his campaign contributions and make the government reliant on his companies is the push for the FAA and the FCC to adopt his Starlink. Again, it’s all for personal gain after he bought his influence during the political campaign.

There is no data in sight that contradicts this view.

.

Trump & Herbert Hoover

As President Trump piles on tariffs to other countries goods, it’s interesting to compare this approach to history of such attempts.

Current day politicians seemed to have skipped their U.S. History class in high school. After rhe 1929 stock market crash, Hoover’s approach to the economy was to lower taxes (although by only 1%); tried to protect businesses with the Congressional Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act (versus today’s administrative declarations) which resulted in other countries retaliated with their own tariffs. Sound familiar to today? So what happened?

in 1930 GDP fell 8.5% with unemployment moving up to 8.7%. For 2025, the Atlanta Fed is now forecasting a drop in GDP for Q! of almost 3% (2.8% to be exact). The good news (so far) is the St. Louis Fed recession probability is still less than 1% (but the latest data point was in January). This will probably go higher the longer tariffs stay imposed.

Another comparison of the administration’s shows that both targeted immigrants for deportation (or in Hoover’s case, repatriation). “History never repeats itself but it rhymes,” as attributed to Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens). Of course, from an economic standpoint, stopping immigration and deporting people actually reduces economic growth by fewer people providing labor (agriculture, construction) and their spending money in the economy.

So how well did that work out for Hoover? His administrations actions did not help the Great Depression. But policies of sticking with the gold standard, increasing taxes in 1932, and the Federal Reserve tightened monetary policy exacerbated the problem. During his term, the government went from a $1 billion budget surplus to $6 billion in debt.

So what’s in store for the U.S economy now? Based on history, probably nothing positive with the stock market in steep decline, unemployment rising and inflation still not under control. This is a self-induced economic downturn by the President Trump, who seems to want comparisons to Hoover.