Remember what happened in 1929? The same“ let the market police itself” ideology brought the whole thing crashing down. The difference now is that the contagion would be global and could even be instantaneous.
Trade shocks and de-dollarization are looming risks, too.
Trump’ s tariffs hurt American farmers and manufacturers. His talk of a new 10 % universal tariff could ignite a global trade war and could push countries like China, Brazil, or Saudi Arabia to finally abandon the dollar as the reserve currency.
If that happens— if Treasury bonds stop being the world’ s safe haven— we’ re looking at a collapse in our ability to finance debt, a surge in interest rates, a crash in the housing market, and mass layoffs. And the Republicans? They cheer it on. They think chaos is good politics.
And then there are tariffs: there’ s a reason the Founders of this country and Framers of the Constitution gave the power to enact tariffs exclusively to Congress. They knew that nobody would build a factory here unless they knew that a tariff defending their manufacturing would be in place for the decades it would take to recover their investment costs.
When tariffs are simply slapped here and there willy-nilly by a single man and can be easily repealed by the next president, no competent business manager would take them seriously: the only thing tariffs do, under these circumstances, is damage the economy. Meanwhile, Trump’ s tariffs so far are going to cost the average American family $ 2,400 this year.
And, from Donald Trump’ s point of view, they force foreign leaders to come grovel in front of him, which absolutely delights him. He brags about it, once noting that,“ They are kissing my ass.” This is not trade policy; he’ s just doing this for his ego.
And what about public confidence and how the loss of it could cause a depression?
You can’ t have a functioning economy without trust in government, in institutions, in money itself. But the GOP has made destroying trust its central project.
They lie about elections. They undermine the courts. They spread conspiracy theories. They smear career civil servants. They openly praise authoritarianism.
When half the population no longer believes in the legitimacy of its own government, and when the other half sees that government captured by billionaires and zealots, economic confidence evaporates.
People stop spending. They stop investing. They retreat into cash and hoarding. That’ s how depressions spiral out of control.
Now layer on climate instability and its ability to wreck an economy and you have a real mess.
The GOP’ s climate denialism is not just immoral, it’ s economically suicidal. Hurricanes, wildfires, floods, and heat waves are destroying billions in assets every year.
Insurance markets are collapsing in California, Florida, and Louisiana. Agricultural yields are falling. Water shortages are hitting the Southwest. Floods are wiping out the Midwest and the South while wildfires torch the West. But Republicans keep slashing climate research, killing green energy subsidies, and banning ESG investment strategies. They are literally outlawing the future.
It’ s a five-alarm fire, and the Republican arsonists are demanding more gasoline.
There is, however, a way out. We’ ve done it before.
After the last Republican-created depression, Franklin Roosevelt rejected the dogma of austerity and implemented the most ambitious suite of Keynesian policies in world history. He put people to work. He regulated the banks. He taxed the rich. He unionized the workforce. He broke up monopolies. He guaranteed Social Security, unemployment insurance, and the right to organize.
That system— Keynesian demandside economics— created the greatest middle class the world has ever seen. It lifted millions out of poverty, stabilized capitalism, and gave rise to the postwar economic boom. It literally created the modern American middle class.
But starting in 1981, Reagan and the GOP declared war on that system. They gutted antitrust enforcement. They slashed top tax rates. They crushed unions. They deregulated finance. They privatized public goods. They shifted the burden of funding government from the rich to the working class. And then they blamed the victims of their policies for the resulting inequality and instability. Now they’ re going for the kill shot. Trump and his Republican Party are not just misguided; they are dangerous. Their policies are not just bad; they are existential threats to economic stability. They’ ve created the conditions for collapse, and they’ ll blame immigrants, Democrats, or queer kids when it happens.
We can’ t let them. We have to take our country back, economically, politically, morally.
That means rejecting trickle-down nonsense and restoring Keynesian demand-side policies. It means breaking up monopolies and rebuilding a regulatory state that works. It means bringing back progressive taxation and closing loopholes for billionaires. It means massive investment in clean energy, public health, education, and infrastructure. It means rebuilding trust in democracy by reversing Citizens United, defending voting rights, rooting out corruption, and calling out fascism where we see it.
This must be at the core of the platform Democrats run on this fall and during next year’ s midterms.
The risk of a depression is real. But the solution is in our hands. We just have to stop letting the Republican Party light the matches.
The Trial Lawyer 67