Democrats have lost the war on perception: Trade War Cope - Darryl Apostle

Concluding the three-day trade war prompted by President Donald Trump to strong-arm our neighboring countries into reinforcing their borders to disrupt the illegal flow of drugs and illegal immigrants into the United States—that’s it, it’s been concluded in three days… and President Trump strong-armed them into following through.

By threatening tariffs, President Trump has done the discouraged yet entirely possible. Because in a reality where the United States of America is the global political and economic hegemon, yes, we can “just do things,” as the meme goes. But for some reason, people are disillusioned by this reality because it doesn’t fit their own worldview. From Trudeau-Sheinbaum’s futile retaliatory tariffs—meant to save face and bolster their image—to Chuck Schumer’s “guac is made of Mexican avocados” press briefing, and all the way down to those “resist lib” X accounts that are allegedly paid by the DNC, they are all coping with the world around them and the erosion of their ideology, visibly cracking at the foundation.

What I’ve noticed with American politics is that there is never any consensus, there is never any acceptance on issues that become a national debate. Donald Trump has been in politics half of my life—since 2015—and I feel inclined to blame it on the Trump era, not Trump himself, however. One can blame increased polarization around his entrance into politics, but at this point, that is just a buzz phrase that doesn’t really encapsulate the inability for all things “Trump” to remain straightforward and acutely perceptible for others differing ideologically to take something at face value. There seems to be something almost biologically hardwired in the way that Democrats and the global neoliberal establishment pounce away from the idea that maybe Trump could be right one time—which would be one less than a broken clock. Since 2015, the war on perception has been entirely lost by the neoliberal establishment and won entirely by the Make America Great Again movement.

For Mexico and Canada, on February 1st, to declare retaliatory tariffs on the United States—with a combined GDP of 4 trillion dollars to the U.S.’s 27 trillion—when their nations’ exports have a supermajority of exports to the U.S. and better yet, after their liberal counterparts in America said tariffs do not work in any capacity—it is almost laughable how they concluded that anything other than their complete compliance with President Trump’s terms was anything other than a suggestion and rather an ultimatum. But these leaders are not stupid—or rather, the economists that are likely in their immediate circle and advise them on the economy and trade aren’t—they are attempting to be perceptive with the information they are given, which is smart but not efficient, nor are they in any position to be so against the executive of the United States. Under President Trump, he is reminding them who the hegemon is, as the past administration allowed them to believe that we were anything but that.

The executives of Canada and Mexico understandably do not want to be seen kissing the ring of the Americans because, like most modern societies in the Western Hemisphere, they are—hashtag—prideful. Truly, it is no wonder the Mexicans bent the knee first. Besides their overdependent economy, “pride” does not feed your citizens. Canada may have found a way to feed “pride” to its citizens, but it only lasted a couple of hours after they saw the Mexicans break. Suddenly, 10,000 soldiers from each neighboring country could be supplied at their respective borders—and get this—for no cost, no extortion of money or political favors, or aid. It is important to note this because this is the point at which the breakdown of reality begins with the dissenters of tariffs as a use of leverage over a country.

In this specific instance, like all things “Trump,” there is a crowd that cannot believe it was this easy for Trump to get exactly what he wanted. They decry their “queen,” President Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo of Mexico—long may she reign—stuck it to Trump and gave him exactly what she promised the United States already. Keep in mind there was never any deal prior to Trump taking office that Sheinbaum specifically herself ordered the deployment of 10,000 soldiers to the U.S.’s southern border, and yet there are screenshots of an AP article going around titled “Mexico, Honduras, Guatemala deploy troops to lower migration” from April 12, 2021, circulating in online liberal circles as if this is something that the Biden administration has already facilitated—as if it wasn’t an executive agreement that was rolled over into his administration from the first Trump administration and was enforced with the threat of tariffs as well, on top of the fact that this agreement facilitated troops at its own southern border and not our shared one. The prior "agreement" between Biden and these countries was the extortion past mentioned, April 2021 is the timeframe in which “aid” to these countries increased by millions in order for them to do their duties that are supposed to be inherent as a nation on the international stage that doesn't want humanitarian crisis's to deal with.

Everything in these online circles is so utterly politically inept and pathetic, as you can see them through the screen of your very phone clinging so desperately onto their perceived reality that they want to force down everyone else’s throats. They are losing, and you can see it clearly.

Harry Sisson, a Gen-Z Democrat advocate, is using an article to save Democratic face titled “Federal Govt Unveils Canada’s Birder Security Plan - December 17, 2024,” which, when you draw comparisons between Trudeau’s most recent press release on the concession he’s made with Trump, can seemingly look as if it is the same deal—but that’s only if you read half of the Canadian press release like an illiterate. There’s no effort to talk about the extra concessions that were announced. As I say to the dissenters, “20,000 soldiers from both countries didn’t just fall out of a coconut tree.” Many people didn’t even know the government of Canada had soldiers to deploy domestically, nevertheless 10,000 of them to fight organized crime dealing in fentanyl under Trudeau's new directive.

At the very least, a dissenter who is ideologically aligned with these circles should ask themselves when they see these screenshots and headlines: “Why didn’t they implement these promises on day one in order to avoid this friction with their ‘ally’?” And the answer is because they were going to slow-roll it and never took the tariffs seriously—until Trump confirmed it in a press briefing the last day of the week prior to their implementation.

The extra 200 million being imposed by Canada is, as Trudeau put it himself, “In addition.” The extra 30 days they are getting is to make sure they hastily get these promises brought to fruition in a timely manner—and if they do not, they will be right back to square one with the tariffs. Because these “promises” the Democrats say were made under Biden should have been implemented on January 20th. What the dissenters do not understand is that this is the point of using the tariffs in the first place—and why we must use them against our “allies” that play the United States like a “sucker,” to put it in Trump’s turn of phrase, as he sees it.