Looking back on a week in which the lies, the corruption, and the incompetence of the Mump Regime were on full display.
The Economy Is Teetering
Even as the words came out of his mouth, Trump's inauguration day promise that "the Golden Age of America begins right now" sounded about as believable as that time he offered consumers "the world's best steaks."
But while Trump Steaks lasted two full months before being discontinued due to disappointing sales, Trump's "Golden Age" was a blink-and-you'll-miss-it mirage that was over before it even began.
By early February, it was clear that President Stupid was already putting the country on course for another Trump Crash.
By March, The Economist, which in October 2024 had described the Biden economy as "the envy of the world," was warning that the "delusional" Trump was behaving like an arsonist itching to set the whole thing ablaze.
Now, as the first quarter of 2025 comes to an end, the destruction Trump has already wrought is clear:
Consumers are freaking out:
The Conference Board reported this week that consumer confidence has slumped to a 12-year low:
- Short-term expectations for income, business and the job market fell 9.6 points to 65.2, well below the threshold of 80 that signals a potential recession
- The proportion of U.S. consumers anticipating a recession is at a nine-month high
Meanwhile, the University of Michigan’s Survey of Consumers plunged 11.9% from February to March:
- The current reading of 57.0 is down 28.2% from a year ago
- Worries over inflation are intensifying
Investors are selling:
- The S&P 500 is down 5% year to date
- The NASDAQ is down 10%
- The Dow, which hit a high above 45,000 when Biden was President, plunged more than 700 points on Friday, closing at 41,584
Business leaders are "pessimistic":
- 95% of CFOs say Trump's policies are impacting their ability to make business decisions
- 75% say a recession will hit by 2026
- 60% say it will arrive this year
Meanwhile, the dollar had its worst month since December 2023, pointing to higher costs for imported goods even before the next wave of Donnie Dumb-Dumb's tariffs hit.
Tourism Is Tanking
According to the UK's Independent:
The Trump administration’s crackdown on immigrants has a whole other group of people scared to come to the U.S: tourists.
Overseas visitors to the U.S. dropped 2.4% in February 2025.
And things are about to get a whole lot worse.
As stories mount of "temporary visitors with innocuous itineraries being imprisoned for days or weeks... some experts fear a permanent chilling effect that could displace the USA’s decades-long status as a hub for both business travel and vacations."
The New York Times reports:
The research firm Tourism Economics had originally forecast travel to the United States to grow by 9% this year, but in February, it updated its outlook, expecting inbound travel to decline by 5.1%.
That decline will eliminate $18 billion in consumer spending, resulting in job losses across the travel sector—and creating new challenges for small businesses that rely on international tourists.
Maine's coastal communities have already been hit hard by cancellations from once-reliable Canadian visitors.
US airline stocks have been pummeled since they slashed their earnings forecasts earlier this month.
America's "Einsteins" Are Fleeing
Between 1933 and 1941, writes John Naughton in The Guardian:
About 2,000 scientists and academics fled (Europe's) fascist countries... fearing for themselves or Jewish family members. Then, universities in the US and the UK made space for and welcomed a whole generation of geniuses – Albert Einstein, Enrico Fermi, Leo Szilard, Hans Bethe, Max Born, Rudolf Peierls, Francis Simon, to name just a few.
In 2025, because "no line of (scientific) inquiry is safe from the raging firestorm of Maga intolerance," US physicists are now traveling to international conferences with burner phones and "minimalist laptops" that run "browsers and not much else."
Meanwhile, European universities are already taking steps "to provide safe places for American researchers."
When the physicists need burner phones, that’s when you know America’s changed | John Naughton
US academics, fearing persecution by their own government, are becoming ideological refugees. Europe, and Britain, must offer them sanctuary
John Naughton
The "Tesla Takedown" Movement Is Growing
The backlash against Elon Musk's assault on the US government isn't letting up.
Saturday March 29 saw the biggest day of action yet for the "Tesla Takedown" movement.
Protesters rebelling against Elon Musk’s purge of US government swarm Tesla showrooms
Crowds protesting billionaire Elon Musk’s purge of the U.S. government under President Donald Trump began amassing outside Tesla dealerships throughout the U.S. on Saturday.
By: The Associated Press
Michigan protesters rally against Musk in ‘Tesla Takedown’ demonstrations
Protests in the Kalamazoo and Grand Rapids areas Saturday joined the wave of “Tesla Takedown” demonstrations around the country.
Josh Sanchez
Hundreds of ‘Tesla takedown’ protesters turn out at Owings Mills dealership
Hundreds of protesters are lining both sides of Reisterstown Road outside the Owings Mills Tesla dealership, expressing outrage at the company’s billionaire CEO, Elon Musk.
Daniel Zawodny
As CNN reported, the “global day of action” coordinated 500 protests across the US, Canada and Europe.
On Friday, the now-toxic Tesla stock lost another 3.5%, closing down more than 46% from its December 2024 peak.
Chinese EVs Are Leaving Tesla In The Dust
I'm old enough to remember when Elon Musk was bragging that the low-paid workers at his Shanghai gigafactory were willing to "burn the 3AM oil" to meet the kind of production targets that were beyond anything American lazies could hope to achieve.
Three years later, it seems the Chinese employees weren't just sucking up to Elon by sleeping on the factory floor.
They were also walking out the building with Tesla's then-industry-leading trade secrets.
Somehow, global business genius Elon Musk failed to consider that the very Shanghai factory that once symbolized world-leading innovation would also enable massive corporate espionage and rapid technology transfer.
Fast forward to 2025 and Chinese EV manufacturers are accelerating past Tesla in China and beyond, having rapidly built manufacturing capabilities at scale with (perhaps) less of the R&D costs.
BYD—aka "Build Your Dream"—launched its first fully electric car in 2022.
In 2024, BYD leapfrogged Tesla to become the number one EV maker in the world, with sales topping $100 billion.
In February 2025, amid a 76% overall surge in EV sales in China, BYD sales surged 160% year-over-year while Tesla sales plunged 49%.
BYD now has two of the top three—and 7 of the top 20—bestselling EV models in China, while Tesla has only one model in the top 20.
BYD, a former battery maker, says its proprietary batteries are a safer option than lithium-ion ones because they don't keep exploding.
Meanwhile Tesla, with a product line now viewed as "old-fashioned" in China, has seen it market share in the country implode to just 4%.
But Let's Not Get Too Comfortable
If China learned Elon's secrets of building EVs in no time flat, it looks like Musk has been learning something from the Chinese in return.
He's rapidly moving to recreate the totalitarian regime's WeChat "everything app" here in the US.
What is WeChat? As Andra Watkins explains:
Boasting over a billion users, WeChat is billed as a Chinese messaging app (similar to WhatsApp), but it is really the 24/7, AI-powered surveillance arm of the Chinese Communist Party.
What would it take to bring something similar to America?
Imagine a fascist billionaire using a combination of his companies to harness the power of information he’s stolen from the federal government to build a version of WeChat that he owns and controls.
The plan couldn't actually work if all he had was Twitter.
Elon Musk’s xAI firm buys social media platform X for $33bn
Specifics of deal remain unclear, including how X’s leaders will be integrated into new company
Reuters
But he's just merged that Saudi-backed social platform into his Saudi-backed xAI venture.
And Elon and Big Balls do have access to all our government data.
And Visa just signed on to help make it happen.
Fuck.
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