Arthur E. Sowers is a resident of Harbeson.
The title of a Reuters article dated Aug. 17 said: “Trump approval falls to 33%, lowest of his presidency, Reuters/Ipsos poll finds.” I quote from that article: “Just 33% of respondents in the four-day survey said they approved of (Donald) Trump’s performance in the White House, ... down from 35% in a poll that closed earlier this month.” I am surprised that it is even that high. Lots of things are going downhill, and I will discuss just a few of them here.
Trump’s idea of free speech and the free press means that you have only one option: Don’t say bad things about Trump, or dragon fire will come down on your head. Brendan Carr, the head of the Federal Communications Commission, began a process of intimidation against certain licensed ABC broadcast stations because they didn’t help say just nice things about Trump. Well, ABC decided to sue over that. Here is just one fairly detailed PBS News article about that: “ABC says FCC waging a retaliatory campaign violating free speech rights.” Here is a Reuters article that explains how Trump lies about what he is doing: “Trump vowed to ‘bring free speech back.’ Judges in 75 cases ruled that he has stifled it.”
Are our elections going to be free of interference or challenge from Trump? This Aug. 20 Slate article gives a summary of where we stand: “Trump Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop (Undermining the 2026 Elections).” Here is a CNN article that says that Trump is still undermining our election system and that the studies he brings up are rigged: “Trump officials touted a voter fraud bombshell. Their data hasn’t proved it.” Here is one from NPR: “Experts raise alarms over Census Bureau report Trump is touting on noncitizen voting.” And here is one on the same subject, from MS NOW: “DHS has not verified its claim of nearly 16,000 noncitizen voters in Nevada.” I would say you should go ahead and vote, but you may want to call or visit your elections office for the latest news and check for anything you might not know about. Hope for the best and expect that Trump will meddle with the elections.
We also have the continued expansion of Trump’s “gestapo,” since our new attorney general signals that he will not be functioning independently of Trump. Read about it in this MS NOW article: “Blanche’s view of an ‘independent’ Justice Department would erase Watergate-era reforms.”
I found this Religion News Service article to be disturbing: “11 faith groups accuse Trump administration of violating court order while spying on churches.” I quote the first sentence in that article: “Religious groups now argue that the government has committed ‘multiple egregious violations’ of a preliminary injunction handed down in their case back in February.”
According to this POLITICO article, Trump continues his power grab and is even making more enemies in his own party: “Republicans bristle at Trump’s latest tactics to undermine Congress’ funding power.”
Regarding the continued growth of Trump’s enemies, I quote this sentence: “The Secret Service has opened more than 10,000 investigations this year into threats against people it protects, a 40% rise over the same period last year, officials said Wednesday.” It comes from this NBC News article: “‘Off the charts’: Secret Service describes rising threats to protectees.”
Earlier this year, Trump began major military bombing of Iran as part of an expansion of an ongoing war between Israel and various neighboring states. Up to now, the cost of this war has been estimated to range from $40 billion to $100 billion. Around Aug 19-20, and after months of bombing Iran, Trump had no “deal” with Iran to end the U.S.-Iran war. Shipping traffic through the Strait of Hormuz is not back to normal, and gas prices at U.S. gas pumps are still about a dollar higher than they should be. Trump then stopped his bully military war and replaced it with his bully economic war on Iran. Part of that economic warfare involves using his power to threaten to bully Iran trading partners to stop doing business with Iran and thus crash the Iranian economy. From this U.S. News & World Report article, we learn that Iran has substantial trade with nine other countries: “Factbox-Trump Threatens to Isolate Iran. Who Are Its Trading Partners?” Trump seems to expect that all of the nine involved countries would instantly cave into his bullying and carry out economic war against Iran. But, if those nine countries did that, they would be hurting their own economies, too. Less than two days later, a lot of articles like this one, from CNN, came out: “Key Iranian trading partner China rejects Trump’s ‘economic D-Day’ threat.” Still another article, from the Al Jazeera Media Network, also expects a failure in Trump’s plan to isolate Iran: “How China and Russia could hobble Trump’s plans to isolate Iran.”
By the way, this quote told me something I did not know about Russian and Ukrainian farm exports: “The two vast nations are estimated to produce around a quarter of the world’s grain exports.” That quote came from this CNBC article: “‘Perfect storm’ brews for global food supply this winter as grain prices soar.”
Moreover, trade negotiations with Canada just broke down. Larger tariffs on both sides will hurt both economies. The situation is not simple, but if I were to venture a guess, I would say what this is really all about is Trump’s insistence on establishing dominance over Canada— rather than continuing incremental negotiations and supporting stability — to gain leverage for an eventual attempt to annex Canada down the road.
It is not generally realized, but Trump’s use of his self-expanded control of tariffs is illegal under international law. Trump also played a dirty trick. International trade disputes are within the jurisdiction of the World Trade Organization. You can read this good and fair article, from the Peterson Institute for International Economics, dated March 2020: “Why did Trump end the WTO’s Appellate Body? Tariffs.” Trump’s dirty trick is explained by this Google AI one-sentence summary: “The World Trade Organization (WTO) appellate system was effectively paralyzed when the Trump administration blocked the appointment and reappointment of judges to its seven-member Appellate Body.” In effect, Trump increased his power to use tariffs as weapons of force by deliberately sabotaging the WTO appellate process.
Reader reactions, pro or con, are welcomed at civiltalk@iniusa.org.
