The Emperor Has No Clothes!
… and neither the GOP nor the mainstream media have any spine
There’s a scene playing out on the world stage that feels like a tragic farce: the American president — Donald Trump, in his second term — has once again set fire to the global economic order with an ill-conceived trade war, a mess of tariffs, and reckless fiscal policies.
Only this time, the stakes are even higher. The capital markets are buckling, allies are reeling, and American families — my own included — are watching retirement funds shrink and prices surge.
And where is the Republican Party? Standing silently in the background, nodding like court jesters afraid to mention that the emperor is naked and has absolutely no idea what a tariff actually is.
We’ve seen this play before. But now, the consequences are compounding. What began as a campaign built on economic myth-making and hollow slogans has metastasized into full-fledged policy malpractice — and, tragically, the GOP knows it. Yet they keep playing along, parroting talking points they know are false, in the forlorn hope that Trump can once again gaslight the nation into blaming someone else for the economic collapse he is engineering.
Tariffs, trade wars, and economic ignorance
Tariffs are taxes. Period. They’re paid not by China or Mexico or Europe, but by American importers and consumers. Prices go up, exports fall, jobs are lost. This isn’t economic theory — it’s historical fact. And yet, Trump barrels ahead with more tariffs, punishing allies and adversaries alike, believing — or pretending — that these taxes somehow reduce the trade deficit.
Here’s the kicker: the trade deficit has increased under his watch. As Newsweek recently reported, Trump’s own policies have bloated the trade deficit to record levels. It’s as though the arsonist is pointing to the fire and claiming someone else lit the match.
And the media? Well, they shrug. In a rational media landscape, these falsehoods would be corrected in real time. Instead, they’re aired without pushback on primetime. Trump claims “we lost 5 to 6 billion dollars a day” under Biden’s trade deficit, and ABC and NBC both broadcast the lie without even a cursory fact-check. It’s no wonder millions of Americans still believe Republicans are the party of fiscal responsibility.
The fiscal fantasy
Let’s get something straight: Republicans have never been the party of fiscal responsibility — not in practice. The first Trump administration exploded the deficit even before COVID-19 hit. Tax cuts for the wealthy, bloated military spending, and deregulation giveaways drove federal debt through the roof. And when the pandemic came, spending ballooned even further. Biden inherited a fiscal mess, and despite record deficits during Trump’s last year, somehow the myth persists that Democrats are the ones who overspend.
Why? Because the media keeps giving Republicans a pass.
GOP Senator Ron Johnson went on CNN to downplay federal responsibility for lead-poisoned children in Milwaukee — blaming the size of the federal deficit and deflecting questions with outdated numbers from 2019, while ignoring the massive pandemic spending spike in 2020. The host let it slide. No correction. No context. No follow-up.
This happens over and over again: Republican lawmakers show up on national television, lie about the economy, and walk away unscathed.
When the press fails, so does democracy
This failure to challenge falsehoods doesn’t just distort public understanding — it actively undermines democracy. A recent poll found Americans trust Republicans more than Democrats on the economy. That’s not because Republicans have a better economic record — they don’t. It’s because no one is correcting the lies.
Facts are stubborn things, but they’re no match for a well-funded disinformation machine enabled by timid journalists and complicit networks. The truth? Over the last 35 years, 96% of all jobs in America have been created under Democratic presidents. That’s not partisan spin — it’s verified by the Bureau of Labor Statistics data.
Under Biden, the U.S. economy has been described by The Economist as “the envy of the world.” But how many voters have even heard that? How many cable news hosts have cited it? How many front pages have reported it with the same breathless enthusiasm they devote to Trump’s every tweet and tantrum?
Americans are not stupid. They’re busy. They’re working two jobs, raising kids, navigating a digital world filled with noise and distraction. If the press won’t distill the truth clearly and courageously, the public will fill the vacuum with whatever narrative is easiest to grasp. And no one spins a lie quite like Donald Trump.
The party of pretend
And so we arrive at today’s GOP: a party that’s abandoned principle for power. Its leaders know the truth. They know Trump is economically illiterate, constitutionally reckless, and morally unfit. But they say nothing. They cross their fingers and hope he can sell the con one more time.
They know tariffs don’t work, but they praise them. They know the budget deficit is a problem of their own making, but they blame Biden. They know the global economic order is unraveling because of American volatility, but they celebrate it as “strength.”
The GOP has become the party of pretend. Pretend the economy is collapsing because of Biden. Pretend that cutting taxes for billionaires creates jobs. Pretend that gutting social programs is “fiscal discipline.” Pretend Trump is a genius negotiator rather than a bull in a global china shop.
In Trump’s own fevered mind:
“People said it couldn’t be done — but I figured it out. Tariffs. It was like a light bulb — boom! — went off. Everybody before me, all these so-called economists and presidents, they never thought of it. But I did.
I said, why not tax the foreigners instead of hard-working Americans? China pays. Europe pays. Everyone pays us. That way, I could cut taxes on the job creators — you know, the successful people, the ones building America — and still keep the government running strong.
It was simple. Brilliant, really. People are calling it one of the greatest economic insights in modern history. Nobody else had the guts or the brains to do it. Only Trump.”
Time to wake up
We can’t afford to keep sleepwalking into disaster. The capital markets are already reacting. Investors have lost faith in American stability. Inflation is creeping up, supply chains are again in turmoil, and allies are distancing themselves from a White House that can’t tell the difference between leverage and lunacy.
This isn’t a drill. It’s the economic unraveling of a superpower in real time, and the media’s failure to tell the truth only hastens the fall.
It’s time for Americans — especially those who care about facts, economic stability, and constitutional governance — to demand more from both their leaders and their newsrooms. No more free passes. No more stenography disguised as journalism. No more pretending that tax cuts for the rich, tariffs for the poor, and lies for everyone else are some kind of “strategy.”
The emperor has no clothes. The Republican Party has no conscience. And the media has no excuse.
