The MAGA Mirage: Are Trump's Policies Just Feeding the Beast?
The Breakdown
Trump came back into office riding high on economic discontent. Prices were through the roof, the Fed had cooked up a monetary bonanza during the COVID years, and Americans were feeling like extras in a rigged casino run by corporate lobbyists and unelected pencil-pushers. And to Trump’s credit, he said as much. That alone earned him points with the working class and the liberty-minded alike.
But here’s where the rubber hits the road.
O’Keeffe makes a compelling argument that Trump’s current economic direction doesn’t just mirror the bureaucratic mess he once railed against—it feeds it. The big idea? Trump, in his second act, has failed to dismantle the parasitic administrative state. His Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) made a lot of noise but ultimately couldn’t—or wouldn’t—take the axe to the federal hydra. Why? Because even so-called limited government Republicans have been suckered into believing that government spending equals social progress.
No one wanted to name names. No one wanted to say which bloated programs were sinking the ship. So instead of real cuts, we got more rhetoric. And when the bureaucratic slashing fell apart, Trump doubled down on something else entirely: tariffs.
Tariffs: The “New Taxes” on the Poor
Now here’s the libertarian rub. Tariffs are taxes—plain and simple. They don’t punish China or Mexico or “those damn globalists.” They punish the average American trying to keep their head above water in an economy already weighed down by inflation, debt, and dollar devaluation. O’Keeffe points out that these taxes weren’t just slapped on cheap consumer trinkets. They were aimed squarely at capital goods and raw materials used by American businesses.
And guess what happened? Manufacturing jobs declined. Construction jobs fell. Mining? Same story. The entire fantasy of bringing back a 1950s industrial utopia on the back of protectionist policies collapsed like a wet taco.
Is This Really Capitalism?
Here’s the kicker. O’Keeffe accuses the Trump administration of buying into a mainstream media fairy tale—that the past few decades were a laissez-faire free market free-for-all. That deregulation and free trade ran amok and caused all our problems. That’s not just wrong—it’s Orwellian.
The truth? We’ve been living under a system of tightly managed crony capitalism for decades. Corporate welfare, regulatory capture, endless fiat printing, and surveillance-laced “public-private partnerships” define the modern state. Trump didn’t create this mess, but if he keeps feeding the beast—by propping up tariffs and begging the Fed for more cheap money—he becomes just another caretaker of the machine he once promised to destroy.
Inflation: The Ghost That Won’t Die
Trump’s latest Hail Mary seems to be counting on Jerome Powell and the Fed to ride in on a white horse and slash interest rates. The problem? Rate cuts will juice Wall Street while squeezing Main Street. And with inflation already baked into the economy from previous money-printing binges, pumping more liquidity could re-light the inflationary fuse.
The Question That Matters
So here’s the million-dollar question—and I won’t answer it for you. Ask yourself:
Is Trump, despite all the populist bluster, just another steward of the same corrupt economic order he swore to dismantle?
Could it be that the tariffs, the missed opportunity to gut federal bureaucracy, and the reliance on Fed magic are all signs that even outsider candidates get swallowed whole by the D.C. machine? Is the problem the man—or the system that devours all men?
You decide.
Don’t Be a Cog. Be a Free Man.
If you’re still trusting any administration—red or blue—to protect your savings, your job, or your future, you’re playing Russian roulette with a semi-automatic. It’s time to get smart. Download “Seven Steps to Protect Yourself from Bank Failure” by Bill Brocius and start building your economic perimeter.
Stay dangerous,
—Derek Wolfe
