Claudia Sheinbaum’s response to Trump’s threat of tariffs revealed truths that the president-elect doesn’t want Americans to know.

cross-posted from: https://beehaw.org/post/17300245

Archived version

Donald Trump’s angry threat to impose 25 percent tariffs on all U.S. imports from Mexico—delivered Monday via the cautious diplomatic language of a Truth Social rant—is widely being depicted as a bluff. Trump declared that once in the White House, he will impose the tariffs unless Mexico stops migrants and fentanyl from “pouring” into the United States. Seen as a feint, the tactic could theoretically get Mexico to halt the migrant flow, allowing Trump to pull back on tariffs later while boasting that on the border, he has already bent Mexico to his will.

But amid all this parsing of Trump’s intentions, a crucial fact about his new move is getting lost: At the center of it is a lie. This lie is hiding in plain sight: It’s the underlying suggestion that Mexico is not doing anything to stop migrants from coming and that Trump’s threat of tariffs is needed to change that. Here we’re getting an early glimpse of how he will deceive voters about some of his most potentially destructive designs, on tariffs and immigration alike.

All this is laid bare by the sharp response to Trump’s threat that new Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum issued Tuesday. Her statement is getting attention for its barbed claim that American guns trafficked to Mexico are fueling crime and violence there among gangs supplying U.S. markets with drugs. “Tragically, it is in our country that lives are lost to the violence resulting from meeting the drug demand in yours,” Sheinbaum noted acidly, suggesting that the two countries’ interrelated national challenges underscore the need for cross-border cooperation rather than Trumpian confrontation.

That’s a harsh indictment of Trump’s whole worldview.

  • sp3ctr4l@lemmy.zip
    145·
    2 days ago

    Yep, we’re overworked, overstressed, underpaid, don’t have time to be informed or do / learn how to do critical thinking.

    Doesn’t change the fact that we’re astoundingly ignorant, and increasingly illiterate.

    You’ve provided an explanation (which is not actually simpler, my single sentence summary of your points is), but that does not change the actual fact that 54% of American adults cannot read a children’s story to their own kids, even if they had the time.

    Combine that with short form social media addiction amongst children markedly reducing attention span and cognitive ability generally, and the actual reality on the ground is even worse.

    If you want a practical, functional conversation geared toward solving the problem, you have to face these facts.

    If you want a short lament about the state of society and its general anti intellectualism and ignorance, the person whose take you are calling shitty and thoughtless is actually a pretty concise and accurate remark.

    Is it a shitty take to say ‘Under Trump, trans people / latin immigrants / the poor are fucked’?

    Does that require an in-depth explanation of how and why that statement is true to not be a shitty take?

    … This overexplanation, this attitude that ‘no you must make clear that you understand all the context before you can have an opinion’ kind of attitude is precisely what turns off people who have short attention spans and don’t have the time or are literally incapable of doing their own research.

    It is the exact stereotype that Republicans have been successfully utilizing for decades against Democrats, that they’re all stodgy elitists who talk down to anyone who is not as enlightened as them.

    … Which is over half of adult Americans.

    Keep running with it, you’ll have the moral highground when the flood of economic and climactic disasters washes us all away, with no regard to how many times you can say ‘i told you so’ before you drown.

    • halcyoncmdr@lemmy.worldEnglish
      132·
      2 days ago

      You’ve provided an explanation (which is not actually simpler, my single sentence summary of your points is),

      Mine was actually simpler, and is even simpler than yours…

      For many Americans they simply don’t have the time to read about it.

      I just then immediately expanded on that simple explanation, instead of leaving a lazy single line response like the OP. Because this is a place for actually discussing things, not just leaving a side shitty comment like it’s Facebook. The OP I responded to did not even attempt to go beyond, instead going for the low hanging fruit of, “haha Americans dumb” and leaving it at that as of that added to the conversation in some way.