Alarm bells

The real world realities being ushered in by President Donald Trump’s economic policies triggered alarm bells for former Rep. Mark Sanford (R-SC), who not only sounded off on their effects on the American public – but also on the GOP’s chances in 2026 midterm elections.

The warnings from the former South Carolina governor came Thursday during an appearance on CNN's “Erin Burnett OutFront” amid news that the uncertainty over Trump’s teetering tariff threats sent the stock markets into a nosedive.

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“I think the administration is playing with real fire here,” Sanford said before diving into the effects the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act of 1930 had during the Great Depression, which he added, “imploded world trade.”

“If you set off the match that lights a trade war again, there will be hell to pay politically and there will be real consequences in people's lives,” he told viewers.

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“Which I think could really, I mean, you talk about something that would bite the Republican party in the midterms,” Sanford said. “Oh my goodness.”

  MSN

Trump will not give two rat's asses about imploding anything or consequences in other people's lives. Nor about Republicans' political future.

Sanford also laid into the ripple effect Trump’s policies are already having on small business. But, “more worrisome,” according to the former South Carolina lawmaker, “is the inflation component.”

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The comments came hours after Trump told reporters that he's "not even looking at the market, because long term the United States will be very strong with what is happening here.”

Fucking shitheel. He was ALWAYS looking at the market in Trump 1.0. He's counting on cryptocurrency and Putin to take care of him. The rest of the world means nothing to him.

In Trump 1.0, he always pointed to the stock market to indicate his success. Suddenly, the stock market means nothing, and his minions trail along.

As with many of Trump’s big orange dreams, it’s not exactly clear what the crypto reserve will entail or how it will work. But the brilliance of the half-baked idea is that Trump and his cronies can make bank just by talking about it. The president can use his bully pulpit to manipulate markets. And who’s going to stop him?

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In theory, cryptocurrencies do not rely on a central government authority. Proponents say they are useful for quick or anonymous transactions. Critics point out that cryptocurrency seems designed for hiding illegal transactions and/or creating what are essentially Ponzi investment schemes.

Because of the downsides, President Biden created moderate guidelines to try to regulate some of the worst excesses of the industry, which made him an enemy of hardcore crypto boosters. But Trump in his first term expressed even deeper skepticism about cryptocurrencies, saying they are based on “thin air.”

  Public Notice

Which works beautifully for him now.

During the 2024 election, though, crypto investors spent tens of millions on Republican campaigns. Trump, who never saw a quid pro quo he didn’t love, changed his tune, embracing crypto-friendly policies. After his victory, he followed through by appointing venture capitalist and Elon Musk crony David Sacks as a White House crypto czar.

Another reason Trump flip-flopped on crypto is that his family figured out how to cash in. Following the election, Trump squandered some of the goodwill he had built up with the crypto industry when he and his wife Melania launched memecoins — essentially valueless crypto confidence games — that both surged in value, making the Trumps billions (but undermining the credibility of crypto in the process). That came after his two adult sons, Eric and Don Jr, launched their own crypto company during the campaign called World Liberty Financial. Boosting crypto as president, then, allows Trump and his family to profit directly from his public office.

But, Hunter Biden!

Trump announced his thank you to the industry last Sunday, when he declared that he would create a “Crypto Strategic Reserve” in order to make the US “the Crypto Capital of the World.” He of course claimed the move is part of “MAKING AMERICA GREAT AGAIN.”

But the actual point of the crypto reserve, much less the details, are sketchy at best. Proponents argue crypto is a store of value, like gold, and could help damp inflation. But the major cryptocurrencies tend to rise and fall in value based on broader macroeconomic sentiment. And since crypto is volatile and, unlike gold, has no intrinsic value, it’s hard to credit its usefulness as a currency stabilizer.

In any case, Trump’s announcement didn’t say anything about using the reserve to hedge against inflation. Instead, he presented the scheme as if the goal of the reserve was just to boost the domestic crypto industry against foreign competitors. It’s a kind of farm subsidy, but for billionaires making digital magic beans instead of food.

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The real genius of the crypto reserve, though, is that Trump doesn’t need to figure out how it works to enrich his buddies. All he has to do is tip off his friends, then tout certain coins on Truth Social.

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Obviously, if someone had been tipped off about Trump’s posts beforehand, they could have made millions, or even billions. And sure enough, a few hours before Trump announced the reserve, someone purchased $200 million in Ethereum and Bitcoin and made a killing. Was it a White House insider? Was it someone connected to the Trump family? How can we be sure it wasn’t?

I think we can be sure it was.

On the scale of current horrors, a few billion in straightforward graft seems relatively benign compared to Republican plans to gut Social Security and Medicaid. Or to the black box concentration camps Trump set up in Guantanamo. Or to Trump’s despicable betrayal of Ukraine.

The ugly bit about the reserve, though, is less the corruption itself than the bland sense of impunity behind it.

Trump has never been shy about grifting. He set up a fake real estate university to grift students in the 2000s. More recently, he’s used his MAGA cult leader status to sell true believers everything from NFTs to Bibles to shoes.

Even by those standards, though, the “Crypto Reserve” seems like a gratuitous grotesque swindle, as Trump uses his power to manipulate markets and hand out huge paydays to whoever happens to be in the room while he’s composing his Truth Social declarations.

The boondoggle is so obvious, and so clumsy, it barely even feels like a scam. Instead, it functions more as an open declaration of Trump’s contempt for the public, his office, and for the rule of law. If you’ve ever wondered what it’s like to live in an authoritarian kleptocracy, this is it.

UPDATE 04:06 pm:

How many reversals is that now?