Apple's 3-day loss in market cap is almost 640 billion.[1]
Imagine if they'd put just 10% of that loss in market cap toward the election, preventing the guy who promised to do this to them from getting power. It would've been unthinkable at the time to spend that much, but it looks like it would've been a bargain in hindsight.
They could still commit to spending that much right now and run the party which is driving this harm out of power. A 60 billion war chest commitment to primary every GOP congressional rep in 2028 is a financially prudent investment. Trump will get the blame as the party leader, but the GOP in congress could shut this down within hours if they cared to, so apply the leverage where it has the most effect.
The defense of this regime's economic strategy (particularly the market crash and looming economic hardships) is doing political horseshoe theory and entering Maoist territory with surprising speed.
"You'll be rich because we're so good with the economy" has raced over to "We've been rotting in decadent lifestyles, true strong patriots will be happy to sacrifice for the glory of the fatherland."
"Tons of people globally are screwing screws into iphones. We are going to bring those jobs here."
"Inexpensive goods from overseas aren't actually prosperity. You don't want these things."
"You probably didn't earn your job in the government anyway."
True decadence is looking at a society that is broadly functioning and deciding "we need a fight" and blowing it up just for some aggressive notion of dominance.
> Here’s what I always remind myself about this current government: It is really the worst ideas conflated together, but it was that, or elect leftists in power.
"We destroyed the economy for a generation, but at least we stopped people from making us put pronouns in our bio."
It‘s the worst ideas together, but the alternative is even worse? That does not make any sense, logically. But I guess this summarizes the current situation quite nicely.
> Next week, DOGE and IRS leadership are expected to host dozens of engineers in DC so they can begin “ripping up the old systems” and building the API, an IRS engineering source tells WIRED. The goal is to have this task completed within 30 days. Sources say there have been multiple discussions about involving third-party cloud and software providers like Palantir in the implementation.
Well yeah, obviously bring in Palantir. 10x the headcount so they can have the task completed in 3 days.
Oh I didn't notice that. Well, he has repeatedly humiliated congress with the wildly unqualified cabinet he forced them to rubber-stamp, so I suppose it's no surprise he'd continue by rubbing their nose in a violation of the law they just passed.
The GOP showed their hand when the failed to remove him over January 6. He could probably send recalcitrant GOP congressional reps to El Salvador without trial and the others would go on Fox News to say they probably deserved it.
> ...countries that have strong labor support policies (like strong social safety nets) are generally much better able to garner the benefit from international trade without suffering social and political costs from it.
The US was absolutely wealthier due to free trade, but the idea of equitably distributing that wealth, supporting those who were disadvantaged by free trade, is so abhorrent to the ruling class that it's not even considered as the obvious solution here.
Nope, we just have to throw free trade in the dumpster, surely that will solve our problem of the weak being systematically exploited by the strong.
These predictions are made without factoring in the trade version of the Pearl Harbor attack the US just initiated on its allies (and itself, by lobotomizing its own research base and decimating domestic corporate R&D efforts with the aforementioned trade war).
They're going to need to rewrite this from scratch in a quarter unless the GOP suddenly collapses and congress reasserts control over tariffs.
I've never been a political donor, I might've thrown $20 into a small donation a couple times. However, it seems financially irresponsible not to pour everything up to the legal limit into punishing everyone involved in this tax hike to the maximum extent.
The politics are important, and that effort must continue, but also directly targeting conservative voters economically. When they have distressed assets to sell, farmland, homes, businesses, I am ready to buy at a substantial discount. I have prepared to lever up with access to debt for this opportunity, and I recommend others who can do so. I want to buy when there is blood in the streets (economically), but only taking from those who caused this.
People expect to be able to take advantage of events like this, but if you're working for a living when there's blood in the streets, it's your blood. If you're an investor who wasn't correctly catching the falling knife (or insider trading) it's also your blood in the streets.
The Peter Thiels of the world are who this move is for, not us plebes who spend time posting on HN.
Retaliatory tariffs from the EU have repeatedly targeted things like Bourbon, in order to target specific parts of the US (likely mostly aimed at certain politicians, but also at voters I imagine).
“How do you feel about this economic path? Are you concerned at all about the harm this will cause?”
“It’ll hurt but I’d vote for him again in a heartbeat.”
Certainly, always compassion and empathy for compassionate people. I am a very empathetic and compassionate person myself, I will give you the shirt off my back. For everyone else? Hard times ahead, as compassion and empathy have limits. Kindness is not weakness.
> “How do you feel about this economic path? Are you concerned at all about the harm this will cause?”
> “It’ll hurt but I’d vote for him again in a heartbeat.”
What was done when the steel belt became the rust belt? Mostly finger wagging. I'm sure a lot of free traders would have the same response about all the harm their chosen polices caused.
But of course, more compassion is expected from some poor guy in a rust belt town, even after he's gotten very little compassion himself. How dare he not think about the rich coastal software engineers when he's in the ballot box!
I am not a software engineer. I don’t live on a coast. I grew up intermittently poor before I did well.
I am not unsympathetic to someone in the rust belt, anywhere really, who needs help. I don’t expect them to be a software engineer. We should provide robust social safety nets, guarantees of remote work in some fashion, whatever it takes to help these people live good lives until they retire or die. Tax me more, I insist. But, I don’t think that’ll make them happy nor what is on offer with this administration. It’s certainly not what they’re voting for. To reconfigure domestic manufacturing will take 5-10 years at least, and the evidence is robust the electorate is too unsophisticated and impatient for that.
> ...but also directly targeting conservative voters economically.
That's kind of an asshole move. Did people react to having their communities and livelihoods damaged by neoliberalism, in a way not approved by economically advantaged software engineers? Don't try to solve their problems in a better way, try to fuck them even harder instead! We should teach 'em to get fucked and not complain!
If you want to target anyone, you should target the people who made a shit-ton of money off of neoliberalism, in a way that paved the path for Trump.
That's not why they're targeting conservative voters. They're targeting the states & districts of senators and congressmen who are voting for Trump's agenda in an effort to get them to change their vote.
> That's not why they're targeting conservative voters. They're targeting the states & districts of senators and congressmen who are voting for Trump's agenda in an effort to get them to change their vote.
No. The post I was responding to literally was talking about personally taking advantage of conservative voters, not their representatives. The post above that talked about "punishing everyone involved in this tax hike to the maximum extent. It's pretty clear it's just a "fuck you," aimed at regular people.
No introspection, no proposals for solving the problems that would cause people to give tariffs a chance, just punishment. It's neoliberals saying, "we don't give two shit about you, if you resist our beatings, we'll just beat your harder for being uppity."
Interesting the way you framed this. Especially the part about liberals doing the beatings and threatening more of them.
One party had a message and large portion of it's voter base focused on messages and policies that can only be described as hateful and harmful. Now that it seems like that harm is transpiring and surprise surprise just as the "we don't give two shits about you" liberals warned that harm is at best indiscriminate and at worst going to impact those spiteful voters the most.
Trump is doing exactly what he said he'd do, tariff all the things, these people proudly and loudly voted for the (self-inflicted) punishment you're describing.
Depends where you send your money. I've used this in the past and as a huge bonus, I don't get added to 29494494292 mailing lists https://app.oath.vote/
From what I can tell, all that does is send money to campaigns. While not getting junk mail is great, it doesn't build long-term grass roots organizations or resiliency. It doesn't support active protests, or get politicians to vigorously oppose what's happening to the US.
I don't like how you can't see their recommendations for previous elections. That would help others judge if their "algorithm" is effective.
Well, yes, it's for campaign donations so it doesn't do those other things. Perhaps others can recommend groups that do a good job of those.
Their algorithm is basically just targeting close state races, if I recall correctly. So like a state Senator from Arizona or something. Those are races where small donations go further than whatever big ticket Senate race gets a lot of press.
My problem with the campaign donations approach is it seems like a money pit.
Campaign organizers in both major parties benefit by pointing out how the other party keeps spending more money, as a way to encourage even more donations.
It also seems like a negative incentive to pass certain laws. "We need money for the next campaign so we can work on $TOPIC" might be a good fundraiser, so if those laws are passed then the funding stops ... or even switches to the other party.
Which party is working on strict campaign donation limits, which in this post-Citizens United era we know requires a constitutional amendment, or an overturn by the Supreme Court. Certainly not the Republicans, as Vance is asking the Supreme Court to strike down limits on political donations precisely because PACs are now so powerful. Nor do I see active engagement by the Democrats.
These are generally state races with less money involved in them. I agree about systemic reform, but until that happens, you deal with the system as it is.
Let’s not forget Congress could assert its authority over tariffs at any time. This isn’t just the executive branch unilaterally creating the biggest, most regressive tax hike in our lifetimes, it’s a coordinated GOP operation.
Not at all, I don't think our elderly political leadership really had a grasp on how massive Tiktok is with GenZ and younger Americans.
It would be, to the elderly, like the government unilaterally banning AM radio.
There are certainly issues with Tiktok, but it was complete out-of-touch hubris to decide to censor the dominant media platform in the US for people under 40 overnight.
I think you meant "DOES not know how to competently keep a grip on power would do"
(or maybe this is what you mean?)
Democrats were successfully tarred as being behind the Tiktok ban. Even though it was a pretty bipartisan ban, Trump came out loudly as opposing it and said "vote for me, I'll save Tiktok" and then he narrowly scraped by on election day. His razor thin victory is arguably because of that play.
Imagine if they'd put just 10% of that loss in market cap toward the election, preventing the guy who promised to do this to them from getting power. It would've been unthinkable at the time to spend that much, but it looks like it would've been a bargain in hindsight.
They could still commit to spending that much right now and run the party which is driving this harm out of power. A 60 billion war chest commitment to primary every GOP congressional rep in 2028 is a financially prudent investment. Trump will get the blame as the party leader, but the GOP in congress could shut this down within hours if they cared to, so apply the leverage where it has the most effect.
[1] https://www.cnbc.com/2025/04/07/apples-3-day-loss-in-market-...
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