Commentary by Jerry Lanson
Even as Donald Trump’s shadowy ICE operatives spread terror through documented and undocumented immigrant communities nationwide, there are growing signs his authoritarian administration is imploding.
I am neither an economist nor a military strategist. But even ignoring another round of massive protests across the country last Saturday, the news of the last few days is quite astonishing.
The Wall Street Journal reports that the stock market has been in such freefall that its performance for the month of April could be the worst since 1932 at the height of the Great Depression.
Nobel Prize-winning economist and former New York Times columnist Paul Krugman writes that international confidence in the United States’ economic policies has dissipated so rapidly that the country faces the real possibility of a “sudden stop,” something that happens when “the inflow of money dries up.”
“It’s not just the destructive tariffs,” he notes. “It’s also the chaos as policy zigzags wildly, and the craziness. If you were a foreign investor, would you want to bet on America right now?”
The results of a sudden stop, he warned, often is “economic misery.”
In the meantime, the value of the dollar continues to plunge, and gold has reached an all-time high as investors scramble to find a safe place for their money. Trump fired his third IRS commissioner a few days ago.
Then there is the state of the Defense Department.
The New York Times Tuesday reported in exceptionally strong language that inexperienced and reckless Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth “has produced a run of chaos that is unmatched in the recent history of the Defense Department.” It adds that, Hegseth’s inner circle of close advisors “is in shambles.”
Trump insists he is sticking by Hegseth and said “he’s doing a great job” after reports Hegseth shared top secret information about military operations on his personal phone in a newly disclosed Signal chat with his wife and bother. The chat took place as US fighters headed toward targets in Yemen and disclosed their location.
Despite Trump’s words, NPR has reported that “The White House has begun the process of looking for a new leader at the Pentagon.”
Meanwhile, a new Reuters-Ipsos poll released Tuesday shows Trump’s approval has dropped to 42 percent, “the lowest level since his return to the White House,” according to the hub politicalwire.com.
Furthermore, the poll found that 83% said the president must obey federal court rulings, Political Wire reports.
To date, the Trump Administration has ignored a 9-0 court ruling that his administration should “facilitate” the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the 29-year-old Maryland father of three who was wrongly deported to El Salvador and continues to be held in isolation there.
The administration continues to insist without evidence that Abrego Garcia, a construction worker who had lived in this country since his teen years, is a gang member, the same claim it used to deport hundreds of Venezuelans to El Salvador without due process or charge or a hearing. A report by Bloomberg News said roughly 90% of these men, now sitting in a notorious El Salvadorian prison with no hope of trial or release, had never been charged with a crime in the United States.
The Supreme Court has ordered a temporary halt to any further deportations.
This column originally appeared in Lanson’s Jerry’s Substack.