Trump, Trade, and Train Wrecks

I have noted in a few posts over the past year and a half how frustrating it is to try and follow the chaos and incompetence that is the Trump Administration. Apart from being completely exhausted (and exasperated) by nearly everything, it hasn't gotten any easier to see anything resembling coherence or a grand plan.

Competence Need Not Apply

Just after Trump's election in November 2016, I'd have to characterize my outlook as a kind of hopeful resignation. I was resigned to the fact that nativist populism had carried the day and that Trump had put forward too many policy positions on the campaign trail I simply couldn't support. However, I was hopeful that there would at least be a modicum of competence in their implementation. "Perhaps I'm wrong," I thought. "Perhaps those who voted for Trump saw something in his messaging I was missing?" "Perhaps voters in the UK had seen something similar months earlier when they narrowly voted to exit the European Union?" I was well aware that there were voters out there, under pressure economically, anxious about their status in the global economy, and disgusted by the evident ineptitude of our political leadership to do anything about it.