In his second term alone, there have been panicked freakouts about his plans to trim the size of government, tariffs, other taxes, military strikes, and more. While this time might be different, I wouldn’t bet against the President.
While I have no special ability to foresee the future and am well aware that past results do not guarantee future success, it is worth noting that long before the Iran conflict, the mainstream media and the expert class have consistently proclaimed that practically every initiative favored by President Donald Trump would lead to wanton destruction, endless chaos, even death to either his fellow Americans or those around the world, sometimes both. In his second term alone, there have been panicked freakouts about his plans and proposals to trim the size of government, tariffs, other taxes, military strikes, and more. In almost every case, the experts were unanimous and unambiguous that unmitigated disaster lay just a short time in the future to the point where I once claimed his critics were “Livin’ in the Future” after the title of a Bruce Springsteen song, wherein the speaker imagines a litany of horrors, both in his relationship and the world, only to reveal none of it has actually happened yet. Though there are countless examples large and small to choose from, two of these freakouts, one small, one large have always stood out to me as emblematic of the entire enterprise.
First, there was the “email heard around the world.” Last February, Elon Musk, then head of the Department of Government Efficiency planned to send a simple request to government employees to provide some information about their achievements for the week and told everyone about out it with a post on his social media site, X. “Consistent with President @realDonaldTrump’s instructions, all federal employees will shortly receive an email requesting to understand what they got done last week…Failure to respond will be taken as a resignation.” While the final email sent to the employees shortly afterwards didn’t even include the ultimatum, reading only, “Please reply to this email with approx. 5 bullets of what you accomplished last week and cc your manager. Please do not send any classified information, links, or attachments. Deadline is this Monday at 11.59 pm EST,” it was still enough to drive the government class and the media into a bizarre combination of confusion and hysterics. “The State Department will respond on behalf of the Department. No employee is obligated to report their activities outside their Department chain of command,” an email late Saturday from the acting undersecretary of management read. “Due to the confidential and sensitive nature of the Department’s work, DOJ employees do not need to respond to the email from OPM,” a similar Justice Department email written by “leaders” according to CNN instructed their employees. “If you have already responded to this email, no further action is needed.” “When and if required, the Department will coordinate responses to the email you have received from OPM. For now, please pause any response to the OPM email titled ‘What did you do last week,’” Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness Darin Selnick said in a statement. The Department of Health and Human Services informed employees that Sunday that they should participate, but then asked them to “pause” activities later the same day. Meanwhile, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Institutes of Health, and the Food and Drug Administration, which are all part of Health and Human Services mind you, had already been told to wait until Monday for additional guidance, on what given the simple nature of the request was unclear.
As the government as struggling to respond to what most of us in the private sector are expected to do on a regular basis, the Associated Press, supposedly an objective news organization, claimed that Mr. Musk had “roile[ed] the federal workforce with demands and threats.” The BBC insisted there was “confusion over Musk’s demand that federal workers justify their jobs.” NPR noted that it had stoked “confusion and anger among federal workers.” CNN devoted several articles to the topic, quoting federal workers who claimed “‘It’s bedlam’: Federal workers left in limbo as clock ticks down to Musk’s email deadline.” They began this particular piece of journalistic excellence, “Federal workers spent Monday trying to figure out how – or even whether – to respond to Elon Musk’s weekend email blast telling them to explain their work last week or risk losing their job. A day of confusing and often contradictory guidance left many federal workers still unclear ultimately how to handle Musk’s request. Some were told to comply, others were advised not to, and still others were awaiting instructions from their agency’s leaders until late in the day.” “Our chief said it was mandatory. Then OPM said it became voluntary. Then I guess Trump just told us it was mandatory again,” explained one career employee with the Department of Veterans Affairs. “No one knows who is in charge and who to listen to,” as though drafting a five bullet point email were some kind of Herculean task requiring years of training and direction regardless of who was in charge. Why not just write the freaking email anyway? Neither the media or the government was interested in an answer. Instead, the entire purpose of the swiftly forgotten outrage appears to have been to sow confusion, lending to the narrative that the world is falling apart because of President Trump even in this small, practically irrelevant matter.
Barely a month later, outrage erupted over the much larger issue of tariffs. Though there were legitimate concerns to be had about President Trump’s “Liberation Day” announcement, especially because the initial tariffs were higher in many cases than expected, the experts and the media offered nothing resembling a reasonable analysis of the equivalent of a one to two percent national sales tax. Instead, they predicted nothing short of a global economic meltdown, which they described closer to what one would expect for a zombie apocalypse than the impact of relatively minor, or at least moderate, taxes. Two months after the announcement, well after the President had substantially lowered the initial tariff rates, and the stock market had recovered from losses over the first few days, CNN was still insisting that Americans can expect widespread shortages of basic goods in addition to massive price increases, some as high as double. As they saw it, “The last boats without crippling tariffs from China are arriving. The countdown to shortages and higher prices has begun.” “Businesses are making a difficult choice: Continue selling products from China at more than double their previous prices or stop selling those products altogether,” they claimed. “For consumers, that means some products will be hard to find or may be too expensive to buy.” In support of this conclusion, they cited their so-called experts, Gene Siroka, executive director of the Port of Los Angeles, the venerable JP Morgan, and Ryan Petersen, the CEO of Flexport. “Starting next week is when we begin to see the arrivals off of that (tariff) announcement on April 2. Cargo coming into Los Angeles will be down 35% compared to a year ago,” Mr. Siroka insisted, before adding, “Many major retailers have told us they have about a six- to eight-week supply of inventory in their systems now. United States manufacturers and consumers alike will find difficult decisions in the weeks and months to come if policies don’t change.”
“If [Chinese goods are] not easily replaced by imports from other countries, a collapse of this magnitude would not only sharply boost prices but also significantly disrupt supply chains,” JP Morgan claimed. If there was any doubt this was a dire turn of events, CNN continued to insist the result was both clear and inevitable, “higher prices on store shelves coming in weeks.” “Once the cargo hits US ports,” you see, “the goods take as little as a few weeks to hit store shelves. And when the current inventory runs out, more expensive tariffed items will make their way onto shelves.” In addition to higher prices, there would be less selection including shortages and potentially empty shelves. “If this goes on for a few more weeks, (retailers will) sell through that inventory and by the summertime, you’ll have shortages and empty shelves,” claimed Ryan Petersen, the CEO of Flexport. Perhaps needless to say, none of this happened. There was no lack of selection, shortages, empty shelves, or massive price increases. Inflation for May 2025 – the month in question – was 2.4%, lower than analysts expectations and significantly lower than it was in January before the tariffs (3%). To be fair, inflation rose slightly in June and July to 2.7%, before hitting 3% in September, then falling back down throughout the end of the year. Regardless, prices certainly didn’t double and the predicted supply chain crisis never occurred, but confronted with the failure of their predictions to even remotely come to pass, much reflect the reality people experienced on a daily basis, did CNN retract its story? Did the experts apologize for spreading fear instead of sober analysis and facts, or did they just move onto the next outrage? Do I even have to ask?
These “criticisms,” if one can call perpetual outrage by so mild a term, sometimes take another, subtly different form. When the media and experts aren’t predicting disaster for everyone else, they frequently conclude that President Trump cannot personally succeed at anything he’s attempting. Two examples will serve. In the lead up to last year’s Big Beautiful Bill, the media wasn’t exactly bullish on its passage. Instead, almost every article prior to included some kind of caveat suggesting the effort was about to collapse under its own weight. Even after the Senate passed a version slightly different than their counterparts in the House, BBC was still skeptical claiming, “It now heads back to the House, or lower chamber, where it still faces more opposition” and “its fate remains uncertain, as it has been opposed from different angles and Republicans can only afford to lose three votes.” After, the bill passed within 48 hours and was signed on the Fourth of July. Closer to the topic at hand, the lead up to last year’s historic ceasefire and subsequent truce between Hamas and Israel was met with similar skepticism. Then as now, the President extended the deadline for a deal as the details were being negotiated. Then as now, he did so in his typically bombastic style, promising “all HELL, like no one has ever seen before, will break out against Hamas,” “potentially great future death,” and “THERE WILL BE PEACE IN THE MIDDLE EAST ONE WAY OR THE OTHER.” At this point, you will probably not be surprised to learn that the media and the experts remained skeptical. As Axios reported at the time, “Several Arab media outlets have reported since Monday that Hamas has a list of reservations and requests for clarifications about the Trump plan.” Ironically, the skepticism has continued after almost six months of an uneasy peace. As the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace characterized it a month after, “While the twenty-point plan succeeded in achieving an immediate cessation of violence, any expectation that it will deliver durable peace is dangerously misplaced.” A month later, the BBC was reporting, “Trump’s Gaza peace plan struggles to progress as Israel and Hamas face tough choices.” Last month, the skepticism remained “deep” according to multiple media outlets, and yet it has progressed – even in the face of a new war in the Middle East.
Of course, this time might be different. Given the complexities and uncertainties of a war combined with the old adages about blind squirrels occasionally finding a nut and broken clocks being right twice a day, the media and the experts might be right this time around. In the meantime, I will restate how frequently I’m reminded of a great line from The Big Lebowski. When the Dude gets arrested after attempting to question Jackie Treehorn, the Malibu Police Chief tells him, “Mr. Treehorn draws a lot of water in this town. You don’t draw shit, Lebowski.” To me at least, President Trump draws a lot of water; his detractors not so much.
Confessions of a Conservative Atheist 