I've always thought that Donald Trump picked the wrong 1970s gay anthem as his favorite tune for his rallies. Instead of the Village People's "YMCA," he really should have gone with "Macho Man." Because that's his secret dream -- to be seen as a real tough guy. But more on that in a moment....

Today, as the markets continued their confusion, Trump finally blinked -- on all countries except China, it appears. I say "it appears" since nobody's entirely sure of the details, since there was no formal announcement or well-thought-out policy revealed, instead it was just another knee-jerk social media post with few actual details about how things are going to work now.

With investors spooked, the markets down roughly 20 percent since he took office, and the panic spreading to the bond market, Trump finally gave in and announced what he calls his "reciprocal tariffs" (they aren't, they were arbitrarily chosen with no regard to actual tariffs other countries levy on U.S. products) will be "paused" for 90 days, to give countries a chance to negotiate trade deals to avoid them. This was after insisting as early as this morning that there would be no pause, it bears mentioning. They're making it up as they go along, since (as mentioned) they have no coherent plan.

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What exactly is the point of the Trump trade war? Asking this question to different people in the White House gets you different answers, and Trump himself (as usual) contradicts himself almost daily, attempting to have things both ways. The clueless nature of the entire exercise is becoming more and more apparent as the first week of the Trump trade war draws to a close.

Is the whole thing a bargaining ploy to get other countries to agree to more favorable terms? Or is it a longer-term policy designed to bring all those factories back to America? It really can't be both at the same time, since these are kind of mutually exclusive.

If the whole point is to get better trade deals, then once those trade deals are struck then the tariffs go away -- which removes the incentive to bring the factories home. If the tariffs are designed to be permanent, then it won't matter what other countries offer, because the tariffs will remain no matter what deal they try to strike with us.

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Well, not really, not yet -- not enough to justify that particular word, but hey, we couldn't resist....

While it doesn't rise to the level of a "revolt" quite yet, there is already a significant pushback on the Trump tariff war coming from within the ranks of his own party. One Senate bill to rein in the tariffs already passed with four Republican votes, and that number has now grown to seven GOP senators who are cosponsoring an even wider clawback of the constitutional power of levying taxes from the White House. Significantly, now a House Republican has said he's going to introduce a companion bill in the House.

This isn't enough -- not yet, at any rate. But it is rather surprising to see happen so quickly. But then this whole self-inflicted economic crisis has been moving rather swiftly all around, so perhaps it's not that surprising to see.

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So, does everyone feel wonderfully "liberated" now?

President Donald Trump, in his second term, decided to liberate himself from having any adults in the room when he made important decisions. Instead, he surrounded himself with ass-kissers and other assorted sycophants, all of whom tell him he is great no matter what crazy notion pops into his head.

This is the result. Yesterday, the Dow Jones average lost 1,600 points. Today it lost another 2,200 points. Trump has singlehandedly crashed the economy -- and we're only two days in.

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There is no shortage of colorful language (and memes!) being used today to describe the new Trump Tax we're all about to pay -- after having been "liberated" from, y'know, paying less money for stuff. I chose the term financial pundit Ross Gerber used to describe it for the headline, as it seemed the most descriptive:

I was just thinking about it and I've studied this for over 30 years, and I want to try to, you know, reassure people that things are going to be OK. But, honestly, this is just a disaster of idiocy that I can't even tell you beyond proportions.

As we stand on the brink of an entirely self-inflicted economic downturn, that seems about right.

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Before the votes were counted in Wisconsin last night, Elon Musk said the race "might decide the future of America and Western civilization" and "the future of the world." Afterwards, he tried to spin the outcome: "I expected to lose, but there is value to losing a piece for positional gain." Nice try, Elon.

This was the most expensive race for a state supreme court seat in American history, with over $100 million spent in total. Musk was responsible for one-fourth of that, sinking $25 million of his own money into the race. Which may have actually been the determinative factor, since many voters were absolutely disgusted with an outsider trying to openly buy a supreme court seat.

It was an important race, since it was a liberal seat up for grabs. If the conservative had won, the balance of Wisconsin's highest court would have flipped to the conservatives. But the liberal candidate romped to an easy 10-point victory last night, cementing liberal control for at least the next few years. Since liberals wrested control of the court back, they have ruled a gerrymandered district map for the state legislature was unconstitutional, which will level the field for Democrats in the state government. They haven't yet ruled on the gerrymandered districts for the U.S. House of Representatives though, where Republicans hold six out of eight seats (in a state that is as close to 50/50 as you can get). If that map gets tossed out too, it could flip two House seats to Democrats -- which would be almost enough for them to regain control of the House again. This was what Musk's overblown hyperbole was referring to.

Musk essentially put himself on the ballot. He made the race into a referendum on him. And Wisconsin voters showed him exactly what they felt about him. Not even jumping around a stage wearing a cheesehead hat helped.

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While this is not going to be an "April Fools!" column per se, it certainly is going to deal with some rampant foolishness from the Republicans in Congress right now. Because what they are trying to do is to replace actual math with nothing short of fantasy math. They are making this attempt to pull the wool over the taxpayers' eyes in order to reward billionaires, without it "costing" a thin dime -- when in reality, it's going to cost upwards of $5 trillion.

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So... is everyone ready to pay more for everything? Because that's why America elected Donald Trump president, right?

On Wednesday, Trump will be announcing sweeping tariffs on the entire rest of the world. As he likes to put it, "tariff" is his new favorite word in the dictionary. But consumers are likely to call it what it will actually be, to them: a tax. A big fat "Trump Tax" on all sorts of things consumers buy. Which will likely drive up inflation, and which will definitely hit consumers hard in the pocketbook.

Or maybe not. With Trump, you never quite know what he'll do next. And his record so far on tariffs has been completely chaotic. He'll announce one and then turn right around and suspend it. Or he'll announce that he's cut some wonderful trade deal and the tariff won't be levied at all. Or people from certain industries will beg him to relent and he will. There's no rhyme or reason, because there is no actual plan -- just Trump's whims.

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In keeping with the "world turned upside-down" nature of this week, we are going to start with a few things that haven't been front-and-center, then we'll circle in to a bigger-picture take, and finally we'll fit in the big story of the week at the end.

First, the stuff that may have been lost in the flood. This comes from a journalist's list of "this week's parade of horribles," but this is only the end of this list (the entire list was too long to include here):

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House Republicans seem to be getting worried. Their historically-thin majority isn't in jeopardy quite yet, but the political trends aren't exactly going in their direction. Which led to a surprise announcement from the White House that the nomination of Representative Elise Stefanik to be the ambassador to the United Nations was being pulled. Stefanik had already delayed going through the Senate confirmation process, since her vote was needed on budget bills. But now she won't be confirmed at all, as Republicans worry about holding on to their majority.

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