How Did America Not See This Apocalypse Coming? [View all]

[Celerity]

https://newrepublic.com/article/192315/trump-economy-recession-ukraine-russia-world-war-apocalypse

https://archive.ph/eC8LH



On Friday, as he and Vice President JD Vance tore into Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy in the Oval Office on live TV, President Donald Trump briefly broke the fourth wall. “This,” Trump said as he surveyed the cameras surrounding them, “is going to make great television.”

It was a moment that summed up Trump’s political project. Here he was, screaming at the leader of a free nation that had been invaded by a longtime American rival three years earlier and who, until recently, had been feted in Washington by leaders of both parties. But more than that, Trump was radically altering America’s foreign policy in real time, shifting the balance of power globally in favor of authoritarianism, and starting a chain reaction that could lead to Russia invading other neighbors and possibly even triggering World War III. It was compelling television, certainly.

Three days later, it happened again. As Trump spoke on live television Monday about the tariffs he was slapping the following day on goods from neighbors Mexico and Canada, as well as longtime trading partner China—tariffs that pretty much every expert agrees risk hurtling America into recession—you could watch, in the bottom right corner of Fox News’s feed, the stock market plummet. Over the course of 20 seconds, the market fell by three points per second; by the end of the day, more than $3 trillion—the total gains for the first two months of the year—had been wiped out. It was, to be fair, pretty great television—particularly once the Curb Your Enthusiasm theme was

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— David Leavitt (@davidleavitt.bsky.social) 2025-03-04T06:14:40.966Z" target="_blank">added.

Trump’s experience as the decade-long host of The Apprentice, where he played the straight-talking rich boss, has always been crucial to understanding both his appeal and his approach to politics. He sees the presidency as a television show, and his decisions are often driven by the desire to make good television above all else. This can lend a sense of unreality to his presidency, as if what we’re watching either isn’t real or is an exaggerated version of reality.

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