Cheeto Jesus

THE rIGHT IS THE lEFT:

Trump’s Challenge to Free Market Capitalism: Stakes in private companies. Handshake deals with chief executives. The president’s economic policy has drifted far from principles that long defined the Republican Party. Is it capitalism at all? (Ben Casselman, Feb. 22, 2026, NY Times)

Since returning to the White House last year, President Trump has gotten the government involved in the private sector in ways that Mr. Obama and other past presidents, of either major party, would never have considered.

The Trump administration has taken ownership stakes in corporations, intervened in business deals and negotiated a cut of the revenue of American companies’ overseas sales. Mr. Trump has unilaterally deployed tariffs and other policy levers to help industries he favors, like artificial intelligence and cryptocurrencies, and to punish those he dislikes, like wind power. He has wielded the powers of the federal bureaucracy to pressure executives, sometimes in ways that blur the lines between his policy objectives and his personal business interests. […]

So far, however, the public seems just as unhappy with Mr. Trump’s economy, which has not delivered the manufacturing jobs and lower prices that he promised on the campaign trail. It remains uncertain whether the Republican Party will continue down the path charted by Mr. Trump after he leaves office, or turn back toward the version of the party he left behind.

Democrats, in their own way, are engaged in a similar debate. President Joseph R. Biden Jr., too, embraced tools like tariffs and industrial subsidies, and while some moderate Democrats were unhappy with that shift, many of the party’s rising stars come from a progressive wing of the party that has long called for more government involvement in the economy.

Joe’s failure was a function of aping Donald.

DONALD KILLS EVERYTHING HE TOUCHES:

Did Slovakia Just Switch Sides?: Robert Fico’s sudden enthusiasm for the EU shows Trump’s influence is waning. (Dalibor Rohac, Feb 06, 2026, Persuasion)

Reporting by Politico and an earlier testimony by one of Fico’s coalition partners, Andrej Danko, suggest that Fico’s own European awakening was prompted by his 45-minute conversation with U.S. President Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago on January 17. According to sources privy to conversations at the recent European Council, Fico described Trump as “dangerous” and was frightened by his “psychological state.”

Days later, Slovakia turned down Trump’s invitation to join his Board of Peace. On January 24, the country’s foreign ministry issued an unusual, strongly worded statement about Russian attacks on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure. And then there was a two-hour conversation with Macron in Paris.

IT’S NOT AMERICAN:

2025 was a political disaster for MAGA: And 2026 could be even worse. (Justin Glawe, Dec 17, 2025, Public Notice)

From the Epstein files, to the economy, to the deadly military airstrikes on alleged drug boats in international waters, Trump and his entire administration are engaged in a desperate battle against the truth at the end of politically disastrous year for the MAGA movement.

But the lies aren’t really working anymore, and polls reflect this. Against the backdrop of a sluggish economy that’s been made worse by his own policies, Trump is less popular than he’s ever been. Instead of actually doing something to combat stubborn inflation and stagnant job growth, the president and his surrogates are just trying to lie their way out of it.

Meanwhile, despite having power in both the House and the Senate, congressional Republicans have failed to accomplish anything of note since the passage of Trump’s (also deeply unpopular) “Big Beautiful Bill.” Right now, they’re doing nothing to prevent healthcare premiums from rising for 21 million Americans when enhanced Obamacare subsidies expire at the end of this month.

THIS IS THE WAY:

Jack Smith, Trump’s Target, Shifts From Defense to Counterattack (Glenn Thrush, Nov. 3, 2025, NY Times)

Mr. Smith, who spent more than two years aggressively collecting evidence to prove Mr. Trump mishandled classified documents and tried to overturn the results of the 2020 election, appears eager to publicly challenge a foundational pillar of MAGA canon: that the president was a sinned-upon innocent who did nothing to deserve scrutiny, much less two prosecutions.

Mr. Smith has told people in his orbit that he welcomes the opportunity to present the public case against Mr. Trump denied to him by the Supreme Court decision asserting broad presidential immunity from prosecution and adverse rulings from a Trump-appointed judge on the federal bench in Florida.

THE DOOR WAS AJAR:

The history of American corporate nationalization (Tyler Cowen, August 24, 2025, Marginal Revolution)

You should note that although the United States has not so many state-owned enterprises, the American government still has ways of expressing its will on business, or as the case may be, favoring one set of businesses over another. In these latter cases it can be said that American business is expressing its will over government through forms of crony capitalism, a concept which is spreading in both America and China.

The United States has evolved a subtle brand of corporatism and industrial policy that is mostly decentralized and also – this is an important point — relatively stable across shifts of political power. America uses its large country privileges to maintain access to world markets and to protect the property rights of its investors, usually without much regard for whether they are Democrats or Republicans. For instance the State Department works hard to maintain open world markets for films and other cultural goods and services. Toward this end America has used trade negotiations, diplomatic leverage, foreign aid, and also explicit arm-twisting, based on its military commitments to protect allied nations in Western Europe and East Asia. America already had successful entertainment producers, it just wanted to make sure they could earn more money abroad, and that is why the American government usually insists on open access for audiovisual products when it negotiates free trade treaties. Yet in these deals there is not much if any explicit favoritism for one movie or television studio over another, or for one political alliance over another. Democrats are disproportionately overrepresented in Hollywood, but Republican administrations protect the interests of the American entertainment sector nonetheless. It’s about the money and the jobs, not about shifting political coalitions. You’ll note that the independence from particular political coalitions gives the American business environment a particular stability and predictability, to its advantage internationally and otherwise.

DID ELON MUSK EVEN EXIST:

Elon Musk’s DOGE Was Far More of a Dismal Failure Than We Thought (Frank Landymore, 8/13/25, Futurism)

A new investigation by Politico found that of the $52.8 billion that DOGE claims it’s saved by cancelling federal contracts through July, its actual savings were closer to a paltry $1.4 billion — which is barely two percent of what it’s boasting to the public.

Always bet on the Deep State.