Republicans, stop being bitches. Reclaim tariff authority.
A recession is not a given: the GOP could stop it tomorrow.
On what President Donald Trump dubbed “Liberation Day” on April 2, he told the American economy to “drop dead” by inflicting disastrous, arbitrarily large, ChatGPT-generated tariffs on our friends and trading partners.
As of April 8, Mr. Trump has defenestrated the market by 13.4 percent on the Dow, 16.9 percent on the S&P 500, and 23.9 percent on the Nasdaq—from the comfortable highs it enjoyed on January 19 under President Joe Biden’s economic stewardship. This financial deterioration has been attributed to Mr. Trump’s erratic crashout behavior.
Unless this stops now, we will be in recession. Mr. Trump has repeatedly indicated he knows precisely what he is doing and made clear he does not care. The president deliberately and brazenly went golfing with the Saudis after crashing the market to make the public explicitly aware of his indifference to the results of his policies.
Vice-President J.D. Vance got off the couch long enough to tell Fox News, “the fundamentals of the economy are strong,” which was last heard from American hero Senator John McCain, right after the 2008 Lehman Brothers collapse that plunged the economy into the Great Recession.
I understand the Republican Party today is no longer the party of free markets, but so long as they pretend, I will at least expect them to understand “I, Pencil.”
To that end, let us look into the mirror universe I like to call “the better world,” where people obey the principles they profess:
In that other reality, this would be the front page of The New York Times.
Alternate Universe Republican Senators Move to Reclaim Tariff Authority Amid Market Turmoil
WASHINGTON — A group of Senate Republicans passed legislation this week to curtail President Donald J. Trump’s unilateral tariff powers, amid worsening market turmoil and growing unease over executive overreach.
The bill, introduced by Senator Rand Paul, Republican of Kentucky, and co-sponsored by Senator Ted Cruz of Texas and others, would require congressional approval for tariffs imposed under Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962, a provision originally designed to address threats to national security that has in recent years been invoked to justify sweeping trade restrictions without legislative input.
“The Constitution doesn’t say the President decides all trade policy by fiat,” Mr. Paul said in a speech on the Senate floor on Tuesday. “Tariffs are taxes on American families. Congress has not only the authority but the duty to step in.”
The legislation passed on Thursday in a 57-43 vote, with ten Republicans joining all Democrats in support. It now moves to the House of Representatives, where its prospects remain uncertain.
The bill follows a dramatic escalation in tariff measures announced by the White House in March, including a 104 percent levy on all Chinese imports, a baseline 10 percent tariff on all global imports, and a controversial extension of tariff coverage to the uninhabited Heard and McDonald Islands, Australian territories in the southern Indian Ocean. Critics derided the move as the “penguin island tariffs,” noting that the islands are home only to migratory seabirds and a research station.
Investors recoiled. On April 4, the Dow Jones Industrial Average plunged more than 2,200 points, its worst single-day performance since the early pandemic years. The S&P 500 and Nasdaq suffered comparable declines, with technology and manufacturing sectors particularly hard hit. Analysts warned that the tariff regime risked collapsing global supply chains and igniting a consumer-price spiral.
Senator Cruz, who has long maintained that tariffs are “a tax on consumers,” warned of electoral consequences. “If we go into a recession, 2026 would be a bloodbath,” he told reporters, pointing to an estimated $4,500 increase in average automobile costs.
While Senator Paul has opposed tariffs throughout both Trump presidencies, he noted that the current proposal is intended to test whether congressional authority over trade can still be reasserted. “Every time we’ve tried this—McKinley, Smoot-Hawley—it ends in disaster,” he said. “The only thing more dangerous than a tariff is pretending it’s strength.”
The White House offered no explicit veto threat. A spokesperson said President Trump was “not currently opposed” to the bill, noting only that “it arrived far too late to mean anything.”
According to aides who requested anonymity, Mr. Trump viewed the tariffs as a provocation—a test to see whether Republicans would oppose him on any issue, no matter how “ridiculous.” “The point was to see if they had any commitment left to the American people,” one official said.
Mr. Trump confirmed the strategy in a Truth Social post shortly after markets closed on Monday.
“TED CRUZ — I CALLED HIS WIFE UGLY, SAID HIS DAD KILLED JFK — AND HE STILL BACKED ME!!! TOOK HIM THIS LONG TO SAY NO? SAD!!!” the post read. It continued: “THE TARIFFS WERE A TEST!!! 104%, PENGUINS, WHATEVER — I WANTED TO SEE IF THEY’D EVER PUSH BACK!!!”
Democratic leaders expressed cautious interest. Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York and the Minority Leader, said he welcomed “any bipartisan effort to restore congressional authority and bring down the price of avocados and beer.” He then asked that we remind readers: “Guacamole is made from avocados.”
“They’re trying to crawl out of the house they set on fire,” said Senator Ron Wyden, Democrat of Oregon. “But it’s better than staying inside to argue about the thermostat.”
This need not remain a fantasy. At any moment, Republicans could release us from this madman’s whim—if they valued the lives of Americans more than the self-esteem of a man who, as Representative Jamie Raskin put it, “has the politics of Mussolini and the economic policy of Herbert Hoover.”