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Bayard
(24,728 posts)Don't tell me she's turning to the Dark Side.
tonekat
(2,199 posts)
BeyondGeography
(40,413 posts)So much for Whitmer. There is a case for tariffs as part of a coherent strategy to nurture and protect specific industries. She implies that without mentioning that Trump hasn’t done any of the necessary heavy lifting. Even worse, she goes total Trump fan girl with that quote.
Whitmer has totally lost her way, and whoever wrote that speech should be placed in career detention.
Biophilic
(5,518 posts)
Du916
(92 posts)She said she understood the motivation behind tariffs, and that tariffs are a “blunt tool.” In other words, she equivocated, as politicians do. She remains the Governor of MI and has to protect her constituency from Trump retribution. It is far too early to campaign for the 2028 Presidential nomination. Maybe give her the benefit of the doubt for now. Three to Four years is an eternity in politics and anything can happen.
BeyondGeography
(40,413 posts)She’s giving Trump a political pass on everything he has done to date. It’s tone deaf and quite frankly dangerous.
It feels to me like she was determined to go this route since November and nothing was going to change her mind. Wrong, wrong, wrong. I was a major fan before this latest phase in her career. But right now she couldn’t be screwing up worse IMO.
angrychair
(10,538 posts)We are deep in a constitutional crisis and a wannabe fascist dictator on the verge of destroying the economy and our civil rights.
She can fuck off forever. We should dump her from the Party immediately and seek to primary her if we have any hope of salvaging the state before 2028.
Jose Garcia
(3,148 posts)
Redleg
(6,447 posts)I think she is trying to thread the needle but I could be wrong.
kacekwl
(8,203 posts)without threading the needle she might want to reconsider her ambitions.
Quiet Em
(1,785 posts)While she agrees that she would like to see more manufacturing here and backs fair trade, she absolutely does not agree with the way the con artist is going about it, recklessly and economically damaging.
angrychair
(10,538 posts)His "golden age" comment.
We are doomed as a political party if we can't keep our own damn party leaders from being the Mango Mussolini sycophants. God damn. What is it finally going to take to convince people to stop sucking up to him and for some Democrats to stop making excuses for the ones that do?!?
NCDem47
(2,756 posts)Poltically, she may have to walk this line.
kacekwl
(8,203 posts)Immigration reform and economic policy. They are good ideas but only if you do it properly and in an educated way. This shit that's happening now is reckless, without any thought and stomping on civil rights, human rights violations and no regard for the law or the constitution. If your finger hurts you don't cut off your arm. You diagnose the problem with your finger and fix it. If she has presidential ambitions she has to watch her wording.
Silent Type
(8,967 posts)"Weigel reported that Whitmer said she is not against “tariffs outright” earlier in her speech, but they are a “blunt tool.”
"“You can’t just bust out the tariff hammer to swing at every problem without a clearly defined end-goal,” she said, according to Weigel."
Hassin Bin Sober
(27,017 posts)Now the headlines will be Democrats side with trump!
Never interfere with the enemy when he is in the process of destroying himself.
hadEnuf
(3,108 posts)You never nuance a thing when it comes to Republicans and MAGATs. They will take it apart and use it as a stick to beat your head further into the ground.
Some people really need to understand the type of people they are dealing with here. These people are vile, viscous fascists who will stoop to any level to achieve their goal of destroying the country and the Democratic Party.
sinkingfeeling
(55,039 posts)manufacturing. She says some tariffs maybe justified.
Scrivener7
(55,327 posts)
thought crime
(141 posts)angrychair
(10,538 posts)The Mango Mussolini's "golden age" comment and playing sycophant to a trade policy that is destroying our economy.
Weak ass equivocating. Its nearly impossible for me to push back on people that have tuned out of politics and ridicule Democrats as mealy mouthed do nothing's when our party leaders are saying bullshit like this.
genxlib
(5,870 posts)I don't actually have an issue with someone being in favor of tariffs. Indeed, as a governor of Michigan, I would expect it.
The problem is that the value in tariffs is in long term stable policy to set the conditions on the time frame consistent with build up of manufacturing capacity and subsequent return on investment.
These tariffs don't accomplish any of those things because nobody believes they will stay in place over the long haul. He has already reversed course multiple times on tariff policy and even considers the current values to be bargaining chips. Why would anyone build a factory to make stuff only to find the tariffs gone after the investment was made?
Tariffs themselves aren't evil. But they have to be surgical rather than a bloody ax. This administration has no idea what they are doing and are just wrecking things because they think they can bend the world to their will.
mathematic
(1,561 posts)We've had 4% unemployment for a decade, excepting the covid disruption.
When you say we need to make more stuff here you are also saying we need to provide fewer services here. It's the same bullshit the rightwing peddles. Office jobs aren't real jobs. Real jobs are when you make or move physical goods.
Gretchen Whitmer, if you think office workers should lose their office work to go make cars, and steel, you should identify Michigan state employees that are doing useless work and fire them. You can get DOGE to consult. Oh? None of them are doing useless work and they're performing valuable services in their jobs? Then where the fuck are all these new manufacturing workers coming from?
Initech
(104,493 posts)
Basso8vb
(850 posts)
Torchlight
(4,536 posts)"You can’t just bust out the tariff hammer to swing at every problem without a clearly defined end-goal,” she also said.
I'm not going to rely on my own inferences of what I think she said, but rather only on what she said.
question everything
(50,035 posts)DETROIT—If President Trump’s trade war has a physical battleground, it is Michigan, where companies and workers are already feeling the beginning of an onslaught that could blow a hole in the state’s economy.
Nearly 20% of the economy is tied to the auto industry, which has become increasingly dependent on parts and vehicles from Canada, Mexico and China—imports Trump hit with steep tariffs in recent weeks. This trade has grown so large that Michigan ranks fifth in the nation by the size of its imports and exports, even though its total economy ranks 14th.
Detroit’s automotive executives have shifted into battle mode. They are stockpiling imported components, wrestling with suppliers over price increases and setting up war rooms to figure out how to cut costs.
Workers at the state’s biggest auto factories are tightening their belts, too, in case tariffs spark layoffs by causing a spike in vehicle prices and a drop in demand. Some early moves have added to their jitters. Hours after the latest tariffs took effect last week, Jeep parent Stellantis temporarily laid off about 900 workers in Michigan and Indiana who supply parts to factories in Canada and Mexico that the company idled at the same time.
https://www.wsj.com/economy/the-first-victim-of-trumps-trade-war-michigans-economy-ea6ff8b2?st=UJE8ag&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
free
MichMan
(14,871 posts)They are increasing dependent on buying parts from suppliers in Mexico and China because they told their suppliers that unless they shifted production there they were going to lose business completely.
There were dozens and dozens of manufacturing plants located in smaller towns that closed because they couldn't compete with low wages overseas. These closings devastated families and destroyed local tax bases.
GoreWon2000
(1,461 posts)It's time for Governor Whitmer to Google the 1930 Smoot-Hawley tariffs. She'll learn that trade protectionism is 1 of the 2 main causes of the great depression of the 1930s.tRump's tariffs are the 21st century version of the economically disastrous1930 Smoot-Hawley tariffs.
Exp
(246 posts)USA long before Trump.
eppur_se_muova
(38,845 posts)This comes across as muddled and too obsequiously (to MAGAts) inoffensive.
republianmushroom
(19,480 posts)
Lonestarblue
(12,548 posts)Democrats have lost two presidential elections with women at the top. I doubt the primary voters and super delegates will be willing to run another woman in 2028, no matter how qualified and talented. Both Clinton and Harris would have been fantastic presidents, but too many people in this country still stupidly think that women just are not tough enough to handle the job.
Scrivener7
(55,327 posts)
Raven123
(6,584 posts)The point made is that Whitmer wants more manufacturing in America. Who doesn’t?Given the tariffs Trump has implemented, one might assume the “shock” would be that she agrees with his plan, but clearly this is not true.
angrychair
(10,538 posts)That supports the Mango Mussolini. She has made that clear and we need to cut her lose.
AKwannabe
(6,721 posts)Just crazier and CRAZIER!!
xocetaceans
(4,123 posts)...at least usually tries to address someone's actual words instead of the sensationalistic headlines found in the papers and online. Maybe that carefully considered analysis does not happen as much as it should here.
Here is her actual speech:
The remarks of hers that were blown wholly out of proportion and removed from the context of her speech start at about four minutes into the speech (04:00).
Before decrying her as some sort of MAGA-adjacent Democrat, one should listen to her speech. That way, one's remarks won't come across as completely ill-informed.
Traildogbob
(10,929 posts)For providing video imagery to correct what could be taking way out of context.
No more dividing our side with headlines that drive a narrative to do just that.
Traildogbob
(10,929 posts)Demand countries catering to Taliban and ISIS start buying big ass Fords, Chevy’s and Dodge trucks. They only ride in Toyota’s and Nissan trucks. American trucks can carry twice as many terrorists standing in the back with weapons and flags, gas mileage is no issue, and can get to their destinations faster.
Imagine the commercials of terror leaders filling the extended cab, with full bed’s of manly men, grinning ear to ear doing donuts in the sand with our beautiful bad ass trucks.
Joyful scenes like we have now with young beautiful white people in $70,000 trucks adventuring.
Minus the beautiful women of course.
I hope Gretchen is not getting envious of the glamour life style’s and wardrobes of Tulsi and Noem. 
(just in case it is needed)
I want to believe she is standing in support of her constituents and wants what is best for the Michigan industries.and unionized workers.
I trust her intellect much more than the two mentioned above.
She could have made the argument without praising trump in any way.