The Daily Populous Wednesday April 9th, 2025 evening edition
Authored by usatoday.com and submitted by WontThinkStraight

While Americans reeled from watching the economy tank and their retirement accounts get slap-chopped, President Donald Trump – lover of tariffs, destroyer of economies, liar above all – spent the weekend golfing in Florida and hobnobbing with wealthy pals.

He was gracious enough to take a break from the links Saturday to tell Americans, via social media, to “HANG TOUGH.”

Thanks, buddy. As we await whatever fresh hell Monday’s stock market brings and brace for the global response to the ludicrous tariffs you slapped on pretty much everyone, including some random penguins, we’ll do our best to hang tough, comforted by the fact that you and your assorted weirdo billionaires had a lovely weekend.

I hope the sound of the market crashing didn't hurt Trump's golf game

Look, the let-them-eat-cake vibe of Trump golfing while our economy burns – he even posted a video of himself playing on one of his own stupid golf courses – is enough to put satirists out of work.

Need a break? Play the USA TODAY Daily Crossword Puzzle.

And I’d almost be able to swallow the maddening absurdity of it all if Trump and his Republican barnacles would just straight up admit their galactic-level hypocrisy.

What if a Democratic president had done this?

None of what Trump is doing with tariffs is a surprise. He told us over and over that he was going to do this. He has repeatedly demonstrated that he doesn’t care about anyone other than himself.

So, of course, he has ignorantly unleashed tariffs that are upending the world trade order and making everyone hate us. Anyone surprised by this insanity hasn’t been paying attention.

But imagine an America where a Democratic president got fixated on tariffs while clearly not understanding how tariffs work. An America where that Democratic president needlessly triggered a trade war, watched the stock market plummet for two days, then trotted off for a golf weekend during which he profited off people partying at his resort.

Add a business reporter explaining that, regarding the tariff plan, “the president kinda made this up as he went along.”

Would Fox News preach patience if a Democrat tanked the economy?

And let’s say this Democratic president has a weirdo rich pal he named Treasury secretary, and that guy – who’s worth a cool half-billion at least – went on TV and shrugged off the idea that Americans thinking about retiring are worried about the tariffs fallout.

In this scenario, Republicans would have already impeached the Democratic president – twice. Pitchfork sales among right-leaning Americans would have skyrocketed, and the Treasury secretary would have had to flee the country. Fox News would have wall-to-wall coverage painting this hypothetical president as a literal demon and demanding he step down because he’s insane or a communist or both.

Suppose our hypothetical Democratic president, while flying back from his fabulous weekend of golf and self-enrichment, responded to the public fear and outcry over his tariff plan by dismissively saying: “Sometimes you have to take medicine to fix something.”

That would bring a third impeachment from Republicans, and Fox News itself, along with the entire right-wing media ecosystem, would explode with enough ferocity to open a portal to another dimension.

Imagine if Biden did even a fraction of the damage Trump has done

That hypothetical is 1,000% accurate. You know it. I know it. Republicans know it, and Fox News sure as hell knows it.

If Joe Biden, as president, intentionally murdered the stock market, it would have ended his presidency. Period. Biden, instead, made our economy the envy of the world and Republicans still wanted to end his presidency. So don’t tell me any of what Trump is doing would be even momentarily tolerated if Trump were a Democrat.

I'm sick of people shrugging off GOP hypocrisy – they need to own it

So all I ask, as my 401(k) shrivels like a raisin and rich jerks keep telling me to suck it up, is that Trump and his Republican bootlickers and all the little goobers on Fox News and Newsmax and the Illustrious King Trump Mighty Genius Appreciation Network (I might’ve made that last one up) muster the decency to admit they’re giant freakin’ hypocrites.

I’m talking about apex hypocrites. These are unrivaled practitioners of the dark art of hypocrisy.

And they need to own it.

Better to be poor and honest than poor and a liar, right?

C’mon, tough guys. Show a modicum of courage and tell us what we already know.

What do you have to lose? Your guy is in charge. He’s taking a wrecking ball to America, and there’s little people like me can do other than come up with clever opposition slogans for protest signs.

As the markets crash and the imaginary factories Trump keeps babbling about never come and regular Americans start Googling recipes that can stretch a pack of bologna out for a full week, Republicans need to say it loud and say it proud: “We are total hypocrites and we’re only OK with this mess because a Republican created it!”

You may end up as broke as the rest of us, but at least you’ll be able to tell your pauper children that, in the end, you were honest.

Follow USA TODAY columnist Rex Huppke on Bluesky at @rexhuppke.bsky.social and on Facebook at facebook.com/RexIsAJerk

Pike_Gordon on April 9th, 2025 at 11:57 UTC »

Its interesting how unaffected conservatives writ large are by confronted with hypocrisy.

Most liberals i know respond poorly to the cognitive dissonance of utter hypocrisy. Liberals have a whole cottage industry built around pointing to the GOPs hypocrisy. Think The Daily Show, Last Week Tonight, these kinds of articles etc.

But if you finally get Republicans to even acknowledge this hypocrisy, they'll almost all universally finish with "I don't care."

I think at some point liberals have to realize hand wringing over hypocrisy simply doesn't affect conservatives because their beliefs aren't driven by a desire to deal with hypocrisy and cognitive dissonance. Their entire identity is built around obvious distortions and they simply won't respond to their own hypocrisy. I loved the Daily Show, but it's been 26 years of pointing to crass hypocrisy and all Republicans have done is dismiss any information that contradicts their world view even harder.

NuevoXAL on April 9th, 2025 at 11:56 UTC »

Literally everyone is worse off under Trump than they would have been under Biden or Harris.

Detoxbyretox on April 9th, 2025 at 11:51 UTC »

Obama wore a tan suit and the repubs lost their minds. Trump craters the economy and that’s just another week. I’m tired of the repub’s constant hypocrisy boss