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MAGAnomics: Spit-Up Economics with a Golden Crib, Or How Trickle-down Turned Into Shake-down [1]

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Date: 2025-05-09

Opening – Welcome Back to the Rerun

Donald Trump’s return to power brought many reruns, but none as corrosively familiar as his signature economic gimmick: MAGAnomics. It’s not so much a monetary policy as it is a recurring fever dream — now back for its grotesque encore under America’s 45th and current (47th) president.

Born initially of political branding rather than economic theory, MAGAnomics is what you get when you take the charred remains of Reaganomics, marinate it in nationalism, wrap it in red hats, and serve it at a $1000-a-plate donor luncheon in Mar-a-Lago. Its core principle isn’t growth. It’s *grievance monetized*. MAGAnomics symbolizes the Trump-era habit of turning obvious economic damage into an illusion of brilliance, like the salesman who sold you a broken generator and then told you the blackout was proof it worked.

Tariffs: The People’s Tax Masquerading as a Punishment

In the MAGAnomics playbook, tariffs are not policies — they’re tantrums. Trump insists that tariffs are paid by “other countries,” as though Walmart shoppers in Wisconsin are importing avocados from Beijing. Tariffs are blunt-instrument taxes slammed squarely on the backs of American workers, disguised as some kind of nationalistic swat at foreign devils.

The proposed 10% universal import tariff — and 60% on Chinese goods — would cost U.S. households an estimated $2,600 annually. But in Trumpworld,

tariffs aren’t math. They’re mood. Pain isn’t a warning sign; it’s proof of loyalty.

This grifting isn’t a policy for prosperity. It’s economic cosplay. And when farmers and manufacturers cry foul, MAGAnomics hands them a souvenir hat and a coupon for grievance.

The Trickle-Down Myth Becomes Spit-Up Economics

MAGAnomics isn’t just the return of trickle-down economics. It’s the corpse of trickle-down, dressed up in campaign bling and doused in rancid snake oil.

Supply-side economics at least had Arthur Laffer and his napkin. MAGAnomics has no napkin — just napalm. Instead of stimulating investment, it showers billionaires with tax cuts while slashing public goods. The 2017 tax cuts added $1.9 trillion to the deficit and delivered crumbs to working families. Round two promises more cuts, more deregulation, and more “you’ll feel it eventually” propaganda.

This isn’t redistribution. It’s redistribution in reverse — Sheriff of Nottingham style. Take from the poor, give to the donor class, then gaslight the middle class into thanking you for the privilege.

MAGAnomics Is Just a Storefront

Underneath the rhetoric, MAGAnomics is a front — like a pop-up store in a dead mall. Trump’s economic “vision,” such as it is, remains a gold-leaf mirage: glitzy on the outside, hollow in the center, and priced exclusively for donors who speak fluent Super PAC.

Government spending? Only if it buys ads for the boss. Infrastructure? Only if it includes a gift shop. Economic theory? It’s unnecessary when you’ve got vibes, volume, and vengeance.

This sleight-of-hand isn’t economics. It’s merchandised populism with a shipping surcharge.

The Grift Wrapped in a Graph

Even the Laffer Curve, that infamous Reagan-era sketch justifying tax cuts for the rich, had the courtesy to pretend it was based on rational modeling. MAGAnomics doesn’t even fake it.

Trump’s economic advisors pitch ideas with the intellectual rigor of a late-night infomercial. Deregulate first, explain later. Or better yet — never.

Whether it’s pretending that deficits don’t matter or blaming inflation on wind turbines, MAGAnomics operates on one principle: if it sounds good on Fox News, it must be true. And if it hurts? Good. That just means it’s working.

The Cult of Economic Suffering

MAGAnomics thrives on a central lie — that the pain it inflicts proves it’s working. In this religion of grievance, every tax increase on the poor is a blow to the elites. Every factory closure is spun as a market correction. Every tariff-induced price spike is blamed on immigrants, China, or the Fed.

But pain is not policy. And taxes disguised as patriotism are still taxes.

What remains is a battered working class fed just enough nationalism to mistake cruelty for courage. MAGAnomics is a con where the punchline always lands on us, and the applause line is written in unpaid bills.

Closing – The Gold Crib Gospel

MAGAnomics is not so much an economic policy as it is a recurring fever dream — now back for its grotesque encore under America’s 45th and current (47th) president. It is the economic vision of a man who thinks tariffs are tiny punishments doled out to foreigners rather than the blunt-instrument taxes they are, slammed squarely on the backs of the very workers he claims to champion. This is not trickle-down economics; it’s spit-up economics, and the only thing flowing down is the bill.

Now deep into his redemption tour of wreckage, Trump is again treating the federal government like a pop-up shop at CPAC: over-leveraged, loud, and built to move product — whether it’s hats, NFTs, or Middle East peace plans sold like expired steak knives on late-night TV. His economic “vision,” such as it is, remains a gold-leaf mirage: glitzy on the outside, hollow in the center, and priced exclusively for donors who speak fluent Super PAC.

MAGAnomics thrives on a central lie — that the pain it inflicts proves it’s working. But pain is not policy, and tariffs are not warheads — they’re taxes, and bad ones at that, imposed not on our adversaries but on our citizens every time they go to Walmart. Trump cannot, or will not, admit this — because acknowledging it would mean confessing that the emperor’s tariffs have no clothes, and neither do half the manufacturing towns he promised to revive.

So yes, MAGAnomics might be brilliant — if you define brilliance as the ability to bankrupt a democracy while selling it back to the public at 600% interest. Otherwise, it’s just a second-term rerun of a costly joke, where the punchline is always on us.

~Dunneagin~

P.S. Trickle-down? Try spit-up. MAGAnomics is back — and this time, it’s even more gold-leafed and hollow. But the floor is yours. What do you call this second-term rerun?

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2025/5/9/2321255/-MAGAnomics-Spit-Up-Economics-with-a-Golden-Crib-Or-How-Trickle-down-Turned-Into-Shake-down?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=more_community&pm_medium=web

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