Let Them Eat Tariffs

Let them eat cake, too.

There is a certain tiredness that comes the day after elections for me, as JOE (Judge of Elections). It starts with waking up too early (alarm always set for 4:44 am). The stress of making sure the polls are ready and open by 7 am. Eating all sorts of food I normally wouldn’t eat. And watching the time go excruciatingly slow until 8:00 pm, when exhausted, I have to do more hard math than I do all year. And still, I have to deliver the results to the courthouse. This is one reason I am passing the JOE baton to Todd, who has worked the polls longer than I and also always brings something hearty in a crockpot.

But sitting in the polling place all day gives me a chance to observe and connect with my community. There are people I only ever see twice a year at the polls. And we are all usually friendly and helpful, no matter how we are registered. Of course, there are usually a few very angry men who show up. They are often frustrated because they don’t know how to do things right and want to blame it on someone else. Or suspicious because they think things are being done behind their back. I feel sorry for their wives and children, because I suspect that anger is not just isolated to politics. There are some angry women as well, but they are better at hiding it.

We poll workers spent a good hour trying to figure out how the electoral college works. It all started with someone saying, “We should eliminate the electoral college!” And then we realized we didn’t even know exactly what it was or how it worked. Together, we looked things up online and compared notes. By learning together, we became less dogmatic and more curious about other things. It struck me just how much we don’t know about a lot of things, even when we are educated and smart about some things.

And that got me thinking about tariffs. Recently, Trump told Walmart they should “Eat the tariffs” when Walmart announced it would have to raise prices because of them. Now, I am no fan of Walmart and haven’t been inside one in decades. The Walmart strategy of “Every Day Low Prices” is largely responsible for outsourcing all our manufacturing to China, gutting small town retailers, farmers, and businesses, and causing the overconsumption of toxic chemicals. But it’s cheap! The family members are the wealthiest family in the world, while employees don’t make a living wage. Eating tariffs* is better than eating cats and dogs. But all day at the polls, I kept hearing in my head, “Let them eat cake!” Whether Marie Antoinette actually said that isn’t the point; it’s what it came to represent, which is an obliviousness of the hunger of the poor by the rich. Let them eat cake…Sheesh!

So it shouldn’t be a surprise that Walmart sales are down, and they are refusing to project second-quarter sales due to economic uncertainty. Target sales are also way down due to tariffs and boycotts. It’s working people! Keep it up! Target sales are down because of the removal of their DEI initiatives. I know people who are vehemently opposed to DEI. And while I hate the tendency to label doing the right thing like DEI, ESG (Environmental, Social, Governance), Net Zero, and other trends, it’s never a good thing to not do the right thing. What is the right thing? Treating all people with respect, with equanimity, and with kindness. What often causes people to jump on trends like DEI has more to do with making money than with actually treating people well. But without things like DEI, the white supremacists, technofacists, and sex starved basement dwellers are given permission to act out their worst fantasies. And honestly, that’s just bad for business. By the way, I no longer shop at Target.

It’s tempting to look at the stock market as the arbiter of how the economy is doing (it’s still slightly down), but the stock market is a rich person’s emotional indicator, not a financial one. Plus, it’s filled with gaming and gambling. That’s why actual quarterly sales are the best indicator of what’s happening.

And what’s happening? One of my favorite Instagram people is Tonifarmersgarden. She’s both an amazing gardener and also adjunct professor at UPENN, who teaches agricultural economics. She alerted us to a new acronym: ABUSA, which stands for Anywhere But the United States of America. That is how the rest of the world is viewing the US right now, thanks to the current political and economic insanity. I am not going to list all the insanity here because it would make me even more tired. But I have always said truth is stranger than fiction, and what is happening in the world right now would not be picked up by any publisher or movie producer because it doesn’t follow a normal narrative arc, fit neatly into a trope, or satisfy the human need for some sort of meaning or closure. But it’s interesting how ABUSA sounds a lot like abuse, which is what the current administration and a few other world leaders seem to get way too much pleasure out of inflicting on anyone they don’t like.

The good news from the recent election in my tiny township ward is that the most cartoonish angry men didn’t show up to vote for some reason. And while it was the absolute lowest turnout in my memory, the people who did show up seemed quietly determined to make change, starting at the lowest levels in our community: School boards, Commissioners, Judges. In our own communities and in our own hearts and minds is where changes truly start.

Keep boycotting!

Keep connecting to your community!

Keep voting!

Keep learning and questioning!

Keep sharing food!

Keep showing up at marches and protests!

Keep doing the right thing, no matter what it is or isn’t called!

And thank you for your service.

Together, we will get through this. Or die trying. But we are all going to die anyway, so we may as well make the most of life while we still have it.

*My spell checker wanted to change tariffs to tarantulas. Is eating tarantulas better than eating cats and dogs? No!