Farmers hurting; billionaires fawn: Does latest Trump post look normal?
Come on, even the biggest Trump supporters still reading The Advance after I published my Aug. 27th Observations column — “President Trump Supporters Can Disown Me” — have to admit that what the president posted on his Truth Social platform over the weekend just doesn’t look quite normal for a sitting president (see photos accompanying this editorial).
With the help of either AI or a talented graphic artist (a few humans still doing the work, thankfully) Trump is made up to look like Lieutenant Colonel Bill Kilgore, the surf-loving character played by the great, talented actor Robert Duvall in Francis Ford Coppola’s 1979 masterpiece war movie “Apocalypse Now.” In the Viet Nam flick, which was nominated for eight Academy Awards, including Best Picture (won only two – Best Cinematography and Best Sound), the Duvall character’s classic line steeped in cinematic lore was: “I love the smell of napalm in the morning.”
That, in and of itself, was a crazy, yet brilliant, line of dialogue for anyone who knows the horror that napalm can do to human flesh. But Coppola, now 86 and the winner of five Academy Awards, who rose to fame directing The Godfather (1 and 2), was intent on making a movie that did just that – show the crazy side of war.
The ’79 movie, which ran for three hours (and two minutes) also featured Marlon Brando in the crazed, mad role of Colonel Kurtz, but I digress.
Trump Plays the Part
The fact that Donald J. Trump would have himself decked out to look like the Duvall character, and change the napalm line to now read “I love the smell of deportations in the morning…” much less rename the movie to “Chipocalypse Now” is, sorry to say, just not quite normal for this nation’s Commander in Chief, and that’s putting it mildly.
Then, to write on Truth Social that “Chicago (is) about to find out why it’s called the Department of War” followed by three Army chopper emojis leaves me, well, speechless, which, for me, is indeed a rare occasion.
All the while, the president still wants to be nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize?
“Yeah, and just last week he just had the U.S. military destroy a relatively small boat off the coast of Venezuela (or at least somewhere in the Caribbean) last Tuesday carrying 11 people, with no warning, no due process for those humans turned to toast, lacking any solid proof that indeed the boat was being used to smuggle drugs.”
I know. Don’t tell it to me. Tell it to the politicians in Congress still supporting the guy. Besides, after all, the peace price was named after Swedish Chemist Alfred Nobel, famous for his invention of dynamite, so there is that bit of irony.
After the boat and its occupants were blown to bits, the president said that the vessel had departed from Venezuela, was operated by the Tren de Aragua drug cartel, and was carrying drugs bound for the U.S. (Source: BBC.)
According to multiple experts in international and maritime law, the U.S. may have acted illegally.
Not according to the president, who is making up things on the fly now, so to speak.
There is even the question of whether or not he has the power, by signing another Executive Order, to change the name, Department of Defense to the Department of War, without congressional approval, but since he owns both the U.S. House and Senate, your point?
He’s Still Great?
After I published the Aug. 27th column, I heard from a number of people who still really love the president, numbers 45 and 47.
They agree with his tariffs, his trade deals, the cut of his suit, the fact that he closed the southern border, which was actually a good thing before he started detaining and deporting people with no criminal record, and whose family has made money off the WH gig like no other (do the research). In their eyes, the man can do no wrong. They remain stoked on his style of “leadership,” not seen since Lincoln suspended Habeas Corpus and jailed newspaper editors in the northern states who dared question the Civil War.
Just last week, there was a WH sit-down dinner for 33 Silicon Valley tech billionaires and multi-millionaires who sucked up to him just like his cabinet secretaries do on a daily basis.
“Mr. President, sir, you are the greatest president ever.”
The WH dinner deal was a photo-op so guys like Apple CEO Tim Cook (Made in China) can tell America how much money Apple is going to pump into the U.S. economy over the next several years.
Still claiming to have turned the American economy golden, Trump said during an Oval Office press conference last week that America will now have to possibly wait until 2027 to see the fruits of his topsy-turvy tariffs play out. (Source: C-SPAN.)
That “just give my policies more time” quote was in response to news that during August, U.S. employers only added 22,000 non-farm jobs to the labor market, far short of the expected 80,000, while the U.S. unemployment rate rose to 4.3 percent. (Source: CBS News.)
While the suck-up tech billionaires were wining and dining off the backs of American taxpayers, a group of poor Arkansas farmers were attending a public meeting to warn Republican lawmakers that if something isn’t done, soon, they will be out of business.
The lawmakers, of course, were too busy to attend the meeting in person, mind you, so they sent flunkies to serve as their proxies.
If you do an online search for “American farmers face bankruptcy,” it’s not just the Arkansas farmers who are struggling, pleading for help in a frantic effort to stay afloat. Farmers in the RGV are worried about staying in business, too. TheAdvance has reported on it as have other Valley news outlets.
Trump’s trade tariffs are killing off farmers across the fruited plain, as is the rate of inflation.
Let me do a quick online search: “American farmers face bankruptcy.”
Worse than I thought, and most of these farmers are life-long conservatives who voted for Trump in both 2016 and 2020. But it’s not them he’s inviting for an evening dinner at the White House.
Don’t take my word for it. Anyone with online access and an independent mind can look up the news stories. They can’t all be “fake news” as President Trump likes to claim whenever “great news,” as he sees it, isn’t reported.
Indeed, the rate of American farm bankruptcies is rising in 2025 due to a combination of high interest rates, high input costs, and lower commodity prices.
“In the first quarter of 2025, Chapter 12 bankruptcy filings were nearly double the number during the same period in 2024, signaling reemerging financial pressure. (Source: Farm Policy News.)
Not exactly a “liberal rag.” More bad news for the ag industry: “With interest rates on operating loans climbing from 3–5% to 7–9%, the cost of financing farm operations has increased significantly. As banks have pulled back on farm loans, specialty lenders offering even higher rates have entered the market.” (Source: American Farm Bureau Federation.)
One of those Arkansas farmers said he was doing okay until Trump’s tariffs kicked in, which produced reciprocal import tariffs.
Now the crops he once exported to China, for example, cost more than those being sold by Brazilian farmers, and he simply can’t compete.
Hence the increased rate of American farmers going bankrupt.
So, Mr. President, sir, instead of hosting a sit-down White House dinner for these tech giants like Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates, Tim Cook, Sam Altman, et al, why not host one for the poor stressed-out farmers?
You know, the same demographic who helped you win two terms as president.
I get it. Now that you’re elected and can’t run again, why bother? You no longer need the support of middle America, AKA, “flyover country?”
More Job Layoffs
Meanwhile, job layoffs keep piling up.And piling up.
According to Challenger, Gray & Christmas, a firm that tracks workforce reductions, the bad news about jobs’ estimates includes not just layoffs, but also early retirements and buyouts. (Source: The Washington Post.)
Challenger estimates that U.S. employers announced more than 800,000 job cuts year-to-date, the highest January-to-August total since 2020, when pandemic-era downsizing pushed layoffs to record levels.
Imagine that. Pharmaceutical companies, nonprofits and warehousing also have seen sharp increases (in job layoffs), underscoring the breadth of pullback.
Since President Trump fired the last Bureau of Labor Statistics head honcho who delivered bad news like this latest August number, he’s now taken to blaming the bad jobs report on the chairman of the Federal Reserve, Jerome Powell, who he himself appointed to the position in November 2017. At the time, Trump said of Powell, who previously served as Under Secretary at the Department of Treasury under President George H.W. Bush.: (He) is “strong, committed, and smart.” (Source: CBS News.)
However, like the president is so apt to do with people not in his good graces, possibly a holdover from his adolescent years, “Sleepy Joe” and “Crooked Hillary,” for example, Trump has now given Powell a clever nickname: Jerome “Too Late” Powell. After the dismal August jobs layoff number was announced last week, the president took to his personal platform, Truth Social, where he can spin anything he wishes, to write: “Jerome ‘Too Late’ Powell should have lowered rates long ago.As usual, he’s ‘Too Late!’” Typically, the Fed generally does not decrease interest rates during an inflation; instead, they typically raise interest rates to combat inflation. Decreasing interest rates makes it cheaper to borrow money, which encourages more spending and investment, and this increased economic activity can further fuel inflation by increasing demand for goods and services.
This makes sense to anyone who understands the relatively simple concept of “supply and demand.”
Therefore, a Fed rate cut would be counterproductive if the goal is to bring inflation under control, as opposed to leaving the rate where it is for now. (Source: Common Sense.)
No matter, as long as President Trump and his sycophants in the cabinet have someone else to blame for poor economic news, like “Too Late” Powell, instead of the president’s shotgun, helter- skelter, approach to trade tariffs, we’re all good.
Note: Another editorial that took too many words to write.
Good news is, the U.S. is only approximately $37 trillion in debt. (Source: House Budget Committee.) Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill will increase the national debt, but not to worry for those without a job. A can of Alpo is still pretty darn cheap.
Poor farmers. Poor U.S. economy. Poor unemployed people. Poor businesses on the verge of collapse. Poor people getting rounded up by ICE and deported with no hint of criminal activity, currently working…until they were picked up by ICE at work sites across the U.S.
“Round ‘em up, head ‘em out.” After all, like the president posted on Truth Social over the weekend, “I love the smell of deportations in the morning.”
Last but not least, did you see what one company is doing to get around Trump’s tariffs, which were, according to the president, originally intended to bring jobs back to the U.S.?
They simply moved their manufacturing base from China to Viet Nam, which has a lower U.S. import tariff. (40 percent vs. 20 percent.)
Brilliant move.
Who is paying for these tariffs? The American consumer, many of whom are now unemployed.
No matter. Just wait until 2027. Things will get better. Promise.