In your own lives, if you’ve lived a reasonable amount of time, haven’t you run into a guy who gets most everything wrong? You’ve learned that he is good barometer for decision-making. If he says go left, you go right. If he says go north, you go south.
That’s been Donald Trump so far on the economy, the number one issue in the hearts and minds of a big majority of Americans. Why then are the two Republican governor candidates in Wisconsin supporting Trump’s misguided moves on the economy.
Virtually no one believes that high and erratic tariffs help the U.S. economy. They are driving the economy south instead of north:
- In the minds of almost all economists, the tariffs on imports to the U.S. have been raising consumer prices on a wide variety of products. Trump’s number one campaign issue was to lower prices in grocery and department stores. Egg prices have gone down sharply; it’s a domestic product. But prices on Imported foods, housing, rents, clothing, automobiles and imported goods have all moved up.
- The other foremost issues for voters is worry about inflation. It has been inching upward, and Trump’s approval rating on that score have tanked.
- Trump believes that high tariffs will create a Golden Age for manufacturing in the country in the long term. But in the short term, he is like the guy who always gets it wrong. In my conversations with Wisconsin manufacturers, almost all of them have been hurt by tariffs on imports like steel and aluminum and retaliatory tariffs on their exports. Almost all of them are either laying off or not hiring.
- The U.S. lost jobs in June and added only a small number in July and August combined. That trend is the opposite of a Golden Age.
- The tariffs have also made the United States a pariah in the global economy. Trump uses them as a blunt instrument against allied countries and countries like India, with whom we should be allied.
Josh Schoemann
Aren’t Josh Schoemann, Washington County executive in a manufacturing heavy Washington County, and Bill Berrien, a small manufacturer in Waukesha County, also heavy in manufacturing, aware of these scary trends?
Our president may talk manufacturing growth, lower consumer prices and lower inflation, but he has clearly shifted his priorities away from his campaign promises. He is now betting that an anti-crime and anti-immigrant game plan will win the day in November 2026 when congress is up for reelection.
Bill Berrien
When you listen to Schoemann and Berrien on the campaign trail, their rhetoric is always Trump, Trump, Trump. They have hitched their wagons to an unpredictable, vengeful and non-common-sensible president. The economy and markets were smoking when he took office in January and now nobody can figure out where it’s going.
Trump’s main product is chaos. The only common denominator in his blizzard of presidential orders is an assertion of more presidential powers.
The injection of National Guard troopers into Washington DC and Los Angeles, and possibly into Chicago, is a show of power that may or may not survive the judgement of our courts, but is certain to prove unpopular with a big majority of voters. Most of us do not want to live in militarized cities and states.
Why doesn’t Trump fund a huge increase in local and state police forces instead? That would be a semi-permanent solution, versus a temporary show of force.
He is also losing voter approval on immigration. People agree with his shutting down the southern border, on which President Biden moved too slowly. But a majority opposes mass deportation of immigrants, legal or illegal, who make up 20% of the U.S. workforce.
In short, Schoemann and Berrien are following a president as he takes wrong turns on the major issues facing the country. Berrien did come out with a manifesto that called for state tax cuts, less regulation, upskilling the workforce and higher wages. But, those well-intended positions are being drowned out by the president’s aberrations on the biggest national issues.
Tom Tiffany
A third potential Republican candidate, Rep. Tim Tiffany from Hazelhurst, is also deferring to Trump as he considers running for governor. If he enters, he will also rise and fall on Trump’s ratings over the next 14 months until the midterm elections.
The only Democrat in the field so far, Lt. Governor Sarah Rodriquez, has a wide open opportunity to run on issues being ducked by Republican candidates. A former health care manager, she could address the biggest economic issue in the state – soaring healthcare costs and a falloff in public health rankings in Wisconsin.
She can oppose the introduction of the National Guard into Milwaukee and support higher police funding.
She can push for reorganization of the state’s university and technical colleges to create community colleges that provide pathways for both technical and professional careers.
Sara Rodriguez
She can support and fund environmental initiatives that are favored by big majorities of Wisconsin citizens.
Rodriquez will have clear sailing on those compelling issues — in sharp contrast to the Republican candidates who wear a nose ring pulled by a president who is looking more like a loser than a winner as he blurts out aberrant executive orders from the White House.
