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A joke making the rounds these days sums it up perfectly: “Have you heard the news? Greenland wants to buy the U.S.A.” That tells you everything about the stark change in the political landscape over the past few days.
A week ago Democrats – who appeared to have one foot in the electoral grave – were down and out. Today, it’s Republicans who are shaking in their boots.
President Donald Trump‘s aggressive global tariff gambit has upended the prevailing political calculus – and while his gamble may pay off in a big way over the long run, initial reactions to it have been nothing short of a thermonuclear meltdown.
For his part, Trump is tripling down…
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“The United States has a chance to do something that should have been done DECADES AGO,” the president wrote on his Truth Social platform. “Don’t be Weak! Don’t be Stupid! Don’t be a PANICAN (A new party based on Weak and Stupid people!). Be Strong, Courageous, and Patient, and GREATNESS will be the result!”
Just how much of their patience will nervous Americans grant Trump, though?
Every Monday, we track the rising and falling fortunes of national politicos via the ‘FITSNews Political Stock Index.’ And every Tuesday, we publish the ‘Palmetto Political Stock Index’ – which looks at politicos from our home state of South Carolina, host of the quadrennial “First in the Nation” (for Democrats) and “First in the South” (for Republicans) presidential primaries.
Got a hot “stock tip” for either of these indices? Email Will Folks (here) and/or Mark Powell (here).
Where should you invest your national political capital this week? To the index…
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DONALD TRUMP
STOCK: FALLING
They say Nero fiddled while Rome burned. President Donald Trump played golf while Wall Street burned.
The honeymoon is now officially over, abruptly ending 10 weeks into his second term when he signed documents imposing tough tariffs on, well, just about every country in the world.
The collective national freakout that followed was deafening. Everywhere you turned—the political world, the financial world, even around the water cooler in the office and at neighborhood cookouts—folks were talking about it. And not in a good way, either. The overwhelming majority of Americans didn’t like it, including a substantial number of people who had voted for Trump in November.
As of the last count, $11.1 trillion (that’s trillion with a T) in market equity has vanished since January 20. It’s hurting everyone associated with the markets: billionaire financial movers and shakers, hedge funds, mom-and-pop investors, day traders, seniors who rely on market earnings for their retirement, and young families investing for the kiddies’ college tuition.
They’re all very worried right now. Forget the jitters… they’re in full-blown panic mode.
And what do Americans get from Trump in this moment of extreme uneasiness?
“Hang tough, it won’t be easy, but the end result will be historic,” Trump posted on his Truth Social platform.
Presumably, he typed that between holes in the Senior Club Championship, held at Trump National Golf Club in Jupiter, Florida, by the way, where he spent a long weekend on the links as millions of Americans fretted about their future.
Honestly, how could an administration as obsessed with its image as this one opt for a visual that effortlessly conjures up Marie Antoinette and a big slice of cake?
One observer summarizes it thusly: “The next few months will reveal whether this is a masterstroke of negotiation or a grossly expensive major miscalculation.”
That’s the understatement of the year… it’s not just Trump’s presidency that hinges on the outcome of the tariff gambit, it’s America’s economy.
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CORY BOOKER
STOCK: RISING
A Tammany Hall machine political chief once said, “I seen my opportunities, and I took ’em.” That’s exactly what Cory Booker did last week.
All year, a great hue and cry has arisen from the Left as Democrats implored, “Won’t anyone stand up to Trump?” Well, the New Jersey Democratic senator did just that.
In a moment reminiscent of Jimmy Stewart’s brilliantly played climactic scene from the movie “Mr. Smith Goes To Washington,” Booker held the Senate floor continuously during a 25-hour, 4-minute tirade against Trump’s policies. His floor speech – technically it wasn’t a “filibuster” – shattered the 68-year-old record for longest Senate speech held by South Carolina’s own Strom Thurmond.)
What Booker said paled in comparison to the manner and place in which he said it. He gave Democrats what they’d been demanding for months: something to cheer.
The fact that Booker sought the Democratic presidential nomination in 2020 wasn’t lost on political strategists. The fact that he was willing to go to such great lengths to claim the national spotlight strongly signals we’ll see him go for it again in 2028.
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REPUBLICANS
STOCK: HOLDING
Two of the best examples of herd mentality in action are Wall Street and politics. Both are in full play right now. The fear-driven stock selloff is evidence of the former. What top Republicans are saying reveals the latter.
Sen. Ted Cruz: “If we go into a recession, particularly a bad recession, 2026, in all likelihood politically, would be a bloodbath.”
Sen. Rand Paul: “Tariffs have… led to political decimation. So, they’re not only bad economically, they’re bad politically.”
And that’s coming from Trump’s allies. His GOP opponents in the Senate, the Never Trump Triad of Susan Collins, Mitch McConnell, and Lisa Murkowski, have already deemed it an economic disaster.
What’s being said privately in Republican circles is even harsher. One senior aide to a top D.C. Republican told us, “Mike [House Speaker Mike Johnson] needs to grow some balls and stand up to Trump. But he won’t because they’re in Trump’s pocket. Trump may have a political death wish, but we can’t let him take everyone down along with him.”
Ouch!
Make no mistake: the political risk to the GOP is enormous. Trump, of all people, should know that. Remember what happened his first time around when Republicans lost control of the House in the 2018 midterms? Two Democrat-driven impeachments followed.
Come January 3, 2027, should Democrats find themselves in charge of both House and Senate once more, would they believe “the third time’s the charm”? Though it’s highly unlikely they would gain enough Senate seats to come anywhere close to the 67 votes needed to convict in an impeachment trial, that didn’t stop House Democrats from strolling down Impeachment Avenue the last two times.
The longer-term damage to Trump from a third impeachment would be minimal. He’ll turn 79 in July, plus the 22nd Amendment bars him from running again.
But the Republican Party must carry on after he’s retired to Mar-a-Lago or Bedminster or Trump Tower or wherever billionaires go when they call it a day. And the people currently occupying seats in the House and Senate want to keep them after Trump is long gone.
The full political impact will play out in 30, 60, and 90-day increments. But come the Fourth of July, should trade wars be raging with full intensity, inflation showing no sign of ending, and the economy gripped by a full-blown recession, many GOP congressmen and senators would be well advised to start looking for a parachute of the golden variety to ease their upcoming return into the private sector.
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DEMOCRATS
STOCK: RISING
Remember “Bidenflation?” Democrats are testing the water on a new line of their own: “The Trump Pain Train.” It’s one of several nicknames they’re auditioning to hang the seemingly recession-bound economy around Trump’s neck.
It’s also one of several signs indicating Democrats are finally regaining their footing.
First, there was Cory Booker’s aforementioned Senate talkathon. It was followed the next day by the much-ballyhooed Democrat-aligned candidate’s win in Wisconsin’s Supreme Court seat election. (Though conveniently overlooked was the fact that those same Wisconsin voters also approved something Dems fight against tooth and nail: a Voter ID law, which won by 25 points.)
Saturday brought the biggie: some 1,200 “Hands Off” marches and demonstrations around the country. Charleston’s event was a casualty of bad timing; it turned out more young liberals were interested in the 47th annual Ashely Cooper Bridge Run than in spending a day trashing Trump. However, there were large turnouts in Summerville, at the State House in Columbia, and elsewhere in the Palmetto State.
If the economy does indeed go south soon, and if Democrats can harness growing public displeasure over it, 2024 may soon be nothing but a bad memory for them.
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KAMALA HARRIS
STOCK: HOLDING
Let’s Hop in the Wayback Machine and revisit November 7, 2024. Fresh off her trouncing by Trump, with both chambers of Congress officially (if shakily) in the hands of the GOP, Kamala Harris looked like the Queen of Despair. Though most Democrats publicly lauded her in defeat, privately, they savaged her for allowing their arch-nemesis to return to the White House.
Now, on April 7, 2025, the former VP is raising her profile. Harris is slowly but surely inching her way back into the public eye. And she admits it.
“I’m not going anywhere,” she said Thursday in her eight-minute talk to a black women’s empowerment seminar in California. The venue was telling because she is reportedly mulling a run for Golden State governor next year. (Note to Harris: The last former Veep who tried to move to Sacramento after leaving Washington was Richard Nixon in 1962. It didn’t end well.)
Additionally, a video clip from last fall’s campaign is widely circulating just now. In one of her rare articulate moments, she explained how Trump’s tariff proposals could produce economic hardship for millions of middle-class Americans.
It’s too soon to call this a comeback. But if the economy sinks, could a Harris “I Told You So Tour” be far off?
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SATANISM
STOCK: FALLING
Satan worshippers are sharpening their pitchforks in Kansas, that wholesomely bland place that gave the world Dorothy of Wizard of Oz fame – and where she spent the colorized parts of that movie desperately trying to return to.
With Eastertide upon us, the Sunflower State is in uproar over the rise of the Luciferans.
It seems folks at the Satanic Grotto in Kansas City felt the need to hold a Black Mass service during the Lenten season inside the Kansas State House an hour away in Topeka. The Archdiocese of KC found out about it and pitched a fit. The Satanists responded by screaming, “First Amendment.” Evangelical Protestants rallied in the Catholics’ corner.
A major brouhaha followed, and Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly found herself in a political bind. So, she split the baby (to put it in biblical terms) by banning protests inside the state capitol—but only on March 28, the day the Satanist had booked weeks in advance.
Undeterred, the devotees of darkness showed up anyway, and a predictable carnival scene played out. Some 30 Grotto members chanted, “Hail Satan” outside while more than 150 Christians invited them to get right with Jesus.
Inside the rotunda, when a young man snatched the head Satanist’s Black Mass script from his hands, he punched the kid and was promptly handcuffed by Kansas State Troopers. He was led away shouting—what else?—”Hail Satan!” Two other Grotto members were also arrested for unlawful entry.
The whole distasteful scene has residents there wondering how such a thing could happen in such a traditional place. Dorothy herself put it best: “Toto, I’ve a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore.”
BANNER VIA: GETTY IMAGES
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