The government shutdown rages on in its fourth week. Essential employees like our air traffic controllers are compelled to work without pay though some of them are calling out sick, probably to take gig jobs to make ends meet. Meanwhile, the House of Representatives refuses to come back into session while collecting paychecks.

Meanwhile, disgraced New York Republican representative George Santos has his sentence commuted by the President. Santos’ entire political career was based on lie after lie, too numerous to list in this editorial. He also defrauded his own party out of money, so even for many in the GOP, his release from prison is incredulous.

As our farmers and ranchers struggle with Trump’s tariff policies, the President gives Argentina 20 billion dollars to stabilize their currency with another 20 billion supposedly coming from private sources. Technically, these are loans but Argentina regularly defaults on loans much like money given to that one Uncle. He promises to pay it back but the rest of the family knows that money ain’t ever coming back. I guess MAGA also means Make Argentina Great Again.

Trump’s policies toward South America make little sense to many. Why the aid to Argentina? It’s because Trump likes their President Javier Milei, a right-wing populist of sorts. When Elon Musk brought out the chainsaw to symbolize DOGE cuts, the chainsaw was actually a gift from Milei who used it as a symbol to slash government spending in his own country. But as programs to help Argentina’s poor were slashed, misery followed, their economy slowed to a halt and the Argentina peso tanked.

But beyond the aid or loans to Argentina, the President has allowed Argentine beef to flood American markets. Meanwhile, Argentina ships off soybeans to China while American soybean farmers can’t sell theirs as China looks elsewhere in response to the tariffs placed on them.

So while Argentina gets a bailout, its neighbor Brazil gets tariffs. Now if you think those tariffs are based on some trading deficit where Brazil is “ripping off” the United States, think again. It’s one of the rare countries where the USA has a trade surplus but these tariffs are merely based on the fact that the new more liberal or progressive government has held its former President Jair Bolsonaro accountable for trying to overturn the results of their last election. But Bolsonaro is a buddy of the President so the rest of us get to enjoy higher prices on Brazil exports such as coffee and other foodstuffs.

So it seems that trade deficits aren’t the only things that drive tariff policy as we have seen with Canada just recently. Do something that our President doesn’t like, you get smacked down with a higher tariff and that’s what happened when the province of Ontario (not the larger Canadian national government) aired a commercial during a World Series game which showed excerpts of a Reagan speech where he criticized the general use of tariffs.

All of this reminds one of the Twilight Zone episode called “It’s a good life” where a six year-old boy with God-like powers punishes people that don’t give him what he wants. Or perhaps it’s much like the movie Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome where Tina Turner’s character, the leader of Bartertown, spins a wheel to mete out justice. Santos gets a “get out of jail free” card while Trump’s political opponents like James Comey and Leticia James face criminal charges.

It seems to many that the President is engaged in a vengeance tour, looking to punish people and countries that he feels have wronged him. Meanwhile, farmers contemplate losing their farms, government workers are wondering when they are going to get their next paychecks, and millions of Americans look to lose benefits that keep food on their tables.

There are plenty of signs our own economy is beginning to unravel. Gold and silver prices have risen sharply as the American dollar declines. Prices are still rising, the job market has stalled, twenty-five percent of American households have little-to-no savings, consumer debt has skyrocketed, business bankruptcies are up, and millions of Americans are defaulting on car loans, student loans and medical bills. Half of American households are just one medical emergency or major car repair from insolvency and fifty percent of consumer spending is coming from just the top ten percent. These are just a few of the litany of economic issues facing millions of Americans and our nation as a whole.

All of this and more has led to the President’s popularity dropping like a rock. The east wing of the White House laying in rubble seems symbolic of the current state of affairs. A lot of Americans are suffering and they want answers, or at least better attention to their concerns. Instead they just get more buffoonery and a world that seems more upside down than ever.

Brian E. Preece is a retired social studies educator and coach. As a wrestling coach, he was named as the 2006 Utah Coach of the Year by the National Wrestling Coaches Association. He has also co-authored three books and has been a sports journalist for parts of five decades.