The Gospel According to Trump

Want to know how much the sickness that is MAGA has infected even once reasonable Republicans?

Look at this recent exchange I had with my occasional sparring partner Scott Jennings earlier this week about how Trump’s tariffs are already negatively impacting Kentucky, Jenning’s home state. Jennings has been talking about running for the open senate seat in Kentucky (but only if Trump blesses it, because Republicans no longer have elections — only anointing by the president, kind of like God once anointed King Saul to lead the Israelites.)

The most bonkers part is Jennings saying this about suffering Kentucky businesses, which have already been deeply impacted by tariffs going back to Trump’s first term: “The people of Kentucky trust the president, they voted for the president and they’re going to let him make the best deal for them.”

It sounds kind of familiar, doesn’t it? “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to Him, and He will make your paths straight,” says Proverbs 3:5-6.

But like the Israelites at the foot of Mount Sinai, some Republicans are still complaining about the manna from heaven that Trump has sent them in the form of tariffs. Sure, their businesses are going broke. Sure, Canadian stores will no longer stock their bourbon and whiskey. Sure, China is now buying soybeans from Brazil and not from Kentucky. Sure, the tariffs are equivalent to raising taxes on every Kentucky household by over $2,300.

But trust in the president with all your heart, Kentuckians.

Contrary to Jennings’ assertion, not all the people of Kentucky have put their faith in Trump. Calling tariffs a form of taxation, Senator Rand Paul said that, “I don’t think taxes could be controlled by the president at all.”

It’s not just about the mechanics of who gets to impose taxes. As The Wall Street Journal reports:

Paul’s opposition is practical and ideological. Kentucky’s automotive industry has been unsettled since Trump announced tariffs of 25% on global automotive imports. Those tariffs were set in motion through a law that allows for tariffs after a Commerce Department investigation. But Paul also has objected to Trump’s use of a different statute, the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, to apply a 10% across-the-board tariff to most imports, with additional—now paused—duties tailored to each country.

Meanwhile, Senator Mitch McConnell, the man whom Jennings wants to replace in the senate (but only if Trump says it’s ok!) had this to say about the tariffs ravaging his home state:

"This issue is not about exporting jobs, it's a tax increase for everybody," McConnell said.

McConnell said the trade war is expected to hurt Kentucky more than almost any other state in the country. S [sic] said as a percentage of GDP, Kentucky is the No. 1 state most dependent on exports, and the third most dependent on imports.

“Add it up and we are sitting here today in a state that is extremely dependent on international trade,” McConnell said. “Whether it's trade coming in or trade going out.”

He says the price of tariffs gets passed onto the consumer. Kentucky business leaders sitting alongside McConnell said if the president's tariff war continues, it will be devastating.

Here’s the reality: No other state in the union is more reliant on global trade than Kentucky. Not one. China, which buys more than half of U.S. soybean exports, responded to Trump’s tariffs by hiking its own tariffs on soybeans from 60% to 115%. China recently responded to Trump’s tariff hikes by increasing its tariff on U.S. soybeans from 60% to 115%. Soybeans are one of the state’s most valuable farm commodities,

ABC News reports that, “Kentucky's bourbon industry faces potential devastation as President Donald Trump's latest tariff dispute with Canada threatens to halt $43 million in annual whiskey exports.”

But sure… Kentucky should trust this president, who has already cost them so much pain and suffering, to make “the best deal for them.”

I don’t mean to single out Jennings, whose ambition has led to the same affliction plaguing other Republicans. That sweet senate endorsement that Trump is dangling has led him to pretend that his faith in Trump is absolute — even when he probably knows better.

He is not alone. Yesterday, news broke that Trump now wants to raise the millionaire’s tax on anyone earning at least $2.5 million and also close the carried-interest loophole, which allows hedge funds and private equity managers to get away with paying virtually nothing on their earnings.

Early this morning, Trump backtracked — not because he opposes this in principle but because he is locked in an imaginary contest of wills over whether he will “own the libs” before they can own him. In a rambling post on Truth Social that would surely have been fodder for front page stories about his mental health if his name were Joe Biden, he wrote:

“The problem with even a ‘TINY’ tax increase for the RICH, which I and all others would graciously accept in order to help the lower and middle income workers, is that the Radical Left Democrat Lunatics would go around screaming, ’Read my lips,’ the fabled Quote by George Bush the Elder that is said to have cost him the Election. NO, Ross Perot cost him the Election! In any event, Republicans should probably not do it, but I’m OK if they do!!!”

The truth is that most Republicans have steadfastly opposed raising taxes on those making $2.5 million per year, couching it as an assault on small business. Just last week, Senate Majority Leader John Thune defended the sanctity of the original Trump tax cuts, which disproportionately affect the wealthy: “If we don’t extend the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, small businesses will face a $600 billion tax hike in 2026.”

Last month, Senator John Cornyn was banging the same drum at a meeting with small business owners, saying that extending the tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans “is not just something to benefit wealthy people. This is something that determines the ability of these small businesses to grow and create jobs."

Yet, where were Thune and Cornyn calling Trump a destroyer of small business yesterday, when he proposed raising taxes on the wealthiest Americans? The truth is that if Trump were to insist on raising tax rates on millionaires, Republicans would fall in line. It would go against their entire ideological framework, of course. They are all supply-siders who have always believed that tax breaks for the wealthiest “trickle down” to everyone else — despite all evidence to the contrary. But if Trump were to snap his fingers, they would run to the left of Bernie Sanders. Like the pope, Trump’s word is infallible. Unlike the pope, he is infallible always, not just when he speaks (or “truths”) ex cathedra.

These are the same people who claim to want government out of everyone’s business but embrace a president who has allowed a bunch of 20-something tech bros to steal the private information of every single American. According to The Washington Post:

“The U.S. DOGE Service is racing to build a single centralized database with vast troves of personal information about millions of U.S. citizens and residents, a campaign that often violates or disregards core privacy and security protections meant to keep such information safe, government workers say.”

Imagine if Joe Biden had done something like this. Actually, you don’t have to wonder. Last year, Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers introduced bipartisan legislation to protect data privacy. This year, even as Musk and DOGE may be stealing Americans’ private information, McMorris Rodgers has been largely mute. Why? Because Orange Jesus sits atop the MAGA throne in the White House and he has deemed that our private information belongs to him or to Elon Musk or to whichever nefarious cabal he has chosen.

I don’t know when this fever will break for Republicans. The only solution is to beat them so soundly next November, even in their gerrymandered districts, that they remember that they serve the people, and not a false orange idol. But for that to happen, the pain that Trump inflicts on his own voters will have to be so severe that it will make the world even more dangerous than it is today.

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Further Reading:

Desert News: CNN’s Scott Jennings eyeing Mitch McConnell’s Senate seat

The Courier-Journal: Canada plans to flush these Kentucky bourbons off store shelves over Trump's tariffs

AgWeb: U.S. Soybean Exports Now Face a Nearly 115% Tariff to China as Tit for Tat Plays Out

The Wall Street Journal: Rand Paul Fights Trump on Tariffs as Other Republicans Duck

The Wall Street Journal: Trump Announces 25% Auto Tariffs

The National Association of Realtors: Which States Rely Most on Exports and Imports? A Closer Look at the Numbers Behind Trade

Kentucky Department of Agriculture: Kentucky Agriculture Census by the Numbers

Bloomberg: Trump Seeks Tax Hike on Wealthy Earning $2.5 Million or More

The Hill: Trump pivots, says GOP should ‘probably not’ raise taxes on rich

Senator Jon Thune: Thune: Small Businesses Are the Backbone of Our Economy

CBS News: In Dallas, small business owners, Senator Cornyn push for extending Trump tax cuts

The Washington Post: DOGE aims to pool federal data, putting personal information at risk

Reuters: US lawmakers push for federal data privacy law; tech industry and critics are wary

NPR: A whistleblower's disclosure details how DOGE may have taken sensitive labor data