It takes a special kind of cognitive dissonance to look at the first year of the Trump administration’s economic "policy"—if we can call the frantic scribblings of a man who thinks health insurance costs twelve dollars a policy—and see anything other than a terminal patient being given a high-fructose corn syrup drip. The recent reports from those dry, soulless husks we call economists suggest that while the immediate impact of the current regime has been about as transformative as a new coat of paint on a crumbling bridge, the long-term prognosis is roughly equivalent to a slow-motion car crash into a vat of acid. This is the quintessence of the American experience: a collective shrug in the face of an iceberg because the buffet on the Titanic is still serving mediocre shrimp cocktail.

Let’s be clear: the Right treats every uptick in the stock market—a metric that primarily measures the confidence of sociopaths in suits—as a divine miracle performed by their spray-tanned messiah. They ignore the reality that they are simply cannibalizing the future to pay for a brunch today. To them, a rising DOW is proof of a superior intellect, rather than the byproduct of a global financial system so bloated with cheap debt that it would float even if the world were on fire. Meanwhile, the Left spends its time screeching into the void about the "moral" implications of trade deficits and the "unfairness" of it all, as if morality has ever occupied the same zip code as global capital. They’re both wrong, of course. They’re both clinging to the wreckage of a mid-20th-century dream while the ocean swallows them whole, arguing over who gets to hold the damp, useless map.

The core of the issue, according to people with Ph.Ds and no social lives, is that the current administration is dismantling the structural integrity of the American economy with the grace of a toddler playing Jenga with live grenades. We’re looking at tax cuts that were essentially a gift-wrapped "thank you" note to the donor class, paid for by the very rubes who think a billionaire in a golden penthouse is their populist champion. It’s a masterclass in the grift. You take from the future, you give to the wealthy, and you tell the poor they’re being "liberated" from the burden of having a functional government. It’s the ultimate Ponzi scheme, rebranded as "patriotism," and the experts are finally noticing that the math doesn't just "not add up"—it actively screams in agony.

And then there’s the trade policy. Ah, the beautiful, idiotic protectionism. It’s a throwback to an era that never actually existed, a nostalgic fever dream where "bringing back the jobs" means forcing people to work in coal mines in an age of automation and silicon. It’s like trying to save the whale oil industry because you’re afraid of lightbulbs. The long-term consequence isn't "America First"; it's "America Alone," standing in a corner of the global playground, holding its breath until it turns blue, while the rest of the world moves on to trade partners who don't treat international treaties like a messy divorce settlement. The economists suggest this will weaken the nation. In other news, fire is hot and water is wet. The fact that anyone needs a report to understand that isolationism in a globalized world is suicide is perhaps the most damning indictment of our collective IQ.

The tragedy—if one were still capable of feeling pity for a species this determined to self-immolate—is the sheer, predictable banality of it all. We aren't watching a grand ideological shift or a revolutionary new way of doing business; we’re watching the inevitable decay of an empire that has run out of ideas and is now just looting the gift shop on the way out. The economists warn of "weakening," but what they really mean is a loss of relevance. The dollar’s hegemony is being chipped away not by some brilliant foreign adversary, but by the sheer, unadulterated incompetence of a domestic leadership that views the national treasury as a personal slush fund and the global economy as a game of "The Apprentice" where everyone gets fired eventually.

What comes next? More of the same, naturally. The cycle of outrage will continue, fueled by 24-hour news cycles that monetize your blood pressure and sell it back to you in the form of cholesterol medication ads. The Left will propose "solutions" that involve more performative empathy and bureaucratic bloat, while the Right will continue to sharpen the knives for the next round of deregulation that will inevitably lead to the next "once-in-a-lifetime" financial collapse. And the American public, the poor, deluded sheep, will continue to argue over which brand of puppet they prefer to have their pockets picked by.

The "lasting consequences" the experts are so worried about are already here. They’ve been here for decades, lurking in the shadows of decaying infrastructure and a hollowed-out middle class. This current year is just the punctuation mark at the end of a very long, very depressing sentence. We are witnessing the final stages of the Great American Grift, where the only thing left to sell is the illusion of prosperity and the anger of the dispossessed. So, by all means, keep checking your 401k and pretending it’s going to save you when the floor finally gives way. It’s the American way: dying of thirst while dreaming of a fountain that was shut off forty years ago.