In the grand, grease-painted circus of American governance, we have reached the inevitable stage where the clowns have begun eating the audience. According to the latest dispatches from the front lines of our collective economic suicide—specifically a Wall Street Journal reporter speaking to France 24—the bold 'America First' tariff strategy of April 2025 has successfully liberated over 70,000 Americans from the soul-crushing burden of having a paycheck. It’s a masterclass in performative masochism, and frankly, it’s the only thing this administration has ever delivered on time and under budget.

Gavin Bade, a man tasked with the unenviable job of explaining basic arithmetic to a nation that prefers its facts deep-fried and wrapped in a flag, points out that the 'rosy rhetoric' is hitting the jagged rocks of reality. But let’s be honest: reality has never been a particularly welcome guest at the Mar-a-Lago buffet. Trump’s tariffs were sold as a strategic bludgeon to humble foreign markets, but as any sentient being with a library card could have predicted, they have functioned more like an economic lobotomy. We aren’t winning a trade war; we are simply standing in a circle and taking turns shooting ourselves in the feet to see who can bleed the most 'patriotically.'

The 70,000 jobs lost since April aren’t just numbers on a spreadsheet; they are the physical manifestation of a policy built on the intellectual foundations of a Twitter tantrum. And yet, the sheer, unadulterated stupidity of the Right is matched only by the smug, self-congratulatory paralysis of the Left. While the administration continues to polish the turd of protectionism, the opposition sits in their coastal enclaves, sipping artisanal bitters and whispering 'I told you so' into their silk pillows. They don’t actually care about the 70,000 workers currently wondering how to explain to their children that daddy’s job was sacrificed to protect the sanctity of domestic aluminum foil production. To the modern Democrat, these unemployed masses are just useful data points for the next fundraising email—a tragic backdrop for another 'profoundly concerned' press release.

We are witnessing the death of the 'forgotten man,' who has been forgotten yet again, this time by the very man who promised to be his voice. It turns out that voice is mostly used for screaming at the clouds and inflating the cost of living for everyone who doesn't own a private jet. The tariffs have 'come back to bite the US,' says the report. It’s a delightful euphemism. It’s not a 'bite'; it’s a full-scale mauling. When you tax the materials your own factories need to build things, you aren't 'protecting' industry; you are choking it in its sleep while telling it that the lack of oxygen is actually 'freedom air.'

The irony, of course, is that the voters will likely swallow the next batch of rhetoric with the same desperate hunger as the last. We live in an era where the louder the lie, the more it tastes like truth. The administration will blame 'globalist saboteurs' or perhaps the moon for the job losses, and the base will nod along, convinced that their impending foreclosure is just a necessary step toward 'winning.' Meanwhile, the corporate ghouls on both sides of the aisle will continue to play their shell games, ensuring that no matter how many factories close, the dividends remain untouched. It is a closed loop of failure, an Ouroboros of idiocy where the snake isn't just eating its tail—it's trying to sell the tail back to itself at a 25% markup.

Historians, if there are any left after we finish burning the books for warmth, will look back at April 2025 as the moment the American economy decided to go on a vision quest led by a man who thinks a trade deficit is a personal insult. Seventy thousand jobs gone in the blink of an eye, and for what? A sense of grievance? A momentary spike in the ego of a man who measures success by the height of his own name on a building? It’s a pathetic spectacle. The 'rosy rhetoric' is just the perfumed rot of a dying empire, and the jobs numbers are the autopsy report. We are governed by a collection of grifters and morons, watched over by a public that has replaced critical thinking with tribal loyalty. If this is 'greatness,' I’d hate to see what a disaster looks like. But don't worry—give it another few months of this tariff policy, and we won't have to imagine.