Donald Trump’s trade war is fast turning into a fiasco. When the president started the war, Team Trump advertised it as certain to be fast, easy, and cheap. Trump would impose tariffs. The world would yield to his will.
The tariffs would do everything at once. They would protect U.S. industry from foreign competition without raising prices, and generate vast revenues that would finance other tax cuts.

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An aerial view of properties cleared of wildfire debris that were burned in the Eaton Fire on May 22, 2025, in Altadena, California. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers announced that it has cleared 5,000 properties in the Eaton Fire and Palisades Fire burn zones, which represents half of the eligible properties, in just three months.

The Trump administration is carrying out a brazen crackdown on academic freedom: deporting students for writing op-eds, withholding funds from colleges that defy his control, and justifying it all as a response to anti-Semitism. Who is to blame for this? According to one popular theory on the left, the answer is liberals who have consistently supported free speech and opposed Donald Trump.
The logic of this diagnosis has a certain superficial appeal.

The last time President Donald Trump tried to send military forces into American streets to put down civil unrest, in June 2020, Pete Hegseth was positioned outside the White House with a Kevlar helmet and riot shield.

President Donald Trump continued his war against America’s most cherished military traditions today when he delivered a speech at Fort Bragg. It is too much to call it a “speech”; it was, instead, a ramble, full of grievance and anger, just like his many political-rally performances. He took the stage to Lee Greenwood’s “God Bless the USA”—which has become a MAGA anthem—and then pointed to the “fake news,” encouraging military personnel to jeer at the press.

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For months, as Donald Trump has hollowed out the executive branch, defied courts, and worked to suppress dissent, his critics have rightly worried about the lack of visible public opposition.

There’s a lesson I once learned from a CEO—a leader admired not just for his strategic acumen but also for his unerring eye for quality. He’s renowned for respecting the creative people in his company. Yet he’s also unflinching in offering pointed feedback. When asked what guided his input, he said, “I may not be a creative genius, but I’ve come to trust my taste.”
That comment stuck with me. I’ve spent much of my career thinking about leadership.

The idea seems so old-fashioned, so sentimental: that you could fall for someone “at first sight,” deeply and instantly. It’s straight out of the classic romance dramas—Jack’s gaze freezing when he sees Rose on the Titanic’s deck; The Notebook’s Noah lighting up and asking, “Who’s this girl?” when he spies Allie across the amusement park. As a general rule, the stuff of popular love stories is not the stuff of real life. We know this, right?
Not right, I guess.