Tennessee WordSmith: A Liberal Dose, May 16, 2025 "The Con Game Is Running Thin"

A Liberal Dose

The Con Game Is Running Thin

Troy D. Smith

I have been trying to primarily focus on the economic aspects of Trump’s second administration in these columns, hoping to also get to all the other elements… but the economic angle alone has so many moving parts, and so much new to absorb every day, it’s hard to keep up. Last week I couldn’t keep up at all, because it was finals week and I was working around-the-clock to get everything graded. But while all that is true, it is also true that there is a sense of sameness to it all… the details change from day to day, and even from hour to hour, but the general trajectory is always in the same direction. Which is to say, downhill. Faster and faster.

At Tennessee Tech, hard-working, dedicated professors I know have been fired in the past week because their federal funding was suddenly canceled. I think they found out on graduation day. The House GOP has unveiled the first draft of their budget deal (these jokers STILL don’t have a budget for the year we are IN), and, sure enough, it promises massive cuts to Medicaid. Massive. Of course, Trump is promising that Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid will not be cut -but that’s not what Project 2025 says, and so far, they are following that to the letter and then some. Despite promising they would not, and even denying knowledge of it, and yet elevating the authors of it to high posts in the administration.

The tariff dance keeps getting wilder by the day, bouncing up and down like a yo-yo, and every time it bounces (up or down) the stock market bounces with it. Global confidence in the dollar has tanked. Here in the U.S., consumer confidence has tanked as well. Polls show that the vast majority of Americans understand that, at the rate things are going, inflation and the economy in general are going to get much worse. At least half or more of Republicans are now feeling that way (as multiple polls verify). Businesses are warning of price increases and probable dramatic shortages by Christmas. Of course, by now, you’ve probably all heard about Trump’s solution for that: tell your little girl she will be fine with only two dolls this Christmas instead of thirty, or five pencils instead of a couple of hundred. This gives us some idea what the Christmas norm must have been for Ivanka, but I guarantee none of YOUR kids have been getting thirty dolls at Christmas. They may actually be lucky to get any this year, with shipping from China being halted as we speak. What Trump is really telling his fan base, of course, is that -despite his promises to make prices go down “on day one” -they are going to go through the roof, but don’t whine to him about it.

When he isn’t telling you to rein in your spoiled kids (the irony there is thicker than oatmeal cut with concrete), he is -brace yourself -lying. He has been saying in the last couple of weeks that the price of eggs and gas has been plummeting to record lows, claiming eggs are now below $1.98 a dozen. Even his most devoted followers know better than that.

Listen. Donald Trump is running the U.S. economy into the ground. A lot of voters who supported him because of his promises on the economy are going to start looking back on Joe Biden as the good old days. Trump doesn’t care as long as he gets what he wants: adulation from a third of the population, abject fear from another third, with a remaining third to blame everything on. Oh, and his billionaire buddies not having to pay any taxes at all from now on. Oh, and tanks parading on his birthday, at a cost of tens of millions of dollars, while he is gutting the government left and right of valuable services and dedicated personnel to “save money.”

Donald Trump is a con artist. Which is short for “confidence artist.” Which means someone who is an absolute master at knowing just what to say to win your confidence, so he can cheat you blind. The trick is, finding a victim who will either blindly believe or who will continue being played even after they’ve caught on because they’re embarrassed to admit they were fooled.

Maybe Donald Trump successfully conned you. Don’t be embarrassed, it happens to us all at some time or other. But don’t you think it’s time to stop playing along? Look around, folks.

--Troy D. Smith, a White County native, is a novelist and a history professor at Tennessee Tech and serves on the executive committee of the Tennessee Democratic Party. His words do not necessarily represent TTU.

Buy the book A Liberal Dose: Communiques from the Holler by Troy D. Smith HERE