Trump’s Secret Sauce Hits NZ

Written By: - Date published: 7:50 pm, April 6th, 2025 - 11 comments
Categories: Christopher Luxon, Donald Trump, Media, media abuse, nicola willis, social media - Tags: , , ,

Excerpt from Substack article

Summary:

Trump’s tariffs are reckless, disastrous and hurt the poorest countries deeply. It will stoke inflation, and may cause another recession. Funds/investments around the world have tanked.

Trump’s actions emulate the anti-economic logic of another right wing libertarian politician – Liz Truss.

She had her political career cut short after tanking markets and sending the pound crashing. UK Homeowners became £300 billion pounds worse off from her short, disastrous time as PM, and pension funds lost £425bn overnight. Conservative Tories and institutions in the UK rejected Truss.

So why does Trump remain so popular? What’s his secret?

What can we learn half way across the world, here in the islands of Aotearoa New Zealand? And which NZ politicians envy that power?

Extra: Nicola Willis sounds like a libertarian puppet

Statistics Show..

Trump’s popularity is falling, but still, relatively strong –

According to the most current Reuters/Ipsos poll, 42% approve of Trump’s job performance compared to 45% just a couple weeks prior.

His overall rating remains higher than his first term and higher than what Biden polled during most of his administration.

One of the US’s most conservative pollsters, Rasmussen today found Trump’s net popularity in the negative for the first time in its polling – but that was still 49% approval to 50% disapproval in their poll.

This is all extraordinary for a President that has slashed employment, endangered American security, broken laws, defied courts, deported innocent Americans to overseas mega-prisons, attacked veterans’ rights, gutted climate policies, sacked top level military officers prioritising “loyalty” over competency, and caused one of the biggest stockmarket crashes since the GFC (Global Financial Crisis, 2009), and Covid (2020).

Trump crashes markets globally

Unprecedented falls in recent history – only comparable to the GFC and Covid

Source: MSNBC Two prior peaks: GFC and Covid

Presidents’ Stock Market History

US$5 trilliion loss in 2 days from US listed stocks

It’s the type of stuff that would have ended any other democratic politician.

Why not Trump?

A closer look determines why.

Trump is the first President in modern US history to have a negative net job performance in his first 100 days in office.

But Trump also has the largest gap in approval ratings in 80 years.

90 percent of Republicans like his performance, while only 4 percent of Democrats do.2

Trump supporters are almost completely on board with him.

More registered voters think America is on the right track than at any other point since 2004, according to a recent NBC News poll.

Yes.

The difference is partisanship and the news & information channels they consume.

Yesterday, MSNBC showed that approval of Trump’s job performance is tanking.

An estimated 3.5 million people across 1,200 co-ordinated protests took to the streets today in the US.

New York, Photographer: Adam Gray

But again, this is mainly on partisan lines.

Fox News is standing by Trump:

There’s also an opinion piece on Fox’s front page, by a Fox employee arguing tariffs are a bold, necessary, and ambitious “reset” that will:

“generate revenue—an estimated $700 billion or more in the first year. That creates more fiscal room for the administration to enable tax cuts and keep spending on Social Security, Medicaid and other programs.”

*More on those claims later, because they cannot go un-reviewed, but still, does the playbook sound familiar?

It paints Trump’s actions as confronting, but essentially good for Americans, when credible experts disagree.

National give themselves a “thumbs up” for their austerity budget

Source: Facebook

Trump’s proud too – so are his supporters and affiliated channels. Here are their front pages today:

i.e. Right wing pundits want their followers focused on anger and grievances, strongmanship, and painting the tariffs as one of a multi-step genius plan.

This is what we are up against – two worlds of information.

And the power of that supersedes all expertise and reality:

Sound familiar again?

Chris Bishop says Nicola Willis would rather listen to penguins than NZ’s respected economists

In Trump’s second term, so far, the US stock market, long seen as a harbinger for economic fortunes, has lost US $9.6 trillion. (That’s $17 trillion NZD)

The actions are reckless, uncaring, irresponsible.

His tariffs will severely harm the poorest countries and people around the world. It will intentionally kill of the small African kingdom of Lesotho3. Domestically, it’ll hurt poor and middle class Americans and MAGA voters most.

It may plunge the world into recession.

Tax cuts for the wealthy are next on Trump and Republicans’a agenda.

The right will continue to facilitate great transfers of wealth started by Trump in his first term.

The rich will benefit more.

Histax plans to date have been called Like Robin Hood in Reverse.

ITEP’s Analysis:

Yes.

This is the libertarian, Atlas Network trend across the world – less taxes for the wealthiest, cutting public services to ostensibly “save money”, massive public sector layoffs, and reduced regulation and oversight for corporates and the wealthy (which they like to call “red and green tape”)

Added to this is the unbridled transfer of wealth from the state/people to the wealthiest.

To be clear, there are numerous ways it happens – from tax cuts to privatisation.

Again – it should be familiar to us in Aotearoa New Zealand:

This is an excerpt. Full article: Trump’s Secret Sauce Spills Over

11 comments on “Trump’s Secret Sauce Hits NZ ”

  1. Patricia Bremner 1
    6 April 2025 at 9:51 pm

    As usual, well researched, showing the patterns and connections.

    Thank you Mountain Tui. We need to start building our networks design policy and begin fund raising Our strength is feet on the ground and determination. We need to claim the pejoratives and return their true meaning. Yes I am Woke and care.

    Reply
  2. roblogic 2
    7 April 2025 at 12:16 am

    And here I was thinking that Winston was the most Trump like. But in reality the destructive acts of National are far more effective at throwing Kiwis into poverty, sickness, and misery than anything silly old Winnie has done

    Reply
  3. Kay 3
    7 April 2025 at 7:26 am

    One can only assume that the rush to advance AI and robotics in general, is so when their inevitable killing off of the plebs happens and only the rich are left, they can still get their food cooked and toilets scrubbed.

    Which is all that matters. /s

    Reply
  4. Res Publica 4
    7 April 2025 at 8:40 am

    Totally agree — Trump’s tariffs are economically reckless and politically dangerous. But the real question isn’t why his policies fail. It’s why they still work politically — and what we can learn from that here in Aotearoa.

    My hypothesis? Even though all politics is still local, political themes are now globalised. We’re seeing the same talking points, the same narratives, the same “anti-woke” outrage cycles pop up everywhere: often imported wholesale from the U.S., with barely a tweak for local context.

    Just look at how ACT borrows from American libertarianism. Sometimes verbatim.

    This gives the global right an edge: they’ve built a massive information and influence ecosystem that can amplify even the worst ideas, over and over, until they feel inevitable.

    It doesn’t matter if they’re wrong. They’re loud, relentless, emotionally charged, and resonate.

    In New Zealand, the ecosystem’s smaller — but it’s there. If you only read the Herald or listen to Mike Hosking, you’d be forgiven for thinking Labour was simultaneously incompetent and a cabal of dangerous liberals trying to destroy the economy and confiscate your utes.

    The brutal irony is that the instability and insecurity created by right-wing economic policies make the pitch for authoritarian solutions even easier. When people feel unsafe, unheard, and like the “system” is rigged against them, it’s not hard to sell a strongman who promises to smash it all down.

    The antidote?

    The left needs to ditch bland centrism and start standing for something again. People want clarity. They want direction. They want to know someone has a plan, not just better manners.

    Voters can smell hedging a mile off . And right now, retail politics is dead.

    What works is authenticity, conviction, and a clear sense of purpose. Clarity is strategy.

    Parties that embrace that, who articulate a compelling alternative, can win. The ones that tiptoe around, trying not to scare anyone, are already on the road to irrelevance.

    Instead of catastrophising about Trump as the next Hitler, we should be taking inspiration from other political figures of the 1930s and 40s: Peter Fraser and Michael Joseph Savage. Genuine leaders who combined moral clarity, intellectual courage, and real ambition for every New Zealander.

    That’s how you build resilience. And that’s how you win.

    Reply
    • Belladonna 4.1
      7 April 2025 at 8:02 pm

      I'd say that American politics is anything but global. Apart from a tiny number of leftist elites and academics – Americans really don't think about anything outside the US (and for many of them it's anything outside their own State).

      Impacts on global trade are utterly irrelevant to them – unless they see a negative impact on themselves, their buying power, and their jobs.

      Trump has effectively (not talking about his policies here, just his politics) – tapped into this market. MAGA is a very effective slogan for a huge swathe of working class, patriotic Americans. [As a Kiwi, I find the overt patriotism of many of my American friends slightly odd – but there is no doubt that it is real]

      Dropping stock markets make the middle and upper classes wince – but these are (generalizing here) not Trump voters. Billionaires losing theoretical money is not a major concern for a unionized auto-worker in Detroit. They're cheering on policies which they believe will revitalize the US manufacturing sector (I think they're wrong – but there's no doubt that that's what they want, and that's what Trump promised).

      I don't really feel that much of what Trump is promoting has a lot of political applicability outside of the US.

      Reply
      • Res Publica 4.1.1
        8 April 2025 at 9:14 am

        I agree with some of this, especially the bit about MAGA tapping into patriotic, working-class sentiment. That part is real and potent.

        But is MAGA uniquely American? Culturally, sure. But politically? Not at all.

        The same underlying dynamics – economic insecurity, demographic anxiety, nostalgia for a “better” past, and resentment toward elites; are fuelling parallel movements worldwide.

        Just look at:

        • AfD in Germany – anti-immigration, anti-EU, “Germany First” energy, laced with historical revisionism.
        • National Rally (formerly FN) in France – same populist nationalism, same demonisation of migrants and cosmopolitan elites.
        • Viktor Orbán in Hungary – running a full authoritarian playbook under the guise of protecting national identity.
        • Meloni in Italy, Wilders in the Netherlands, Milei in Argentina… the list goes on.

        All different contexts. But the narratives? Strikingly familiar.

        The aesthetics? Echoes of MAGA.

        The media strategies? Borrowed directly from the American right: memes, viral outrage, culture war wedge issues.

        It’s a mistake to treat MAGA as an isolated American phenomenon. It’s part of a transnational authoritarian trend. A kind of global political OS that gets skinned for each country’s culture but runs the same core code.

        So yeah, I get it. Americans might not be thinking globally. But their politics sure as hell is.

        Reply
  5. ianmac 5
    7 April 2025 at 9:53 am

    It is easy to see the parallels with Trumpism in our "Leaders." The endless support from most media "enhances" the political misinformation peddled by our "elected" "Leaders." The attack on Maori is really a smokescreen for the other destruction of our democracy. Lead the way more Mountain Tui.

    Reply
  6. Dennis Frank 6
    7 April 2025 at 11:50 am

    As someone who has spent a long life being confronted with the defects of the traditional binary in politics, I find the best way to remain positive is to avoid any assertion of a partisan reality. Those have persistently proven too toxic for too long.

    That said, I'm open to intelligent leftism and support your attempt to get it to adopt a public lifestyle! Being lame forever is a distasteful default position. Going Green would be the best way to start. Not too late already.

    Reply
  7. thinker 7
    7 April 2025 at 3:33 pm

    Trump may be losing popularity but keeping him in place is better than risking a left of centre win if he is ousted. I think we can draw a comparison there, IMHO.

    Also, don't forget Trump dropped more than a hint that there are people who could build another fortune out of what he's doing, and no doubt many will. I don't think it is essential that one be an American citizen to be one of them, but it's still above my head space, so I'll leave you to make up your mind on that.

    I do think you need lots of money to be one of them, so I think we’ll see the rich get relatively richer.

    Reply
  8. Binders full of women 8
    7 April 2025 at 5:34 pm

    Keep an eye on all the little votes. last week it was the Wisconsin Supreme Court (Trump by 1%) Dem candidate won by 10% as Musk endorsed the GoP. Next vote is an Education leader—'moms for liberty' candidate predicted to lose. The massive one will be Virg Gov in Nov.

    Reply

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