Or it might not be TACO. We might be back here in a month or two after negotiations around this same ridiculous idea to annex Greenland. Or it could be TACO and we will have a completely different unnecessary, invented, highly destabilizing, and unhinged crisis. As Republican congress people line up behind Trump, and the Supreme Court has given him at least one more month of tariffs by delaying the release of their opinion, we have to conclude the Republicans are the autocrat party. And their supporters welcome autocracy. The legislature and courts will help him cement his power. Tying logic into knots of socioeconomic reasons as to why enough people in a given swing state switched to Trump is a useless exercise. It’s because the are garbage people, with garbage educations, and a garbage sense of the world. They operate on a gut level, moving from meme to meme on their phones, thoughtlessly retweeting Russian or Chinese made propaganda. A strong man tickled the part of their brain little changed from our days as lower primates. They mumbled something about the price of eggs, and chose the strong and confrontational white man over the sensible brown woman.¹

The paramilitaries deployed to harass and intimidate cities run by the opposition, using corruption accusations to go after perceived enemies, threatening the media with retribution over factual stories, and removing civil servants when they refuse to break the law, are all hallmarks of an autocrat. The fact the few remaining people in his party who don’t want to go down the path of needless chaos, mostly because they are retiring, push back but then cave shows how little power they think they have. And where does his power come from? Like any autocrat, whether it was Assad in Syria or Qadaffi in Libya, Pinochet², or any number of other autocrats, they rely on a highly motivated base. That’s why they showed up at Charlottesville, and many other protests, with guns. That’s why they cos-play militia on weekends. They want to show they are armed and almost begging for a fight. And, like any autocrat, they do not need broad, popular support as long as they keep the support of their dedicated bases. Trump has a core of support that is armed, intense, willing to use violence, and believes they are attacked when Donald Trump is attacked.

The market popped this morning because they believe it was just TACO all along. We’re not going to blow up the transatlantic relationship. We’re not going to use force against an ally. We’re not going to piss off the Europeans to the degree they would eject our troops (but likely keep all the free shit we’ve staged over there). But like enough shots on goal, eventually one gets through. Maybe the next shot on goal will be something in Korea, Japan, or Brazil? Some time in the future it won’t be TACO. As we se the stakes escalating, like some unhinged reality television show trending to the mid-season cliff-hanger, the cost of TACO not coming to the rescue become serious. At this stage, we should be thinking about preemptive mitigation.

Carney cutting a deal with China and the EU with South America is a start. Pressure might be applied by replacing Tesla with BYD in their EV market. But middle powers have to do two things. The first is stop or reduce buying US debt, especially long-dated US debt. In the bizarre echo chamber of the American autocrat party, people are already starting to float the idea of not paying the coupon on foreign held debt. A strange and seemingly fantastical idea? Like invading Greenland? That would also likely be a TACO moment, but maybe the next President feels like Trump’s mistake was not going through with the idea. The autocrat party has shown they’ll fall in line. The non-political people are being gutted from law-enforcement, the military, and the bureaucracy. Some think someone like Scott Bessent can assuage those truly stupid ideas. He’s shown a willingness to put stooges in key positions (another hallmark of an autocrat), so what’s to stop him from putting a moron up as Treasury secretary. The members of his autocrat party won’t stop him.

Next, every piece of technology from either the US or China that can be remotely switched off because of an internet based service hosted or controlled by the US or China should be removed, reverse engineered, or the operator should have a contingency plan. This includes everything from civilian infrastructure, like John Deere tractors, to weapon systems like cruise missiles. As the US has shot its tariff load, the threat of tariffs for backing out of agreements over IP law is a mute point. The tariffs are coming at the drop of a hat, with no push back from either the autocratic party or the ineffectual party. (In fact, I suspect the court has a weasel position that allows the tariffs to effectively stay in place. My, thankfully often wrong, tinfoil hat instinct is the court is delaying the release because it will effectively entrench the power of the executive). Ideally, the UK, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand should start the process, arguing their exposure to Chinese products makes this necessary. This can also be pushed through laws requiring a domestic partner or other forced technology transfers.

Middle countries should have a multi-provider strategy for digital infrastructure and they should limit or tax the penetration of US and Chinese social networks and digital services. X is the social media arm of the autocrat party. Middle powers should change their laws to promote something like Mastodon services but hosted within that country, with forced data portability from US and Chinese based services. This includes AI, where I suspect smaller models engineered around specific tasks will outperform (in terms of cost), massive general models. The EU and Japan have the technical capability and economic capacity to have a domestic AI industry. And while the AI “problem” may resolve itself if the bubble implodes, the social media problem is one of influence and intelligence gathering.

For a long time, the rest of the world could rely on the US as having a bi-partisan and fairly level-headed foreign policy posture. But the internal mechanics of US politics have changed. The Republicans could now be called the Autocrats and the Democrats could be called the Ineffectuals. And what has been laid bare is that even the educated, intelligent members of both parties will fail to push back but for different reasons. The idea Merz could have a meeting with Trump and get it all sorted by discovering a ‘real reason’ or appealing in some way to the cesspool that passes for Trump’s conscience, is ridiculous. He’s negotiating with an autocrat in the process of cementing his power. German, Italian, UK, Australian, Korean, Japanese, etc voters need to vote like they believe the in the idea the US is no longer a reliable partner. That largely level-headed, bi-partisan, foreign policy lead by seasoned professionals is gone. Now it’s just crazy until TACO, or someday not TACO. Even if the Ineffectuals take power in the next election, they will not remove the hacks and shills currently being embedded into the system and rebuild its expertise. If anything of the professional, capable US foreign service is left in three years, the next victory by the Authoritarians will wipe it out.

1. I used to believe it was because Ms. Harris made one or two errors, or she didn’t have enough time, or not enough distance from Biden’s policies. I don’t think that any more. ↩︎
2. Assad has his Alawite militia, Quadaffi and Pinochet’s support came from the military. They realized that if they don’t back their leaders to the hilt, their bodies get burned along side their dictator’s body. ↩︎