The Big Picture Newsletter

1 week ago | thinkbigpicture.substack.com | Todd Beeton

A poll released just after last year’s election showed a strong correlation between voters’ level of political news consumption and the candidate they supported for president.

1 week ago | thinkbigpicture.substack.com | Todd Beeton

As we’ve now crossed the 100-day mark of Donald Trump’s second term, it’s worth noting that it’s not just a milepost for Trump but also for the Democratic Party. The party of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, completely shut out of government at the federal level since January 20, has had 100-plus days to prove itself capable of leading the resistance to MAGA fascism. So how are the Dems doing? While Trump has had a decidedly disastrous first 100 days, for Democrats, the news is a bit more mixed.

3 weeks ago | thinkbigpicture.substack.com | Todd Beeton

Whoopsie! Our bad!That may as well be Trump 2.0’s catchphrase. The incompetence of Trump and his administration was wholly predictable, of course—and in fact was widely predicted. After all, Trump not only had a disastrous first term, his nominees to top posts this term have lacked basic qualifications. As I touched on back in February, by nominating such epically unqualified people to his administration, Trump was trolling us.

1 month ago | thinkbigpicture.substack.com | Jay Kuo |Kaiser Kuo

Last week, Trump put a 90-day hold on his announced “Liberation Day“ tariffs, with one very big exception: China. For that country, one of our largest trading partners, Trump actually ratcheted up tariffs by some eye-popping amounts. China then retaliated with high tariffs of its own. By all accounts, Trump has begun a trade war with the other global superpower. And that is likely to have major repercussions for both the global and U.S. economies.

1 month ago | thinkbigpicture.substack.com | Todd Beeton

Our first clue that Donald Trump was going to take us off the cliff with his new tariff rollout, announced yesterday, was during a Fox News interview last week.