Schatz: Trump’s Economic Policies, Takeovers Of American Cities The Stuff Of Authoritarians Throughout History

WASHINGTON - U.S. Senator Brian Schatz (D-Hawai'i) spoke on the Senate floor today about how President Donald Trump is raising prices for Americans while also creating chaos and disorder in cities across the country through extreme immigration and crime enforcement measures.

"It's now abundantly clear: Trump is not making anything cheaper. In fact, he's purposefully making everything more expensive," said Senator Schatz. "Health care, groceries, toys, cars, housing, electricity, computers, clothes, booze, video games. Whether you're shopping at your local grocery store or Walmart, prices are continuing to go up. And that reality is catching up with Trump. He's underwater with the public on his handling of the economy, with a 57 percent disapproval rating, according to the latest polling."

Senator Schatz continued, "Whether you supported or hated the previous administration's immigration policies is not the point anymore. What possible justification is there for masked men showing up and abducting people without a trace? Two things are true at once. Donald Trump is trashing the economy and creating shortages of everything. Electricity, food, workers, health care. He is singlehandedly ruining people's personal finances and the American economy on purpose. And, his illegal actions and brazen takeovers of the media and private sector institutions and American cities are the stuff of authoritarians throughout history and across the planet. These things are not in tension - they work together. They are the same thing. They are the same project."

A transcript of Senator Schatz's remarks is below. Video is available here.

People voted for Donald Trump for all kinds of reasons. But the main reason was they thought that he would bring down the price of goods. Groceries, food, housing, gas. Whatever his other faults, he was good for your money, people thought. But it's been almost 8 months now, and the persistent economic uncertainty and pessimism are no longer a temporary blip.

It's now abundantly clear: Trump is not making anything cheaper. In fact, he's purposefully making everything more expensive. Health care, groceries, toys, cars, housing, electricity, computers, clothes, booze, video games. Whether you're shopping at your local grocery store or Walmart, prices are continuing to go up. And that reality is catching up with Trump. He's underwater with the public on his handling of the economy, with a 57 percent disapproval rating, according to the latest polling. Now the Democrats learned this lesson over the last few years. Saying the economy is great or not as bad as it could be while people struggle to afford basic necessities is not a winning strategy.

So Trump is ruining the economy. But are people at least better off in other ways? The answer is no. A month ago, Trump federalized the local police department in Washington, D.C. and deployed thousands of National Guardsmen and federal agents because of a so-called "crime emergency." What does that look like? It looks like masked men with no identification, walking up to people on the street, arresting them, and disappearing them in unmarked vehicles. Up until a few months ago, that would've sounded like a chilling scene possible only in a third world country. But now it's happening here, in our cities and communities.

Now, whether you supported or hated the previous administration's immigration policies is not the point anymore. What possible justification is there for masked men showing up and abducting people without a trace? Anyone who's encountered law enforcement - whether in D.C. or Arkansas or Honolulu - knows that officers are typically trained to identify themselves by face and badge as a standard practice. So why should federal agents be any different? Worse, the fact that you now only need a black t-shirt and a face mask to look like an ICE agent means that there are a bunch of vigilantes running around, impersonating law enforcement and terrorizing communities.

This is exactly the kind of tyranny and government overreach that people on the right worried about for many years, except they thought it would happen under a Democratic administration. They worried about socialism. They worried about the government impeding free markets. They worried about power concentrating in the executive branch. All of that is now happening under Donald Trump.

We have the United States government taking a 10 percent stake in a private company, picking winners and losers in one of the most important industries for America's future. We have the leader of the free world forming a secret police of sorts to kidnap people and send them to foreign gulags. We have the president of the United States making $5 billion in one day just by launching a new crypto product on the side. We have an entire administration more focused on tormenting private institutions into submission - universities, law firms, media companies - than delivering public services and making people's lives better.

And here's the thing. All of this is part of the same project. There's this tendency, particularly among liberal pundits, to wave off parts of Trump's agenda as distractions. He may be decimating American foreign assistance and starving kids around the world, but that's a distraction. He may be sending armed troops and masked men into American cities without justification, but we're supposed to treat that as another distraction. But we don't need to outsmart ourselves here. Two things are true at once. Donald Trump is trashing the economy and creating shortages of everything. Shortages of everything. Electricity, food, workers, health care. He is singlehandedly ruining people's personal finances and the American economy on purpose because he believes in shortages. He wants there to be not enough workers, not enough health care, not enough electrons, not enough food. He believes in shortages. This is his economic philosophy.

And his illegal actions and brazen takeovers of the media and private sector institutions and American cities are the stuff of authoritarians throughout history and across the planet. These things are not in tension - they work together. They are the same thing. They are the same project. And so the question for us - and especially my Republican colleagues is - when is it going to be too much? We've blown past red line after red line these past 8 months. And it begs the question: is there any line that we won't cross? Because if not, we all know how this ends.

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