Welcome to the Revolution
Dealing with Trump's tariffs. or not.
Andrew Furey is irrational.
It is neither logical nor reasonable to describe anyone as something they aren’t.
Yet on Monday as he did four months ago, Andrew Furey told any reporter that would give him a national platform that Donald Trump was chaotic or irrational.
Trump is not irrational. He is behaving logically, reasonably, and productively from his perspective and for his purpose.
Furey may not like what Trump is doing. He may not understand what Trump is doing. But there is no doubt that in threatening to apply tariffs to Canadian exports to the United States, the Anerican president has a purpose and is behaving both predictably and understandably.
If Andrew Furey thinks Donald Trump is irrational and chaotic, then people can say the same about Furey. It was irrational to call an election in the middle of winter in the middle of a pandemic knowing that the elections office was unprepared for it and yet Furey did just that with the resulting chaos. It was irrational for him to endorse a repeat of the 1969 contract without gaining enough cash to pay for Muskrat Falls, without a guarantee of Gull Island development, and with Quebec gaining de facto control over development of hydroelectricity on the Churchill river for most of the next half century, at least, yet Furey did it. It’s not rational for Andrew Furey to alarm Newfoundlanders and Labradorians about the Trump tariffs in the same way he did four months ago and not produce a simple plan to deal with the supposed catastrophe, yet here we are.
Furey’s done lots of things that are easily called irrational but they aren’t. He isn’t any more irrational than Trump is. Furey’s actions make sense if you consider all the things that went into the decisions he’s made, what his goals are, and so on. Same is true for Donald Trump and tariffs.
Andrew Furey is rational. So is Donald Trump.
Donald Trump is driving transformative change. Andrew Furey so isn’t.
That is our existential problem in Newfoundland and Labrador.
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