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I tell you young man what do but you don' t do it.

… Robert E Lee at the battle of Chancellorsville.

In the adrenal rush of victory it is easy to believe that our new Paladin can rearrange the world to our liking, he can not. President Trump will find Congress recalcitrant; he certainly will find the bureaucracy subversive. John F. Kennedy once said words to the effect that as President of the United States he issues orders to the bureaucracy but nothing happens; he will find the Chinese wily, powerful and determined because they will be desperate; he will encounter an aroused consumer class resentful that their standard of living has been reduced further by a new tariff regime; he will encounter an aroused economic sector composed of those who lost their jobs when trade is reduced or eliminated.

This is not to say that the battle to protect America from Chinese mercantilism is not worth waging, it is. But it is to say that many people will be unavoidably sacrificed that others might prosper. In effect, we are not saying but we should be forthrightly saying that consumers and exporters to China, as examples, must be sacrificed for the national good, for the good of the whole economy, for the national security of the country.

In a representative democracy the people are entitled to know exactly what price must be paid for these values, they must know the cost of waging this war. It is immoral to go to war without the support of the people, without full disclosure of war aims, without an honest accounting of the cost, and without an exit strategy.

The people must understand what victory means and what the cost will be and who will bear it. Donald Trump is not Superman, the powers arrayed against him are entrenched, the support of the people is fickle, the way is not at all clear. It is wrong for us to blandly assure the people otherwise.

This war will be won by half the nation, those warriors who support Trump. You have been a negative preacher since Trump declared. You see only one side of the coin, and persist.
Please attempt to remember ALL our history as a nation. Only about 1/3 of our people supported the American Revolution. The MAJORITY wanted to remain British Subjects....they wanted to continue in servitude to George III because they were afraid they would lose their “standard of living,” etc. IOW, it was “SAFE,” we were “CERTAIN to lose,” etc. etc. etc. because who were we compared to the greatest Navy and strongest Army in the world? Or so the chicken livers said. Well, as it turned out, Tarleton was defeated by Dan Morgan,a Virginia rifleman, The mighty British navy was soundly whipped by Admiral de Grasse of France at the Battle of the Chesapeake, and there were more Frenchmen at Yorktown than there were Americans, so Cornwallis tried to surrender to Lafayette because Washington was considered common rabble by the Brits. After all, Lafayette was titled gentry, compared to Washington who was simply a “farmer.”
Our history as a nation clearly shows that there is something in America that defies all the reasoned intellect of negative thinkers. It is what is called the American Spirit. Trump has it and he has awakened it in half the nation where it has been dormant through the last decades while we awaited a true LEADER. America will not fail because we will not let it fail. Faith can move mountains and we have faith. The LAST thing to do is to tell the world exactly what we plan to do next. The “people” do not “need to know” so that the entire world knows and can prepare for our attacks against their fortress of the status quo. That is a totally stupid comment.
Sun Tzu said, “All warfare is based on deception.” Was not the success of D Day largely due to the deception of Patton’s ghost army in England positioned and believed by Hitler as going to land at Calais? Was not the landing on Sicily much easier than it would have been had Hitler not believed the deception of The Man Who Never Was? Was not Reagan’s refusing to tell the Press and the world in general what he planned to do at Grenada a key to its success? The Trojan Horse, was in and of itself a deception!
To say that many people will be ‘sacrificed” in the coming war on Chinese imports, is to revert to the “DEFEATISM” which comes from ELITISM when people have no skin in the game.
Trump has half the country with him. That is enough. Those who are not willing to sacrifice a little in order to win the future would do better to be silent and not get in the way of those of us busy reclaiming the REAL America. IOW, No Guts, No Glory!