Defenders of these tariffs say they might bring back manufacturing or say they are a response to some bad effect of the current state of America... They don't accept what the experts say, but what their authority says, and their authority says that these will bring manufacturing back. The current argument in the face of backlash is "let's wait and see."
Mao Zedong, another populist authoritarian who didn't like to listen to experts or acknowledge reality implemented the four pests campaign. Sparrows were eating Chinese crops, much like trade deficits eat American labor. Mao decided it would be wise to kill these pests to protect the crops, failing to predict that the death of these sparrows would cause even worse pests to damage crops.
This led to one of the worst famines the world has ever experienced.
China's cultural revolution (our project 2025) and great leap forward (liberation day) had truly disastrous effects like the four pests campaign for those who lived through them.
If there are no checks on this administrations power soon, we are likely to see even more short sighted incompetent policy that radically changes society that will damage us for generations.
In china they erase history because history gives you a foundation to judge your leaders. "Purifying" the Smithsonian is an admission that understanding history there there would make you dissent from what will happen or be dissatisfied with some of your leaders in the past who might be similar to current leaders. We should take the lesson's of history and understand that what is happening now rhymes with everything the America I grew up in, including the conservative America, stands against, like unchecked power.
It might get better... but it can also get much much much worse.