Moby Donald

Will Captain Trump sink the ship of state?

I first came across the novel “Moby Dick” back when I was a young lad studying literature at Rutgers.

Early on in its 600-plus pages the narrator, Ishmael, tells how most people prefer the comfort and safety of land.

“As for me, I am tormented with an everlasting itch for things remote,” Ishmael writes. “I love to sail forbidden seas and land on barbarous coasts.”

Me, too. Substitute “surf” for “sail” and that’s what I’ve been doing for a good part of my life.

So I took a keen interest in Herman Melville’s masterwork as we studied it and discussed it in class.

The plot is simple to summarize: A New England whaling captain loses a leg to a rare white whale. He vows to come back and kill Moby Dick, but the whale ends up sinking the ship.

The reason it became a classic is the writer’s portrait of a leader who is so obsessed that he loses all traces of reason in pursuit of a goal.

Sort of like the Donald and tariffs.

Trump’s white whale is his obsession with imposing steep taxes on imports.

Most conservative Republicans don’t see tariffs as a top priority. If Trump were to announce tomorrow that he will drop his tariff plan, most would be happy to see it go.

Trump’s polling much better on issues like immigration and crime. He should have stuck to them.

But to Trump, tariffs represent a twofer. They give him a source for tens of billions in revenue. And they also create pressure for companies to relocate to America.

But as with Ahab and the white whale, Trump’s monomania has driven him to the edge of insanity.

The Donald has a vision of killing this white whale and rendering it for blubber. But first he’s got to catch it.

In the meantime, a lot of harpoons will be flying around randomly, some hitting the hunters.

Trump’s not helping in the hunt.

Last week Trump said during a Cabinet session that price hikes caused by tariffs will mean “children will have two dolls instead of 30 dolls.”

I would say I’m part of Trump’s target demographic.

I have two little grand-daughters. I’ve never counted their dolls, but if I want to buy each girl 30 dolls, what is it to the Donald?

It’s not his money.

It’s our money.

That’s where Trump went wrong on this tariff issue. He thought he would go down in history as an economic genius because of this plan.

Instead he’s going down as an economic dunce.

The politicians and scholars who represent the brain trust of conservatism are skeptical of tariffs. A tariff is a tax and someone has to pay it. And ultimately that someone is the buyer.

Melville’s narrator tells us that widows and orphans are among the owners of the whaling ship, the Pequod. Just like Captain Ahab, Captain Donald has a mission to protect the investment.

Instead he embarks on a mission to kill the white whale. Ahab makes it clear that he rejects the warnings of those who want to follow a saner course:

“Swerve me? The path to my fixed purpose is laid with iron rails, whereon my soul is grooved to run,” says Ahab. “Over unsounded gorges, through the rifled hearts of mountains, under torrents’ beds, unerringly I rush!”

Who does that remind you of?

In the book, Ahab rushes to his doom, taking the ship down with him.

But Trump’s fellow Republicans are in no rush to take that risk. And they hold enough seats in each house to outvote the president if they so desire.

They haven’t done it yet.

But pressure is building.

Reports out of the Port of Los Angeles say that cargo is down 35 percent, apparently because importers have decided they can’t make a profit on some products.

It’s easy to see why. With tariffs as high as 145 percent, there’s no room for profit on many items.

That’s the tariff The Donald has placed on goods from China.

Now imagine walking down the aisle of your local Walmart or Target and finding the shelves are empty. That’s what will happen if the shelves can’t be restocked at a reasonable price.

It’s either that or a huge hike in prices – or both.

At that point Republicans in Congress will be getting out their pocket Constitutions and reading about how the power of setting tariffs rests with Congress, not the president.

At that point, President Ahab will have to decide whether he has to give up his dream of making America Great Again.

Did I say “dream?” I meant nightmare.

Here’s how Trump’s Commerce Secretary, Howard Lutnick, describes the future for Americans:

“This is the new model, where you work in these kind of plants for the rest of your life, and your kids work here, and your grandkids work here. You know, we let the auto plants go overseas. Right now you should see an auto plant, it’s highly automated but the people—the four, five thousand people who work there—they are trained to take care of those robotic arms, they are trained to keep the air conditioning system.”

No thanks.

Maybe this guy wants his grandchildren to work in factories.

Mine will be playing with their dolls.