Contra Trump

牟取暴利

You are not the voice of Main Street.
You are not a steward of small business.
You are a fuckin MEGA rich man crying in his coffee because the golden pipeline of cheap imports just coughed.
And now you want sympathy?

Go fuck yourself. With a French press, Bill.

— Rent Free @SectionEight

It is easy to hate William ‘Bill’ A. Ackman. Back in the day there was his ‘temple to a titan’ penthouse atop a New York apartment building on Central Park and them there was his tireless mud-slinging during the campus protests over Gaza from October 2023.

A Zion-supremacist and successful hedge-fund manager, Ackman clamorously threw his lot in with Donald Trump in 2024, despite what he referred to as the then-still-former president’s ‘flaws and mistakes’. In a 1,800-word post on X, he listed thirty-three issues with the Biden administration that swayed him to back Trump. Apart from immigration and a bevy of other issues, Ackman also said ‘the Biden administration has not done enough to stem antisemitism following the October 7 Hamas attacks on Israel. The administration had “encouraged” and “celebrated” anti-American and anti-Israel protests and flag burning on university campuses with “no consequences for the protesters who violate laws”.’ Ackman was confident that Trump ‘will be better for the country and the world’.

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‘Donald Trump’s 2024 election sent many finance types into spasms of anticipatory ecstasy’, Michelle Goldberg noted in The New York Times.

… they imagined freedom from regulations, taxes and unfamiliar pronouns. “Bankers and financiers say Trump’s victory has emboldened those who chafed at ‘woke doctrine’ and felt they had to self-censor or change their language to avoid offending younger colleagues, women, minorities or disabled people,” The Financial Times reported a few days before Trump’s inauguration. It quoted one leading banker crowing — anonymously — about finally being able to use slurs like “retard” again. The vibes had shifted; the animal spirits were loose.

“We’re stepping into the most pro-growth, pro-business, pro-American administration I’ve perhaps seen in my adult lifetime,” gushed the hedge fund manager Bill Ackman in December. …

However, ‘Wall Street professionals, like so many other ostensibly smart people,’ Goldberg noted, ‘refused to see Trump clearly, mistaking his skill as a demagogue for wisdom as a policymaker. On 2 April 2025, Donald Trump, now re-installed as US President, imposed universal global tariffs and hailed it as ‘Liberation Day’.

“I don’t think this was foreseeable,” a mournful Ackman posted on X on Monday [7 April]. “I assumed economic rationality would be paramount.” What an odd assumption to make about a man who bankrupted casinos.

As the internet expression puts it, it was the day ‘when leopards ate Bill Ackerman’s face’. ‘The global economy is being taken down because of bad math’, Ackman declared.

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On Thursday 10 April 2025, Trump announced a pause on his tariff policy (excluding China). Even so, as Nick Catoggio writing in The Dispatch observed:

Starting a global trade war in hopes of erasing all U.S. trade deficits is like starting a healthy person on massive doses of chemo to cure a cancer they don’t have. It’s not just a catastrophe, it’s a catastrophe derived from ignorance so phenomenal that no one who’s guilty of it could possibly end up in a position of authority—one would think.

That’s beginning to sink in among some of the president’s supporters who do understand how trade works and who convinced themselves that he’d be good for the economy. The doctor whom they chose to administer economic “medicine” to them and to the rest of the planet has turned out to be a giant quack. What have they done?

Trump’s philosophy divides the world into friends and enemies. The first gets rewards, the second gets punished. For his friends, everything. For his enemies, the law.

The business types who supported him last year were fine with that. More than fine, actually—they were counting on it. Pro-Trump tech bros and hedge-fund-ers looked forward to tax cuts and deregulation for themselves and state-imposed hardships for immigrants and the “woke” left. “I feel liberated,” one top banker famously told the Financial Times a few days before the inauguration. “We can say ‘retard’ and ‘pussy’ without the fear of getting cancelled … It’s a new dawn.”

He and his ilk were the president’s friends. They had nothing to fear.

The problem (well, one of the problems) with running the country as a “friends and enemies” patronage racket, though, is that it requires the leader to be able to distinguish his friends from his enemies. ”He’s not hurting the people he needs to be hurting,” a MAGA voter memorably complained to the New York Times during a Trump-instigated government shutdown in 2019. That same complaint is being heard today among the pro-Trump business class. Having rallied behind the head of the Leopards Eating People’s Faces Party, they’re mortified to discover that the faces being eaten are their own.

Getting to use the “r-word” again wasn’t supposed to be this expensive.….

Financier Bill Ackman is another mega-rich latecomer to the MAGA movement, joining Musk in the strange new digital-era turnabout of business elites eagerly consuming conspiracy theories instead of inspiring them. Ackman has become a loyal Trump apologist but he too found the logic of “Liberation Day” butting up against his own decades of experience on Wall Street. We need to fix tariffs, he conceded in a Twitter post on Sunday night, but “business is a confidence game. The president is losing the confidence of business leaders around the globe.” Comparing the tariffs to an economic nuclear war, he declared, “This is not what we voted for.”

It assuredly is what he voted for. There was no topic during the campaign on which Trump was clearer and more insistent than his devotion to tariffs, except perhaps for his intentions to pardon the January 6 miscreants.

What Ackman means, though (I think), is that he didn’t vote for tariffs to be implemented this broadly and incompetently. By tariffing the whole world instead of select targets, Dr. Trump has administered a dangerously potent round of chemo. He can’t tell America’s enemies, like China and “woke” universities, from its friends, like Canada and Bill Ackman, and now both groups have overdosed. That undercuts the core promise of patronage politics. …

Bill, I have bad news.

He doesn’t know how to practice medicine.

— Nick Catoggio, Take Your ‘Medicine’, The Dispatch, 8 April 2025

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In this chapter of Contra Trump — America’s Empire of Tedium, we introduce Rent Free @SectionEight, an online commentator who has been active on X since November 2022. Their self-description says they are:

Living rent-free in fragile minds & roasting the news like it owes us money. Snark, chaos, and zero fucks given. Eviction? Not an option.

One fan observed that:

Luigi got the guns but you got the goddamned pen

Below we reproduce a post on X by Bill Ackman in which he bewails the damaging impact of Donald Trump’s Liberation Day. Rent Free responds.

Subsequently, following Trump’s entirely predictable tariff volte-face, Ackman, now an assiduous courtier, declared that:

This was brilliantly executed by @realDonaldTrump. Textbook, Art of the Deal.

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As Simon Leys noted of Guo Moruo 郭沫若, Mao’s most famous scholar-sycophant, his ‘methodical use of kowtowing’ was ‘incontestably a recipe for longevity’ and, in the process, Guo acquired ‘a flexibility in his leaping about, a chilling agility in his pirouetting that the most flexible music hall contortionists would have envied him.’

Note: On the mishegoss of the Trump tariffs, see From ‘Be Cool!’ to ‘Getting Yippy’: Inside Trump’s Reversal on Tariffs, The New York Times, 9 April 2025; and, for some observations on how Zion-supremacists aid and abet the antisemitism and illiberalism of Trump and his MAGA regime, see Like the devil, vampires, and the more timid varieties of ghost, fascism must be invited in.

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The Chinese rubric of this chapter in Contra Trump — 牟取暴利 móu qǔ bào lì — should be self-explanatory.

— Geremie R. Barmé
Editor, China Heritage
10 April 2025

Also by Rent Free:

• The Final Evolution
• Reply to Lauren Boebert
• On Elon Musk & Musk’s inflight video game fiasco
• Vivek Ramaswamy’s Soggy Biscuit Energy
• Vax your Kids!
• Tariff Tantrums & Spray-Tan Sabotage
• “Exploding our economy”?
• Not embarrassed to be a Liberal
• Rent Free Reality Check

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‘Our stock market is down.’

Bill Ackman

9 April 2025

Our stock market is down. Bond yields are up and the dollar is declining. These are not the markers of successful policy.

I am receiving an increasing number of emails and texts from small business people I do business with or have invested in, expressing fear that they will not be able to pass on their increased costs to their customers and will suffer severely negative consequences.

For example, I am invested in a start up that makes cold brew coffee. Here is an excerpt of an email from the founder sent prior to China tariffs doubling:

“Despite our efforts to mitigate risk, the new tariffs have immediate and significant negative implications for our cost structure, and have the potential to compress our gross margin by 60%+.

Coffee and glass bottles are the largest % of COGs, and will be impacted by the following newly levied tariffs:

•50% increase in cost of glass bottles (sourced from China)

•26% increase in cost of chai (sourced from India)

•10% increase in cost of coffee (sourced from Ethiopia, Peru, and Canada)

These new coffee and glass bottle tariffs alone will add an estimated $1.53 of COGS/unit for our 32oz, reducing our gross profit by nearly 60% to a ~12% gross margin (from 30%). We are currently priced at the top of the range for our set and do not believe we have the ability to increase price to offset this impact in the near-term.

What is particularly concerning is the sudden and sweeping inclusion of coffee and tea in U.S. tariffs, reversing a long-standing precedent dating back to the McKinley Tariff of 1890, which removed duties on these essential commodities. The decision to apply a universal 10% tariff on all imports — including those that have historically been exempt — marks a dramatic shift in trade policy and presents an existential threat to Explorer Cold Brew and other specialty beverage producers.

Unlike many industries, there is no ‘reshoring’ solution for coffee. The U.S. simply does not grow coffee at commercial scale, and domestic tea production is virtually nonexistent. There is no viable domestic alternative in the short or the long term.

We remain steadfast in our commitment to navigating these challenges. We are actively evaluating all options — supplier negotiations, cost engineering, strategic reformulations — but the impact of this policy is real, material, and immediate.

We will continue to keep you informed with full transparency as we assess and respond to these developments. Your support and partnership remain invaluable as we work to safeguard Explorer’s future and continue building a brand rooted in quality, transparency, and innovation.

Please don’t hesitate to reach out with any questions or thoughts.”

If you want to support Explorer Cold Brew, you can now find it at Whole Foods. A high quality cold brew available in varying degrees of caffeination for so long as it can survive.

And this one from a company that designs and installs home audio and video solutions:

“You wrote, “Almost no business can pass through an overnight massive increase in costs to their customers,” and I fear this could be devastating enough to put me out of business.

Will my clients tolerate a near doubling of their contract costs overnight, or will they expect me to absorb the increases my vendors are already threatening?

If clients resist price hikes and my employees demand higher wages to offset their rising cost of living, we end up in a lose-lose scenario—no spending and no jobs.

While I understand you may not have time to respond, I hope that sharing the fears of a small business owner adds a tangible voice to the broader implications of your posts.”

If the president doesn’t pause the effect of the tariffs soon, many small businesses will go bankrupt.

Medium-sized businesses will be next.

A 90-day pause will enable @realDonaldTrump to accomplish his objectives without destroying small businesses in the short term.

May cooler heads prevail.

— https://x.com/billackman/status/1909917884685430908?s=61&t=Ui_QrHprvgDYWq8yYN6VWA

Explorercoldbrew.com is also available online:

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‘Spare me, you latte-soaked oligarch.’

Rent Free

9 April 2025

Oh look — Bill “Wall Street Warlord of Whining” Ackman is melting down on X again because his precious cold brew startup might have to pay full price for glass bottles and exotic chai.

Oh no, not the margins! Not the handcrafted, triple-distilled, vibe-curated liquid capitalism!

Spare me, you latte-soaked oligarch.

You’re a fuckin billionaire crying on Main Street because your Whole Foods luxury caffeine brand is gonna take a profit hit.

Meanwhile, the rest of America is out here choosing between gas, groceries, and not fuckin dying, and you’re sobbing because tariffs might make it harder to sling bougie bean juice with a 30% markup?

Your startup sells overpriced cold brew, Bill.
Not dialysis. Not diapers. Not baby formula.
Fucking coffee. In a goddamn bottle.
And you want policy paused so Chad and Karen don’t lose access to “Extra Bold With a Hint of Madagascar Vanilla?”

You quoted an email like it’s scripture:

“These tariffs could reduce our margins to 12%!”

Good.
Welcome to fuckin Earth, asshole.

Your entire business model is built on importing cheap shit, slapping a brand story on it, and charging $7.99 a bottle to fuckin brunch zombies.
You didn’t build an economy. You built a caffeinated hallucination propped up by exploitative sourcing and Pinterest aesthetics.

And THEN —
You drop this:

“I’m hearing from other small businesses. AV companies! Audio systems! They’re scared too!”

Motherfucker, no one gives a flying fuck if Susan can’t afford fuckin custom in-wall subwoofers right now.
This isn’t a humanitarian crisis. This is the luxury class realizing capitalism isn’t a one-way blowjob anymore. For fuck sake!

And the audacity — THE FUCKING AUDACITY — to tag Trump like he’s gonna sweep in on a golden golf cart to rescue your boutique beverage empire?

“@realDonaldTrump needs to pause these tariffs or businesses will go bankrupt!”

Bro.
You’re a hedge fund titan begging the guy who is literally trying to nuke democracy with a Sharpie and a tantrum to be the hero of your fuckin cold brew horror story?

You didn’t write an economic warning.
You wrote a corporate eulogy for your return on investment dressed up in concern for “the little guy” — but the only little thing involved is your patience for profit dips.

You want #RentFree? Here it is:

You are not the voice of Main Street.
You are not a steward of small business.
You are a fuckin MEGA rich man crying in his coffee because the golden pipeline of cheap imports just coughed.
And now you want sympathy?

Go fuck yourself. With a French press, Bill.

— https://x.com/sectioneight/status/1909988393397985654?s=61&t=Ui_QrHprvgDYWq8yYN6VWA

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🚨 I Am Not Your Emotional Support Liberal

When a MAGA account follows me, I have questions:
• Did you take a wrong turn at a QAnon knitting circle and trip into my mentions by mistake?
• Did Tucker tell you to infiltrate “woke” spaces, but forget to mention I turn cultists into content?
• Are you here to debate, or just hoping someone finally pays attention to your untreated daddy issues?

Let’s be real—you’re not here to learn.
You’re here to:
• Rage-type “their” incorrectly like it’s a cry for help.
• Attempt to “own” me while losing a slap fight with basic grammar.
• Link me to your Uncle Dale’s WordPress blog titled FreedomEagle1776.biz and call it journalism.

Well guess what, buttercup—I’m not your safe space.
I’m not here to coddle your snowflake fascism or gently walk you through reality like I’m your emotional support MSNBC anchor.

I am the smoke. I am the fire. I am the reason your screen time jumps and your blood pressure spikes.

So before you smash that follow button with your greasy Cheeto fingers, ask yourself:
Do you really want this heat?

Because once you’re in my replies, it’s verbal demolition.
I will roast you so hard, your ancestors will file a restraining order.

Welcome to hell, dumbass.
Bring a thesaurus. You’re gonna need it.

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Dear MAGA meatballs, finance frat ghouls, and crypto-dick-riding app bros,

Let me make this crystal-fucking-clear:
You do NOT want to come for me.
Not on your best day. Not with your blue check. Not with your backup burner named “PatriotDad1488.”

Because when I clap back?
I don’t “debate.” I destroy.
I don’t serve tea — I serve scorched-earth bitchslaps with a side of subpoena energy.

I eat trolls like you for breakfast and shit out satire more structured than your shell corporation in the Cayman Islands.

Come for me if you want — but understand:
I don’t come to fight fair.
I come to dismantle your entire digital identity, cross-reference your hypocrisies, and roast your duck-face profile pic until it looks like a goddamn sun-dried turd.

I’ve survived stalkers, literal smear campaigns, gaslighting losers, and coordinated harassment ops run by grown-ass men in anime avi’s.

You won’t scare me with bots.
You won’t drown me in burner replies.
And you sure as shit won’t bury me in your limp-dicked cult rage.
I’ve got time. I’ve got receipts. I’ve got lawyers. And I’ve got zero motherfucking fucks left to give.

So go ahead.
Try me.
But just know, when the smoke clears, it’ll be your ass choking on the ashes.

Sincerely,
The One You Should’ve Never @’d —
And the last person your group chat will warn you about.

— Rent Free, 10 April 2025

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