Latest news with #U.S.MilitaryAcademy
Yahoo
11-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Door County high school student makes local history at Miss Wisconsin's Teen contest
For a second straight year, a Door County woman made local history at the Miss Wisconsin Scholarship Competition. Reigning Miss Door County's Teen Elise Jackson of Sturgeon Bay became the first representative in the 24-year-history of the Miss Door County's Teen program to place in the top five of the Miss Wisconsin's Teen pageant when she was named third runner-up in the 2025 state competition held June 20 in New Berlin. And, Jackson wasn't the only woman from Sturgeon Bay to be named to the top five in the teen pageant, as recent Sevastopol High School graduate Ophelia Linnan, entered in the competition as Miss Fond du Lac's Teen, was fourth runner-up. Jackson's historic top-five result comes on the heels of Kylee Duessler becoming the first reigning Miss Door County in the program's 27 years to place in the top five for Miss Wisconsin when Duessler was named fourth runner-up in the 2024 state competition. In the 24-year-history of the Miss Door County's Teen program, Jackson was the first to crack into the elusive Top 5 and was named 3rd Runner Up to the new Miss Wisconsin's Teen 2025, Natalie Popp from Fitchburg. Jackson, a student at Southern Door High School, won a total of $900 in scholarships at the state contest: $600 for her third runner-up placing and $300 for placing second in the special 'Patriotism Reigns' award, an essay competition where she wrote about her brother's enrollment in the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, New York, and her work with her community service initiative, 'Next Gen Civics." That's in addition to the $2,000 scholarship Jackson earned when she won the Door County teen competition and another $525 in scholarships and prizes in the local pageant for being named Miss Teen Congeniality, winning the fitness and talent parts of the competition and tying for first in the interview portion. For the talent part of the contest, Jackson played the well-known Beethoven composition 'Für Elise' on piano. Now back in Door County, Jackson is promoting her 'Next Gen Civics' initiative in the hope of igniting civic interests in young adults, making them more civic-minded and preparing them to become strong future leaders. At Southern Door, she is the current class president, a student council representative and Senate President for Youth in Government. Linnan earned a $500 scholarship as fourth-runner-up. Miss Capital City's Teen Natalie Popp of Fitchburg won the Miss Wisconsin's Teen 2025 competition, with Miss River Cities' Teen Ruby Marti named first runner-up and Miss Madison's Teen Carly Doome second runner-up, followed by Jackson and Linnan. The 2026 Miss Door County, Miss Door County's Teen and Miss Cherryland contests are scheduled for Feb. 7 at Southern Door Community Auditorium in Brussels, and applications are being accepted. Winners of those competitions advance to take part in the Miss Wisconsin and Wisconsin Teen pageants, with the Miss Wisconsin winner moving on to represent the state in the Miss America pageant. Since its first competition in 1997, the Miss Door County organization has awarded more than $275,000 in scholarships, which the organization claims makes it one of the top local pageants for scholarships in the state. To apply or for more information, visit Contact Christopher Clough at 920-562-8900 or cclough@ MORE: Here's your guide to festivals and special events in Door County from July 10-19 MORE: Southern Door County resort and marina sold to new owner who plans upgrades MORE: Shipwreck with Door County ties that was lost for 131 years is a national historic place FOR MORE DOOR COUNTY NEWS: Check out our website This article originally appeared on Green Bay Press-Gazette: Door County student makes history at Miss Wisconsin's Teen contest
UPI
04-07-2025
- Politics
- UPI
On this day: 10 UPI Independence Day headlines that made history
July 4 (UPI) -- Most Americans are all familiar with the reason we celebrate July Fourth as Independence Day. This was the day in 1776 that the Second Continental Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence explaining why the Founding Fathers wanted to separate from Britain. Though the American Revolutionary War formally began a year earlier with the Battles of Lexington and Concord and ended several years later, July 4, 1776, would forever come to mark the founding of the United States of America. But in the years since, there have been other important events to take place on July 4th, marking great achievements and solemn moments in American history. 1802 -- West Point opens Less than two decades after the conclusion of the American Revolution, the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y., opened on July 4, 1802. Two people graduated that first year; in 2025, that number had risen to 1,002. 1817 -- Construction on Erie Canal begins The United States' first man-made waterway, the Erie Canal was formally started on July 4, 1817. It was completed less than a decade later, in 1825. One of the most important trade routes of the 19th century, it connected the Great Lakes in the Midwest to the Atlantic Ocean via the Hudson River. President George W. Bush named the canal the nation's 23rd heritage corridor in 2000. 1826 -- Two presidents die In one of history's most notable coincidences, John Adams (the second U.S. president) and Thomas Jefferson (the third) both died on July 4, 1826. Both of these Founding Fathers signed the Declaration of Independence 50 years earlier. The one-time rivals maintained correspondence with each other in their years after leaving Washington, D.C. 1863 -- Confederates surrender at Vicksburg On July 4, 1863, the yearlong Siege of Vicksburg came to an end amid the American Civil War. Confederate troops surrendered to the Union in Vicksburg, Miss., one day after defeat in the Battle of Gettysburg in Pennsylvania. These two events marked a turning point in the war in favor of the North. 1884 -- Statue of Liberty In a gesture not commonly seen at this size anymore, France gifted the United States the 305-foot Statue of Liberty on this day in 1884 to mark 100 years of independence. The government presented the copper statue to the U.S. ambassador in a ceremony in Paris. The statue would come to be one of the single most recognizable symbols of American freedom and identity. The monument sustained damage in 2012 from Superstorm Sandy, but reopened to the public in 2013 after extensive repairs. 1895 -- "America the Beautiful" Katharine Lee Bates published her poem "America" on July 4, 1895. She said she was inspired to write the poem -- initially called "Pikes Peak" and then simply "America" -- during an 1893 trip to Pike's Peak in Colorado. A church organist later added music to the poem and it became the famed song "America the Beautiful." 1939 -- The luckiest man on the face of the Earth On July 4, 1939, fans of America's favorite pastime were rocked when one of the sports's most beloved figures -- Lou Gehrig -- announced his retirement. Even worse, he revealed his diagnosis of a disease that would come to be known by his name, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, a debilitating motor neuron disease. Gehrig gave the emotional and memorable speech during Lou Gehrig Appreciation Day at Yankee Stadium in New York. He said: "For the past two weeks you have been reading about a bad break. Yet today I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the Earth." 1963 -- Presidential Medal of Freedom Nine months before his assassination, President John F. Kennedy signed an order establishing the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Each July 4th, the president would bestow the medals to people who have made exceptional contributions to the interests or national security of the United States. On July 4, 1963, Kennedy announced the first 31 honorees, including opera singer Marian Anderson, ambassador Ellsworth Bunker, architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, writer E.B. White, and artist Andrew Wyeth. Kennedy died before a ceremony could be held to honor the winners, so it was held instead by President Lyndon B. Johnson in December 1963. 1965 -- Annual Reminder Taking part in one of the most American of traditions, LGBTQ demonstrators organized outside Philadelphia's Independence Hall on July 4, 1965. Held each year through 1969, the demonstrators gathered at the site of the Second Continental Congress -- where the Declaration was signed -- to remind fellow Americans that LGBTQ people did not enjoy the same constitutional rights as the rest of the country. It was one of the earliest public events of the modern gay rights movement. 1997 -- Pathfinder finds Mars On July 4, 1997, NASA landed its Pathfinder roving probe on Mars, the first U.S. spacecraft to land there in more than two decades. The mission ended a year later, but during that time it demonstrated a new way of landing on the Red Planet using airbags, analyzed the composition of rocks and soil, and used three cameras to take countless photos and document experiments. Happy birthday! And finally, don't forget these famous Americans born on the nation's birthday: writer Nathaniel Hawthorne in 1804; songwriter Stephen Foster in 1826; circus operator James Bailey in 1847; astronomer Henrietta Swan Leavitt in 1868; Calvin Coolidge, 30th president of the United States, in 1872; cartoonist Rube Goldberg in 1883; Louis B. Mayer, film mogul /co-founder of MGM, in 1885; actor Gloria Stuart in 1910; advice columnists Ann Landers and Abigail Van Buren, twin sisters, in 1918; actor Eva Marie Saint in 1924 (age 101); playwright Neil Simon in 1927; New York Yankees owner George Steinbrenner in 1930; musician Bill Withers in 1938; TV reporter Geraldo Rivera in 1943 (age 82); musician Annette Beard (Martha and the Vandellas) in 1943 (age 82); activist Ron Kovic in 1946 (age 79); musician Ralph Johnson (Earth, Wind & Fire) in 1951 (age 74); chef Andrew Zimmern in 1961 (age 64); tennis player Pam Shriver in 1962 (age 63); musician Matt Malley (Counting Crows) in 1963 (age 62); actor/playwright Tracy Letts in 1965 (age 60); actor Becki Newton in 1978 (age 47); musician Post Malone in 1995 (age 30); Malia Obama, daughter of former President Barack Obama, in 1998 (age 27); actor Alex Hibbert in 2004 (age 21).
Boston Globe
14-06-2025
- Politics
- Boston Globe
Trump relishes troops in American streets while shunning conflict overseas
Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up The seemingly disparate postures of recent days -- strongman at home, peace-seeker abroad -- speak to Trump's complicated relationship with the military. He has ordered more troops to Los Angeles and Washington than he currently has stationed in Syria and Iraq combined. He seems more willing at the moment to use the military against Americans than against Iranians. He celebrates a show of force on U.S. soil even as he denounces 'endless wars' outside its borders. Advertisement Trump has always been a contradictory commander in chief, one unlike any other in American history. A graduate of a high school military academy, he never actually served in the armed forces, avoided being drafted for Vietnam thanks to a dubious bone spurs diagnosis, publicly denigrated Sen. John McCain's wartime heroism and was quoted privately dismissing veterans as 'suckers' and 'losers' (which he denied). Advertisement Yet as president, Trump has used the military to serve his political goals. He surrounded himself with 'my generals' and purged those he deemed insufficiently loyal. He entertained a recommendation to impose a form of martial law to overturn the 2020 election that he lost. In recent days, he has given speeches at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point and Fort Bragg, North Carolina, that sounded like campaign rallies. Trump enjoys strong support among many active-duty service members and veterans who appreciate his vocal backing and admire his unvarnished bravado, according to polls and analysts. Yet some career officers said the president clearly does not understand the ethos of service or the nonpartisan tradition of the U.S. armed forces. 'As in all things Trumpian, there is a fundamental contradiction in how he looks at the military,' said James G. Stavridis, a retired Navy four-star admiral who served as NATO's supreme allied commander for Europe. 'He loves the uniforms and the pomp and circumstance, and the ability to apply direct power without boundaries,' Stavridis said. 'But he also thinks that those who serve in the military could be making a lot more money and gain more prestige in the civilian world, and I think he wonders what drives their sacrifice.' Advertisement Trump and his aides have long insisted that he has deep respect for service members and contend that his eagerness to showcase hardware and troops marking the Army's 250th birthday -- and, in what they call a coincidence, his own 79th birthday -- demonstrates pride in the history and accomplishments of the U.S. armed forces. 'This parade will honor all of the military men and women who have bravely served our country, including those who made the ultimate sacrifice to defend our freedom,' Anna Kelly, a White House spokesperson, said in a statement. 'No event can fully capture our gratitude for those who have worn the uniform, but this grand parade will ensure our veterans and active-duty service members are recognized with the respect and magnificence they deserve.' This is the day Trump has coveted for years. He wanted a similar display of military might for his first inauguration in 2017, and when that did not work out, he grew even more fixated on the idea later in the year when he visited France for its Bastille Day celebration. But military officers, including his second White House chief of staff, John Kelly, a retired four-star Marine general, resisted, convinced that it was not in keeping with American tradition and would instead evoke the kinds of displays favored in autocratic countries like Russia, North Korea and Iran. Kelly concluded that Trump had a warped view of the military. The president grew frustrated that senior officers were not in his view loyal to him politically and personally. 'Why can't you be like the German generals?' he once asked, referring to Adolf Hitler's generals, according to Kelly. Once, during another trip to France, he skipped a visit to a cemetery for U.S. troops killed in World War I, saying it was 'filled with losers.' Trump denied both accounts. Advertisement In the final year of his first term, he wanted to invoke the Insurrection Act to send active-duty troops into the streets of cities where protests against the murder of George Floyd had become violent, only to be rebuffed by Mark Esper, his defense secretary, and Gen. Mark Milley, his chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. After the 2020 election, retired Gen. Michael Flynn and other allies showed up at the Oval Office urging him to order the military to seize voting machines and rerun elections in states where he lost, an idea he considered but did not follow through on, knowing that Milley would resist. Yet while he opted against using the military to reverse the election results, he did not use it to protect them. When a mob of his own supporters rampaged through the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, to disrupt the certification of his defeat, Trump did not order the National Guard to respond, according to the bipartisan congressional investigation. Instead, the Pentagon eventually the Guard on its own authority. In this second term, Kelly, Esper and Milley are all gone, and Trump feels freer to pursue his own instincts. In sending troops to Los Angeles, he federalized the California National Guard over the objections of Gov. Gavin Newsom, the first time any president has done so since the civil rights era. Trump has vowed that he will do the same elsewhere around the country if protests merit it, raising the prospect of a wider military presence in American cities. Advertisement To critics, Trump, who uses words like 'invasion' and 'occupation' to justify the troop deployment to Los Angeles, is manufacturing fake wars at home to suppress domestic dissent, heralding what some fear is a creeping military dictatorship. What is striking is that Trump does not seem to worry about giving that impression. He has done nothing to dispel it or reassure Americans that his use of the military against domestic unrest is a limited effort that should not concern them. 'They say, oh, that's not nice,' Trump said of his critics during his speech this past week at Fort Bragg. 'Well, if we didn't do it, there wouldn't be a Los Angeles.' He added: 'Under the Trump administration, this anarchy will not stand. We will not allow federal agents to be attacked, and we will not allow an American city to be invaded and conquered by a foreign enemy. And that's what they are.' Yet the demonstration of military might on American streets this past week feels jarring coming at the same time as a full-blown Middle East crisis in which the United States has taken a backseat. Trump has been trying to negotiate an agreement with Iran to end its nuclear program peacefully, only to be overtaken by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, who decided to take matters into his own hands with a ferocious bombardment. Trump publicly complimented the Israelis on their success Friday but did not endorse further military action, instead reaching out to Iran to resume talks. Some Republican hawks expressed consternation that he would not be willing to more directly support Israel's military campaign. 'Trump is more focused on his birthday parade, or so it seems, than on helping Israel and the West to eliminate a serious nuclear threat,' said Charles M. Kupperman, who served as Trump's deputy national security adviser in his first term. 'Trump can keep mouthing 'peace through strength,' but just mouthing doesn't make it real, and words don't eliminate threats. Actions do.' Advertisement This article originally appeared in
Mint
05-06-2025
- Business
- Mint
Trump's old high school is in trouble (again). Can a Chinese businessman fix it?
For the second time in a decade, it is up to a Chinese entrepreneur to make President Trump's high school great again. Like some of the 20th-century American institutions whose decline Trump laments, the 136-year-old New York Military Academy is in bad shape. Roof tiles are broken on century-old buildings and, on one recent visit, a reporter spotted a family of vultures nestled atop a chimney. The academy sits on a forested campus in Cornwall, N.Y., a Hudson Valley town about 90 minutes' drive north of New York City that is popular for weekend getaways. It is one of the biggest properties in the town of around 13,000. NYMA, which has no government affiliation, is located 6 miles north of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. The academy's cadets gave off a whiff of the school's glory days at Trump's inaugural parade Jan. 20, marching in their gray uniforms as the president clapped and smiled. But with enrollment of only around 50, it could muster up only about two dozen students for the procession. Now Allen Lu, who built a chain of private schools in China, has stepped in with plans to fix up the school. At a February town-council meeting in Cornwall, a person who identified himself as Linsen Zhang said that the school had a change of ownership and that the new owner was a 'visionary on education." He said the new leadership would eventually increase the student population to 1,500. Lu is the second Chinese magnate to attempt a turnaround at the school where Trump spent five years and graduated in 1964—and Lu will have to do it in the face of the worst U.S.-China tensions this century. Vincent Tianquan Mo, whose company in China operates a Zillow-like real-estate site, rescued the academy from bankruptcy a decade ago. A nonprofit controlled by Mo bought the land and buildings at the campus for $15.8 million, and Mo said in 2016 he was committed to making NYMA a 'super school again." But eight years after Mo's purchase, NYMA had racked up $7.8 million in liabilities, according to the latest tax filing by the operating entity of the school. The pandemic took a toll on enrollment and finances, previous years' filings show. The school's ownership structure is particularly complicated and opaque, involving money flows from China to the U.S. at a time when it can be challenging for a Chinese entrepreneur to take money out of his nation and where American regulations on tax and education invite their own complexities. Some in Cornwall have wondered about the future of the crumbling institution at the edge of downtown and whether its tax-exempt status is good for the town. 'I didn't like the idea that this large property is not contributing to the pie," said Ezra Zohar, who grew up in town and has told local council meetings that Cornwall should reap benefits from NYMA's tax breaks. Neither the school nor Mo or Lu, the tycoons who have run it and who are both on the board of trustees, responded to questions. NYMA said it is 'in the midst of a critical transformation" to revitalize its campus, enrich the curriculum and build a vibrant future under the direction of the restructured board of trustees. The 136-year-old New York Military Academy had more than 500 students in the 1960s compared with about 50 for the New York Military Academy at the edge of campus. The school has a storied history, having educated luminaries such as Broadway composer Stephen Sondheim and director Francis Ford Coppola, and in the 1960s it had more than 500 students. In 'The Art of the Deal," Trump said he wasn't thrilled when his father decided to send him to military school at age 13, but 'I learned a lot about discipline, and about channeling my aggression into achievement." Trump also referred to the school on Memorial Day weekend, delivering the commencement speech to West Point's 2025 graduates. 'This is a beautiful place,' the president began. He added, 'I have been here many times, going to high school not so far away. A good place. Also a military academy. Not quite of this distinction. But it was a lot of fun for me." Later in an email statement, White House communications director Steven Cheung said, 'President Trump is proud of his time at the New York Military Academy. He learned important virtues that helped him become one of the greatest businessmen in the world and ultimately president of the United States twice." One of the first press notices of the future president came in December 1963, when the front page of the Cornwall Local showed a photo of a U.S. Army major general visiting a group of academy cadets including 'Cadet Captain Donald J. Trump," shown in full dress uniform with thick white cross belts and white gloves. But the school suffered along with the declining popularity of military-style education. It filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in 2015 and was on the verge of closing permanently when Mo stepped in. The Chinese magnate was at the top of his career. Not long before his land purchase, he had made it to Forbes's billionaires list for the first and only time, with his net worth pegged at $1.9 billion in 2014. His New York Stock Exchange-listed company ran one of China's largest real-estate listing and search websites. Real-estate brokers say buying schools abroad is a popular way for wealthy Chinese to invest outside the country because it doesn't require the Chinese government review that commercial real-estate investments abroad would normally receive. Vincent Tianquan Mo, pictured in 2014, rescued the New York Military Academy from bankruptcy a decade ago. Mo said he intended to revive the school and brought in a new superintendent. In a roundtable discussion in China held in January 2024, Mo joked about the timing of his deal, a year before Trump was first elected. 'We bought the New York Military Academy. That's where Trump went to school for five years," he said. 'People said, 'You guys predicted it well.'" One nonprofit with Mo as head of the board has operated the academy, while an additional nonprofit, called the Research Center on Natural Conservation, owns the land and buildings at the academy. The latter nonprofit, which is controlled by Mo and his family, also owns the 100,000-square-foot Arden House on 450 acres in Harriman, N.Y., where New York's blue-blooded Harriman family long had its countryside estate. During the Mo years, the two nonprofits borrowed heavily from Mo's for-profit entities, according to an analysis of both nonprofits' tax filings. The nonprofit operating the school had negative net assets of $5.8 million as of June 2023, the most recent information available, meaning it had more liabilities than assets. The Research Center on Natural Conservation had negative net assets of $21 million at the end of 2023, according to a tax filing. Accounting specialists not involved with the school described the transactions as unusual. Most U.S. nonprofits avoid letting debt outweigh assets and rely on funding from donors. The Research Center on Natural Conservation has said in its Internal Revenue Service filings that it will research preservation of the environment, including issues like global warming, and promote environmental issues, though it is unclear how those goals are satisfied by owning historic properties. The IRS filing specifically says the center won't operate a school; and indeed, NYMA is a separate legal entity. 'Nonprofits, because of the public subsidies they receive, owe it to the public to be very transparent about what they're doing and why," said Thad Calabrese, a professor at New York University who specializes in nonprofit financial management, adding that tax breaks are a form of government support. The school drew a different kind of attention in Congress from then-Rep. Michael Waltz (R., Fla.), who expressed concern in a 2023 letter to then-Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin about activities at a Chinese-controlled school so close to U.S. defense installations. Waltz served briefly earlier this year as Trump's national security adviser. Under Mo, locals said the dilapidation of the school and its property continued, and enrollment fell even further during the pandemic. On visits this year, rusted army cannons marking the school entrance sat on deflated tires and a brick pedestal appeared to once display a statue. Grass sprouted through cracked tennis court pavement near the Troop D Stables where all cadets once learned horsemanship. Rusted flagpoles stood unused in front of the ashen walls of the 1970s-era Dickinson Hall. And the yellow paint was faded on the 275-foot long Jones Barracks built as a main campus structure after a 1910 fire. Dilapidated tennis courts at the New York Military academy says it is revitalizing its campus, enriching the curriculum and building a vibrant future under its new board. Lu, the new investor who is also known as Lu Yuzong, holds a Ph.D. in finance from China's Fudan University and founded Shanghai-based Guanghua Education Group. Unlike Mo, the 56-year-old Lu is a veteran school operator, owning more than a dozen private schools in China. In China, the overwhelming majority of students attend public schools, where the curriculum is approved by the Ministry of Education and directs the brightest students toward preparing for college entrance exams heavy on rote memorization. Lu's private schools instead say they aim to foster critical thinking that will help students excel at foreign universities, particularly those in the U.K. and the U.S. Lu's company said in February this year that its students had received 20 offer letters from the University of Oxford and 37 from the University of Cambridge in the past academic year. Lu has given almost no media interviews, even in China, but in 2017 he told a magazine featuring successful Fudan University alumni that he wanted to reform Chinese education and provide students and parents with alternatives to public schools. Lu is now chairman of the board of trustees at the New York Military Academy, according to its website. Two of his associates from Guanghua also hold seats on the five-member board, and Mo retains his trustee seat. The status of the transfer of power couldn't be determined, and county real-estate records don't show any transfer of the land and buildings at the academy from the nonprofit controlled by Mo and his family. Ahead of graduation in June, fresh indications of attention to the school grounds included new slats to repair a toppled section of fence. Posters advertised an athletic competition and drone training, carrying the tagline 'Inspire Leaders for Tomorrow." Zhang, Lu's associate, said at the February meeting: 'We are here to make the commitment to fixing everything." Write to Rebecca Feng at and James T. Areddy at
Newsweek
30-05-2025
- Business
- Newsweek
Consumer Trauma and the Ongoing Psychological Toll of Trumponomics on Americans
In his first inaugural address in 1933, former President Franklin D. Roosevelt laid out a political axiom that would come to shrewdly diagnose America's thorny brand of insularity. "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself," Roosevelt told an audience from the Capitol steps, as the nation stood with the Great Depression newly against its back—and little did they know—a second world war shortly ahead. In recent times, the saying has become little more than lazy exposition in Hollywood hero monologues rather than a nugget of wisdom that American politicians and voters genuinely honor. And what doesn't often get recited along with Roosevelt's signature proclamation are the immediate words that followed, where the revered president signaled out the "nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance." President Donald Trump departs after delivering the commencement address at the 2025 U.S. Military Academy Graduation Ceremony at West Point, N.Y., on May 24, 2025. President Donald Trump departs after delivering the commencement address at the 2025 U.S. Military Academy Graduation Ceremony at West Point, N.Y., on May 24, 2025. SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images Just several months into his second term, President Donald Trump has shown that he's going to have a volatile hold on Americans' spending decisions over the next four years, and with it a shrewd grip on their mental health. As an epidemiologist who studies and designs interventions for mental health, I frequently see how concern over things like wages, taxes, and inflation emerge as major risk factors for depression. When this strain over finances becomes recurrent, it can become something even more complex and dangerous: trauma. Saying that the present economic uncertainty could be traumatizing to Americans may seem like hyperbole. But consider how economists have long been fusing clinical terms into their terminology, like "consumer anxiety," to acutely describe the impact of financial markets on everyday people. The deep economic uncertainty that we're experiencing due to Trumponomics though is making consumer anxiety a deeply insufficient metric. With the U.S. Court of International Trade currently blocking the sweeping tariffs Trump announced in April, and deep uncertainty about what lies ahead, we're now at a point where we have to consider how quickly our nation's consumer anxiety is turning into consumer trauma. The Trump administration's intentions to create dense, contagious pockets of trauma throughout America were clear early on. In 2023, the current director of the Office of Management and Budget Russell Vought discussed wanting federal employees to be "traumatically affected" as part of a grand Trumpian vision to shrink the federal workforce. How would they go on to attempt that? By castigating federal employees' work and nudging them to resign via quixotic demands and hostile buyout offers. Trauma occurs when we find ourselves exposed to something distressing and seemingly unpredictable (or uncontrollable), like a car accident or physical assault. When we experience a trauma, the part of our brain that's responsible for detecting personal threats, the amygdala, becomes hypersensitive. This means we become extra alert and responsive to things we perceive to be a potential threat. And we're then pushed to either fight, succumb, or retreat if that threat materializes. On the other end, when we want to avoid traumatizing others, we're generally expected to offer safety, grace, and reassurance. Rather than that, Trump's initial response to Americans' concerns over his tariffs has come in the form of taunts—character insults and gaslighting that have included telling us on TruthSocial, "Don't be Weak! Don't be Stupid!"—and then several days later, to "BE COOL." But most American consumers believe they'll be the ones absorbing Trump's tariffs. While Trump's negotiations have thus far consisted of a number of empty threats, last-second retreats, and fairly brief periods of implementation—which seems innocuous enough—it's precisely this kind of unevenness that characterizes traumatization. The power of trauma lies in its ability to diminish our sense of current safety and future stability. Analysts have dubbed Trump's bartering approach "TACO"—Trump Always Chickens Out. But his approach more acutely reflects the parable of the boy who cried wolf. Except in this strange universe, the boy retains his control and safety from beginning to end while everybody else is imperiled. According to a Quinnipiac poll conducted in April, 72 percent of voters indicated that they believe tariffs will hurt the U.S. economy. Americans' fears over the consequences of tariffs, however, have yet to tame President Trump's unpredictable tendencies. His staccato approach to economic policy of promises to start, rescind, or pause tariffs—and other potentially economically distressing decisions—ensures we all stay on high alert. As people await Trump's response to the recent federal ruling, they're undoubtedly asking themselves: "Will the tariffs be re-introduced? How do I adjust?" Already, many Americans have plans on precautionary saving and stockpiling goods, trauma-aligned behaviors, in response to increasing costs. Seventy-five percent of people in an April Harris poll said the current economy has negatively affected their decision to buy a home, and 65 percent in the same poll said it has negatively impacted their decision to have a child. And we can't forget the interpersonal impacts. Trauma makes us less trusting and less connected with one another and the world. People who have experienced trauma express lower levels of relationship satisfaction, decreased motivation, and an overall lower quality of life. We shouldn't take this lightly. Unlike bad economic policy, which can generally be revived through good economic policy, a deep fraying of Americans' trust and connection to the country and its economic systems may not be something the nation can so easily recover from. Jerel Ezell is a political epidemiologist and visiting scholar at the University of Chicago Medicine. He studies the cultural aspects of policy and health. The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.
