There’s No Trumponomics Without the Tradwife

It is Donald Trump’s special ability to paint every issue — even those as dry and unapproachable as global trade policy — in the luster of cultural warfare. The administration’s tariff regime is a buy-one-get-one-free restoration of American economic might and American masculinity , both of which are in crisis, according to the MAGA right. Even as the administration goes back and forth on the tariffs, it has doubled down many times over on its aggressive protectionism, packaged and sold as nostalgic escapism. It’s back to the factory for men everywhere, finally able to shrug off the tyranny of effete email jobs or the seclusion of mom’s basement, where they can only simulate manliness under the auspices of a first-person-shooter game. The new regime means a return to the real thing