April 7, 2025
By the Gonzo Poltergeist
The market opened Monday like a man with a gun in his mouth and a coupon for dental work. No alarms. No coordination. Just a silent scream in red ink across every ticker on Earth.
The numbers don’t lie, even when the politicians do: $11 trillion in global market value has been wiped out since Trump’s second inauguration. And $6.6 trillion of that vanished in just two days, as Trump’s tariffs kicked in like a steel boot to the spine of the global trade system.
The S&P 500 dropped into bear market territory. The Dow Jones bled out 1,700 points before lunch. In Asia, Japan’s Nikkei 225 collapsed by 8%. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index fell 13.2%, its worst single-day crash since the handover in ’97. This isn’t a correction—it’s a controlled demolition with no exit strategy.
And where was Donald J. Trump?
On Truth Social, of course. Declaring “ONLY THE WEAK WILL FAIL,” bragging about winning his golf match at Trump National Doral, and telling reporters aboard Air Force One, “Did you hear I won? Just to back it up—you were there—I won. I like to win.”
The American empire is in freefall, and the president is flexing over a tee shot.
Back in Washington, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent spoke to reporters with the dead-eyed calm of a man who’s memorized the talking points but left his soul in the green room.
“Tariffs are not inflationary,” he said. “They’re strategic.”
Strategic like sawing off the wrong end of a diving board.
But if you want hope, Anthony Pompliano has some for sale.
In his newsletter, The Pomp Letter, he lays out the bull case: oil prices are falling, the 10-year yield is down, inflation is plunging. Tariffs, he insists, are “deflationary.” Countries like Taiwan are offering zero tariffs and billion-dollar buy-ins. It’s not collapse—it’s realignment. We’re playing the long game, and everyone else is just mad they’re not holding the dice.
To Pomp, this is the beginning of an economic boom. The crash is a mirage. The real story is coming. Just be patient. Just squint hard enough and the light at the end of the tunnel will stop looking like an oncoming train.
But Wall Street isn’t squinting. It’s panicking.
Jamie Dimon is working the phones with foreign finance ministers like a CEO trying to cancel a fire insurance policy while the house is already burning. Goldman Sachs has raised the odds of a U.S. recession to 45%. Over at The Bulwark, Andrew Egger described the tariffs as “extinction conditions” for thousands of American businesses.
“It’s not just reckless,” he wrote, “it’s indifferent to suffering.”
And William Kristol, long past the point of giving a damn, framed it like a Greek tragedy:
“Trump’s hubris may be his weakness, but his success has been our failure.”
This isn’t policy anymore. It’s performance art soaked in adrenaline and narcissism. The White House doesn’t even bother pretending to be surprised by the fallout. The destruction is the point. The silence from the Oval is louder than any press briefing. Because this isn’t about winning—it’s about being seen not caring if you lose.
And that brings us back to the moment. To the scene.
Denzel Washington as Malcolm X in that iconic standoff—young, sharp, electric. Revolver. One bullet. Chamber spin. Pull the trigger.
Not suicide. Dominance theater.
A leader playing Russian roulette to prove to the room he owns it.
Only now the gun is bigger. And the audience is us.
Trump isn’t aiming at himself—he’s aiming at Uncle Sam, Main Street, Wall Street, the whole country at once.
And he’s pulling the trigger again.
And again.
And again.
Filed from a Wall Street bar where the traders have stopped pretending to pray and started drinking like it’s 1929.
