When it comes to Donald Trump, a decade-long political career has taught Americans to expect the unexpected. Somehow, a discussion about toys for girls turned into a potentially teachable moment regarding the limitations of American consumerism.
In his recent interview with NBC News discussing the first 100 days of his second term, the president defended the effects of his tariffs by saying that “I don’t think that a beautiful baby girl needs — that’s 11 years old — needs to have 30 dolls. I think they can have three dolls or four dolls because what we were doing with China was just unbelievable.” He came back to the analogy later in the interview:
I’m just saying they don’t need to have 30 dolls. They can have three….You don’t need to have, as I said, 35 dolls. You can have two, three, four, and save a lot of money. We don’t need to feed the beast.
Trump was referring to China as “the beast,” but he just as easily could have been describing a culture that tries to encourage Americans to part with their money to buy goods of dubious value for dubious reasons — as a status symbol, or a way to solve an emotional want rather than…
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