“I Should’ve Seen This Coming” reads the title of a recent article in The Atlantic, one of many attempts to rationalize and mitigate the failure of moderates and progressives to predict what they see as the Trump administration’s unforeseeable chaos. From the very moment of Trump’s electoral victory, countless such titles — Harris-voter apologia, if you will — have streamed across the front pages of numerous media institutions in highbrow America. First, they came to explain why they didn’t predict Trump’s victory, then his alliance with Musk and DOGE’s financial evisceration, then his legally suspect deportations of countless migrants, and now his tariff onslaught, perhaps the harshest blow so far. From Wall Street to Main Street, self-exonerating hand-wringing abounds, not to mention sudden catastrophizing: opinion writers discuss trade “shocks,” attempt to explain why financiers “got Trump so wrong,” and warn Americans as to how their lives will “never be the same.” Clearly, reality stands at odds with initial assessments of Trump’s presidency and the socioeconomic circumstances it heralded.
This disparity is particularly evident in capital markets, where defenders of the efficient-market hypothesis tout the abundance of intelligent, well-paid traders and the research they produce to explain how asset prices could possibly reflect available information. Regardless, even this army of geniuses seems to have failed in predicting the impact of Trumpian policy. It should be safe to assume that the first concrete forecast of near-universal reciprocal tariffs was Trump’s February 13 announcement, in which he signed a presidential memorandum on the “fair and reciprocal” imposition of tariffs. Following this, it should’ve been clear by late March that early April would be a watershed for tariff policy, with Trump’s first use of “Liberation Day” language and assurances that April 2 would mark the imposition of reciprocal tariffs. By the last week of March, top law firms were highlighting April 2 as the day to watch in policy briefs, and more sophisticated traders began to place their bets. Yet, it was not until April 3, after the conclusive Liberation Day announcement, that the market began shedding value.
Using some elementary napkin math and the Dow Jones total market index (DWCF), historical data suggests that the stock market lost around $12 trillion by April 8, with the starting reference as February 13, Trump’s first announcement. However, of that $12 trillion, under $5 trillion in losses occurred before April 2, with the remaining $7 trillion in losses happening in a single week from April 3rd to April 9th. If expected value calculations and the wisdom of markets are to be believed, this would suggest that markets estimated just a 40% chance of Trump following through, if the $12 trillion figure represents a ceiling for the overall market valuation of tariff impacts. Of course, this all represents extremely rough estimation, and it is undoubtedly true that the total loss in equities does not accurately reflect the real costs of tariffs, but the basic principle is evident — why did markets collapse after a policy change known to the public for weeks was finally put into place? Prevailing financial commentary reflects the sheer surprise with which markets reacted and provides some hints as to why markets were caught off guard.
Markets believed that Trump was “bluffing” and were blindsided by a bitter dose of presidential honesty. It begs the question: was this really such a surprise?
In early March, John Rekenthaler, former Vice President of Research for Morningstar, a renowned equities research firm, wrote that tariffs were not responsible for the then-beginning market selloff, and attributed the cause to “de-risking” by cautious investors due to risk. Within three weeks, he was writing again, this time to say that yes, “This Time, It Really is the Tariffs,” ashamedly noting that, “the president, it turned out, was not bluffing.” Words such as “surprise,” “stunning,” and “unforeseen” have defined the recent mood in financial tabloids, and the general sentiment seems to agree, with the proliferation of popular conversation on collapsing 401ks, recession fears, and extreme price swings. Even Bill Ackman, a devout convert to the Trump cause, joined in, tweeting: “I don’t think this was foreseeable. I assumed economic rationality would be paramount. My bad.” Stoked by Trump’s Truth Social activity, the CBOE volatility index reached levels unseen since the 2008 financial crisis and the pandemic. Clearly, Rekenthaler was not alone in his convictions — markets believed that Trump was “bluffing” and were blindsided by a bitter dose of presidential honesty. It begs the question: was this really such a surprise?
This question is not merely directed at the most recent tariff events, or solely at financial markets: it is addressed towards those who were blindsided by Trump’s victory and thought that his second presidency would be a benign and uncontroversial evolution of the first. The very same papers that tried to explain their failure to predict the “unpredictable” also hosted countless op-eds offering logical arguments for taking Trump seriously, such as his lack of electoral accountability as a second-term president, his transparent appointment of ideological lackeys, his tacit endorsement of radical policy as the election progressed, and not least his own victory lap, announcing that his administration had an “unprecedented and powerful mandate.” To understand the prospects of second-term Trump, one does not have to look far: as the man himself explained, “I think the second term is just more powerful.”
To understand the prospects of second-term Trump, one does not have to look far: as the man himself explained, “I think the second term is just more powerful.”
To be sure, there is some precedent for the capricious and mercurial Trump that this nation still seems to want in the White House. Trump’s first term wasn’t exactly defined by credibility or fulfillment of campaign promises, with few of his key promises, besides some half-hearted tariffs and a comprehensive tax cut, coming into effect. Even the accomplishments that did occur were hardly foreseeable, particularly his historic remodeling of the federal judiciary. Yet, it should have been plainly obvious even before the election that Trump’s understanding of executive power, and consequently of promise-fulfillment, has been radically reinforced by four years in the political wilderness. Without endlessly sermonizing on the warning signs, it is evident that since late 2023, Trump has made no secret of his plans to fulfill his promise of a redefined presidency — plans that have long emphasized judicial defiance, rule by decree, and codification of executive supremacy.
There is a litany of reasons for the institutionalized disbelief with which Trump is continually greeted, many of which appeal to psychological explanations of liberal acquiescence. Much has been made over the demise of the “Trump resistance,” the political coalition that emerged to oppose Trump throughout his first presidency, and in the account of disappointed columnists, has since lapsed into an exhausted state of apathy. As Franklin Foer writes, the failure of establishment media to recognize and publicize the “novelty” of second-term Trump is at least partially accountable for his seeming benignity. Foer suggests that the media’s lapse back into pre-Trumpian impartiality and civility is accountable, but it seems reasonable to accuse more than just liberal media of this attachment to political normativity. Indeed, as Trump’s chips begin to fall, some outraged Democrats have called attention to the party’s obstinance and its refusal to engage Trump on his own terms, even tempting accusations of “collaborationism” in the manner of Vichy France. Allan Lichtman, himself a victim of Democratic disbelief, perhaps said it best: “Republicans have no principles, and Democrats have no spine.”
A United States that suffers sharp transitions in policy is perhaps psychologically incomprehensible to Americans, particularly to the affluent ones who have built businesses and fortunes on the back of the postwar “rules-based order.”
Yet, for all the temptations of an explanation grounded in liberal weakness and opportunism, the sheer scale of faithlessness towards Trump casts doubts upon theories that merely concern the liberal left. As the reaction to reciprocal tariffs displays, it is not solely Democrats who can’t believe their eyes, but also moderates and even Trump’s own cheerleaders, particularly those in the economic establishment. A general plague of status quo bias, the sort that afflicts a nation facing an objectively uncertain future, seems more to blame. After eight decades riding the waves of the postwar Pax Americana, dominated by a uniform narrative on America’s place in the world, most living Americans, even those who support a Trumpian “Great Deal,” can hardly imagine a nation of policies radically different from those that shaped modern America. A United States that suffers sharp transitions in policy is perhaps psychologically incomprehensible to Americans, particularly to the affluent ones who have built businesses and fortunes on the back of the postwar “rules-based order.”
In “The World of Yesterday,” Stefan Zweig’s magnum opus on the twilight of old Europe, he proposed: “It remains an irrefutable law of history that contemporaries are denied a recognition of the early beginnings of the great movements which determine their times.” There is little point in expounding what the victims of Zweig’s Law suffered because of their blindness, except to say that failure to recognize shifting tides portends missed opportunities, lost livelihoods, and unprecedented upheaval for the citizens of Weimar Germany and modern America alike. Even for those who enthusiastically await Trump’s brave new world, a lack of faith in reality begins, as it did on April 2, with billions in lost profits and wilting retirement accounts. For those more vulnerable to political change, the consequences of ill-preparedness have spiraled into losing academic independence, visas, and even personal freedom. Taking Trump at his word may be a tall order for a nation mired in disbelief, but equipped with the hindsight Zweig’s contemporaries lacked, today’s Americans are perfectly able to avoid the fate of a cautionary tale. If not, they may soon find themselves the subjects of a familiar admonition: “You should’ve seen this coming.”
Jeffrey Tian ‘25 studies in the College of Arts & Sciences. He can be reached at jeffrey.t@wustl.edu.