Opinion | The cost of MAGA

How much are Alabamians willing to sacrifice for the cult of MAGA? 

We’re finding out every day. 

As Donald Trump continues to govern by presidential whim, the economy and various markets around the globe have responded negatively to the instability and randomness of it all. Three months after celebrating the campaign victory of a man who was going to bring down egg prices on day one, many Trump voters (and all the rest of us) now dread a trip to the mailbox (or the email inbox) to get the monthly investment account statement. 

Much of the volatility has been in response to his bi-polar approach to tariffs. One day, we’re having tariffs of 25 percent on these three countries. The next day, the tariffs are only 4 percent on this one country, delayed on another and we’ll revisit the third. A week later, the tariffs are back on. Then they’re off. Then they’re only half on, half off. Then we’re going to do tariffs but not on everything, just some things and the numbers will fluctuate. Then, no, scrap that, we’re doing something completely different, but we’re not sure what yet – come back in April. 

In the meantime, the people who are sure about things – investors – hate it all. And they hate it consistently. 

“The volatility of making major decisions and changing your mind a day or two later, it just doesn’t play with the world,” said David Bronner, the CEO of the Retirement Systems of Alabama at a recent meeting of the system’s Board of Control.

“It may be fun to do that with your best buddy or something, or your wife or your husband,” Bronner continued. “But it doesn’t work at all in the world that we live in as a pension fund. They don’t work well with instability.”

How badly does it not work? 

Try $5 trillion. 

That’s how much value the U.S. stock market has lost in the past three weeks, as it has grappled with Trump’s ever-morphing tariffs. 

Few people have felt it quite like Bronner and the $56 billion in funds that he and RSA manage across more than 20 funds. Those investments support more than 400,000 Alabama retirees and paid out more than $4 billion in 2024. 

It’s a solid reminder that while you might think it’s cute to watch a flippant president threaten tariffs at the drop of a hat, it’s far less cute if paying your electricity bill depends on taking these things seriously. As it does for so many of those retirees – retirees who you probably know, who live in your neighborhoods and shop in your stores and support your local businesses. 

And it doesn’t stop there. 

Bronner pointed out the wide-ranging impacts of Trump’s random, seat-of-the-pants actions. Like making widespread cuts through his Department of Government Efficiency without first having any understanding of what those cuts might do, what havoc they might wreak, what death they might cause. 

Alabama has lost millions of dollars already, as numerous government contracts and programs and federal workers were cut. And the long-term effect could be devastating for a number of others around the state – like the farmers supplying the food for those USAID programs that were killed or the defense industry companies that stand to lose billions in contracts or the hundreds of millions in cuts to health research at a variety of state universities and hospitals. 

That’s, of course, to say nothing of the thousands of Alabamians who find themselves out of work now. 

But what’s most bothersome – scary, even – is the utter disregard for truth and reality in much of what Trump has done in such a short period of time. While everyone is happy to cut waste and abuse, watching these cuts to valued and important programs, agencies and employees be mostly mischaracterized as waste and abuse in order to achieve an agenda or cover up catastrophic mistakes is infuriating. 

Bronner pointed out that many of the decisions are not backed up by factual evidence, and there seems to be no real effort to get to facts. Even worse, he said, there’s no consequences on the right for Trump’s frequent lies. 

But there are consequences in real life. There are consequences for the rest of us. 

And if you doubt that, open that statement.