If American socialists were real, they’d love tariffs. They’d be screaming for tariffs, because tariffs are the only way to fund the utopia they claim to want. Tariffs don’t chase billionaires who vanish into tax havens, and they don’t raid the paychecks of workers. They’re collected at the border, unavoidable, clean. You want to sell in the biggest market in the world? You pay. That revenue goes straight to the state. Under Trump, tariffs have already brought in over a hundred billion dollars and could triple that. That’s real money, not theoretical “tax the rich” fantasies. Yet the very people who talk loudest about free healthcare, free universities, and social programs refuse to embrace tariffs. Why? Because Trump liked them, and that makes them evil.Critics say tariffs are a tax on consumers. Technically true, but shallow. Tariffs hit imports and the wholesalers profiting off disposable junk. Yes, prices rise, but companies also eat costs. Profit margins shrink, shareholders cry, and the 400% markups on Chinese garbage vanish. Tariffs force corporations to bleed instead of workers. Meanwhile, state revenue swells, funding services. If you care about kids drowning in student debt or clinics closing, you need revenue. Tariffs generate it without touching paychecks. They may make goods cost more, but they make services possible—and that’s the trade-off.Socialism is low material, high services. You own less cheap crap, but you gain healthcare, retirement, childcare, and safety nets. You buy one TV and use it to death, one handbag, one camera. That’s how Europe works: fewer goods, better services. When I lived in Germany, food was cheap, local, delicious, but electronics and furniture were expensive. Why? Because of tariffs and VAT. Germany protects its markets and funds its programs. Italy, France—same logic. They export value and block cheap washback.My friend Mark Wayne Harrison—yes, with the serial-killer middle name—said something that stuck: you can innovate your way to almost free energy, but you can’t innovate your way to more materials. Energy can be hacked and scaled. Materials must be mined and refined, and there’s only so much. Earth is the asteroid. Mining space is a fantasy. Materials are finite, and tariffs acknowledge that reality. They slow consumption, make people think twice, and push the market toward quality. They make domestic products competitive and fund the state without chasing ghosts.Mark even joked about building cheap Tyvek houses with infinite HVAC because energy will be free. Great, but where do 9 billion HVAC units come from? The copper, steel, plastics, rare earths? Materials are the bottleneck, not energy. And that’s why tariffs matter—they align consumption with what’s real.American socialists hate tariffs because they’re performative capitalists. They want to want socialism, but not if it touches their portfolios or Amazon carts. They’d rather protect their 401(k)s than fund universal services. They’d rather scream about fairness than use the one policy that could deliver it. Tariffs are the only path to a high-service, low-material society. Energy may be nearly free someday, but materials never will. Tariffs admit that truth. If American socialists were real, they’d love them. But they’re not, so they don’t.

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