OH YEAH, SOMETHING FEELS DIFFERENT.

Being 28 in America is weird. You’ve lived through just enough to notice stuff changing, but not enough to feel like you’ve got it all figured out. You’ve probably voted in two elections where you actually knew what was going on. You pay attention now — kind of. Enough to know when something feels off. throw in an impending war with iran, and you slowly begin to realize that the world you were raised to grow up in no longer exists.

And what we’re living through? I didn’t expect it. But the more I think about it, the more it feels like this was always gonna happen.

Trump’s whole thing with trade — mostly tariffs — has basically flipped the table. For years, the U.S. has been showing up to the world trade potluck with a full Thanksgiving turkey, while everyone else brought like, half a bag of gas station almonds... and still had the nerve to ask where the gravy was.

We’ve been the nice guy for way too long. And in the process, other countries figured they could pull jobs out of the U.S. — whole industries, even — and still get invited back to the table. And we just kind of let it happen.

And yeah, a lot of those jobs didn’t just “go away.” We let them leave. Slowly, over time. Companies realized it was cheaper to make stuff overseas where people work for less and the rules aren’t as strict. CEOs loved it. Investors loved it. Politicians looked the other way because the stock market was happy. And the rest of us? Well, we got used to cheap stuff. Fast fashion, overnight shipping, $300 TVs. We didn’t ask a lot of questions because it all seemed like progress.

Now the rules are getting torn up. Not adjusted. Not updated. Torn up. And honestly? I DO not, FOR THE LIFE OF ME, KNOW WHY WE’RE mad about it.

People are freaking out about tariffs and fair trade policies like we broke some sacred international agreement. But let’s be real — if a little fairness is enough to throw the whole system off balance, maybe the system was garbage to begin with. And now that some of these countries are desperate to keep access to the American consumer? Kind of tells you all you need to know.

Now look, I’m no economist. I’ve got a high school diploma and a few years of sort-of paying attention. I get why people are nervous about crashes and instability — I think those concerns are fair. But like him or not, Trump is making decisions that aren’t just for show. He’s loud, he’s crass, he’s exhausting… but he’s stubborn as hell. And maybe that’s what it takes.

The game has changed. Whether history says this was a smart move or a total disaster — we’ll find out later. But you can’t ignore it. Something big is happening.

And who knows — maybe someday my grandkids will ask what I did during all this and someone will be like, “Oh yeah, he just rambled on the internet. You can still find it on this weird old blog.”

That’s good enough for me.