Luca stifled an unbecoming smile. He knew the banker well, a thin nervous little man. “Does he know the reason you have no profit is because your warehouse is nearly full of cotton?” “Yes, yes! I tell him! But he only say he cannot see my cotton, he can only see my losses. I tell him come down to my varehouse full of cotton and see for yourself, and he say no, no, thee wharf is full of rats and criminals. Bah! I tell him thee rats on my dock have better business head than he does!

An interesting sideshow has developed in the second Trump administration. He has set out to overhaul trade relations with every country on earth, friend or foe. While the tariffs themselves have major implications in the economy, underlying the whole discussion is a power struggle between the Executive branch and Congress. Congress controls both spending and taxation, i.e. both expenses and income. This “power of the purse” is their main check on the Executive branch’s power.

No doubt the after-flood world required as much faith on Noah’s part as did building the ark in the first place. Perhaps, we are standing in a somewhat parallel moment. By almost any measure, Trump won a decisive victory against steep odds. If you are inclined toward his views, you might say common sense won the day. If you lean differently, you might say crazy won the day. History may say both are true. Yet regardless of how history will view Trump, future textbooks will record this moment