Trump Declares War on... Pencils.

A tale of overconsumption, hysteria, and the art of missing the point.

This week, a tireless President Trump gave a speech in Mount Pocono, Pennsylvania, aimed at rallying Republicans ahead of what’s likely to be a challenging midterm election season. (In the way a tightrope walk over a flaming canyon is likely to be challenging.) He trotted out all his favorite hits: inflation-blame, affordable gas, pro-tariff chest-thumping, screaming energy independence, and enough “America is winning again” messaging to trigger a literal liberal army. He praised job growth, boasted about his many big, beautiful trade deals, and painted a picture of prosperity and resurgence from sea to shining sea.

Then he briefly pivoted like a cat who just heard a can opener in the next room. In the same breath that he claimed to be stabilizing the economy, POTUS warned Americans they might, at some distant point, want to think about maybe learning to curb their gluttonous cravings for petty little luxuries.

Like… pencils.

“You can give up certain products,” Trump insisted [1:04:14]. “You can give up pencils. Because under the China policy… every child can get 37 pencils. They only need one or two. You don’t need 37 dolls for your daughter. Two or three is nice.”

The ancient nun from Elf:

That, of course, is the line that broke the internet. People acted like Trump just cancelled Christmas and replaced it with national rationing. X disintegrated. TikTok exploded. Journalists typed out obit-style headlines for childhood. First that gaudy, gilded ballroom, now pencils plucked from schoolgirls’ hands!

How. Dare. He.

I mean, sure, Biden told us we didn’t need to gather with our families for the holidays, and Carter urged Americans to wear sweaters inside instead of cranking up the heat, and Obama scolded us that sacrifice was our shared responsibility, and the global overlords want us to eat less meat, drive less, fly less, and own less. But Trump is the evil dictator here. Really.

If we’re being literal, Trump didn’t mandate owning fewer writing implements or playthings, he simply pointed out that we don’t need dozens. That’s not even subjective; it’s a statement of fact.

Nevertheless, everyone should definitely freak out.

Here’s what he said in context—something the lazy left-wing media despises:

“And with our historic tariffs, steel production is roaring back. We’re building steel mills all over the country, and U.S. Steel is coming back at a level never thought possible before. And the steel workers are doing phenomenally better.

I think you’re gonna do better than you’ve ever done before. You were losing all of your steel. If we didn’t have tariffs, you would have no steel. We wouldn’t have one steel mill anywhere in the United States. And that would be really bad for national security. We need the one thing you need, you need steel.

You know, you can give up certain products. You can give up pencils. That’s under the China policy. You know, every child can get 37 pencils. They only need one or two, you know. They don’t need that many. But you always need… you always need steel.

You don’t need 37 dolls for your daughter. Two or three is nice, but you don’t need 37 dolls.”

In other words, Trump was acknowledging that there will be tariff trade-offs, while reminding Americans that domestic production is critical to prosperity, and that national security really should outrank another Polly Pocket.

It’s not a radical point: overconsumption and an economic model dependent on endless disposable crap from overseas is how we destroyed American manufacturing—and wound up trillions in the hole. It’s the same argument raised by environmentalists, minimalists, analysts, and economists: we buy too much junk, too cheaply, while outsourcing production and hollowing out industries, exporting jobs (and resilience) in exchange for rock-bottom prices on our favorite plastic widgets. The funny part is the same crowd that tells you sharing a car is virtuous is balking at the thought of parting with 34 backup No. 2s from Target.

In case you missed the irony, the commander-in-chief muttered two sentences about pencils and about six hundred about steel production. Guess which one launched a dozen “DEMOCRACY DIES IN A DESKTOP ORGANIZER” headlines?

Just so we’re clear:

“Please consider owning slightly fewer office supplies” = fascism.
“You may not leave your house, say goodbye to your dying grandmother, or open your business” = compassionate leadership.

Trump speaks in blunt, hyperbolic shorthand, and his critics pretend he’s issuing executive orders carved on stone tablets. He did not announce the creation of a Doll Cap Compliance Task Force. He did not mandate household pencil quotas. If you lean back and squint, his speech becomes less “dictatorial pencil ban” and more “boomer rant about consumer absurdity.” He’s basically every dad who’s ever stood in a garage choked with dusty, unused clutter yelling, “Why do we even have any of this $h*!?”

It’s the kind of throwaway line that becomes comedy fodder—especially when you’re required, for professional reasons, to treat every Trump aside as a dry run for tyranny.

The holiday boutique is open! :)