Large movements in the stock market can cause unexpected events beyond it to happen very quickly.

On 15 September 2008, the investment bank Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy. The United States Federal Reserve declined to bail it out, as it had done for other banks. But then it was realised how intertwined Lehman was with the entire global financial system, and how its failure threatened the system as a whole.

This shock quickly led US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Federal Reserve chair Ben Bernanke to jointly propose a US$700 billion bailout of the banks that had stocked up on increasingly worthless packages of mortgages, or Collateralised Debt Obligations. On 20 September, Paulson asked the US Congress to authorise the proposed bailout.

Understandably, it refused. Such a thing was unheard of. Congress was filled with fiscal conservatives, who believed government spending should be reined in. On 29 September, the US House of Representatives rejected the bailout 225-208.

That same day, after the vote, the US stock market, as measured by the S&P 500 stock market index which measures the aggregate stock prices of the 500 largest US companies, dropped by 8.8%. The Nasdaq Composite index, which measures the prices of mostly smaller technology companies, fell 9.1%.

This caused a panic that lit a fire under Congress. Then, despite how unusual, ahistoric and unpopular the proposal was, Congress turned around and passed the measure only a few days later, on 3 October 263-171.

The stock market had shown its muscle, very quickly. Few, if any other, indicators are able to do this, including votes at the ballot box. Those do not occur in real time but on scheduled days. The stock market, by contrast, measures public belief in national economic health in real time, not only during the day when the stock markets are open, but 24 hours a day when futures trading takes place.

In the last few days, we are seeing this again. Since President Donald Trump’s “Liberation Day”, on which he imposed new tariffs on about 90 countries (including, curiously, some countries and territories with no populations), the stock market has dropped by 10%. Suddenly, US senators, who had completely subjugated themselves to Trump, are speaking up. Their objections to the tariffs are still muted. But wait.

Most of these senators and representatives who cleave to Trump do so because they are afraid of his wrath, which can cause them to be “primaried” — that is, to have a Trump-embracing substitute run against them in the next primary election — but also, sadly, and frighteningly, because they fear for their own and their family’s safety from the lunatic fringe that tends to support Trump.

Nevertheless, the seeds of possible rebellion from some of Trump’s most ardent supporters could be in view. While many of Trump’s voters simply love him as a performative tough guy, many others voted for him because they believed he could remedy economic conditions that had worsened during the Biden presidency – particularly higher prices. Many of them are older citizens who rely heavily on their monthly Social Security cheques from the government. The tariffs will bring still higher prices, while Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency’s firing of Social Security officials, which makes it more difficult to contact Social Security personnel, may be making recipients nervous.

So just wait. The tables could turn very quickly.

In early August, 1974, I and a friend took a five-day hike in the Wind River Range in western Wyoming. We had no mobile phones, of course. We saw very few people on the trail — only one or two a day — this being a sparsely travelled, mountainous area.

I remember it clearly. As we emerged from the forest, we crossed through a long expanse of scrub bush on the way back to the highway. We saw ahead of us a young man hiking the other way, in our direction. When he came to us, he asked, “When did you go into the wilderness?” We told him the day, whereupon he responded, “Then you don’t know we have a new president.”

He was right, it was a total surprise to us. President Richard Nixon had been embattled since the revelation of a break-in at the Democratic National Committee offices at the Watergate Building Complex on 17 June 1972 – a break-in apparently known to him. He was fiercely resisting calls for his impeachment, and the surrender of tapes recorded of his conversations in the Oval Office. But it was assumed he would survive. Hence, the news of his resignation — forced by a visit from a group of members of his own party, Republicans, who had previously mostly stood by him — was a shock.

Something like this could happen quickly in Trump’s case too. It could happen before we know it. If there is a rising rumble of resentment from people who voted for him last time, even by some who had previously been extremely enthusiastic about him, the Republican members of Congress could turn on a dime. This could be caused by rising prices, Social Security fears or loss of jobs by public servants due to DOGE. But these indicators are slower, not instantaneous like stock market prices. It could be caused, more than anything else, by steep market declines, not only indicating economic peril, but rapid depletion of many investors’ retirement savings.

Of course, the comparison with Nixon is spurious. Trump’s misdeeds far exceed Nixon’s. Nixon’s were involvement in an illegal petty burglary, and then covering it up – more in the cover-up than in the deed itself, in which he did not personally participate. Trump’s go far, far beyond that. They include inciting a break-in and riot by a large mob at the US Capitol building on 6 January 2021 and doing nothing to stop it. They include a conspiracy to reverse legitimate vote tallies in a number of states prior to that riot; then stealing and hiding classified documents (i.e. government secrets) when he left office.

His chickens could be coming home to roost – and soon.