If there’s anything I appreciate about President Donald Trump, it’s how he’s held up a perverse mirror to what government fundamentally boils down to: power, money, manipulation, awarding one’s friends and punishing one’s enemies.
He’s cut through all of the usual pretenses and made the United States federal government a total farce of itself. Every now and then when I remember Oprah-era snake oil salesman Dr. Oz is the head of a federal department, I have to pinch myself. Ditto when I remember Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is not only beloved by Republicans but is doing his best to bring malaria back as head of the United States Department of Health and Human Services. It’s the ultimate cynic’s dream, really.
In this context, then, Trump’s recent pitch to the American people that if Republicans hold the House and Senate, they will be rewarded with a $5,000 check is par for the course.
“Because we’ve done so well, and because our country is making so much money, only I can make this promise to you, and here is my promise: if the Republicans win the House of Representatives and the United States Senate… I will issue a dividend to every adult citizen in the United States of America for $5,000,” he said at the Republican convention in Dallas, Texas this past week.
It’s quite a glimpse into the mind of the president and the fantasy land he’s creating.
The official White House website now features a page about the “Trump Dividend,” with the warning that, “Democrats will not deliver a dividend, they will deliver the opposite — higher taxes, open borders, and the same failed communist agenda that makes American families poorer and punishes the people who work the hardest.”
Yes, the Republican president of the United States is making the case that if the Democrats win, communism will come to America and stop the president from doling out $5,000 checks to Americans.
Ignore, of course, the irony of a politician offering a government check and then having the audacity to call the other side communists because they might stop him from doing it.
Ignore also the odd discrepancy between the standard Republican lament about election integrity and the appearance of a president essentially trying to buy votes.
It calls to mind stories from the former Soviet republic of Georgia in which politicians have been accused of buying votes with “potatoes and onions.”
It’s all very un-American in some fleeting idealistic sense where norms are supposed to check against such shameful acts. But then again, all of politics is a grand vote-buying and money-moving scheme.
It’s just about how you dress up and funnel the money: tax cuts, tax hikes, budget priorities, government programs, nudging the Fed to play games with the money supply. It’s all about patronage and whatever cronyism you can get away with.
So, Trump’s offense in that sense is just being really tacky and unsophisticated about how he’s trying to buy votes. Smarter Republicans in the past just said they’d cut taxes as their roundabout way of buying votes. But Trump now thinks he must go straight for check-cutting.
To be fair to him, he has every reason to say whatever it takes to hold onto majorities in Congress. He’s made it this far spouting nonsense, and as he enters his lame-duck years, he knows he won’t have half as much fun with a hostile Congress.
It’s not like he can run on his amazing economic record. It turns out tearing up trade agreements, turning the Strait of Hormuz into a warzone and racking up a $2 trillion deficit is a recipe for persistently high inflation. Who could’ve guessed?
At least some Republicans have pushed back against Trump’s idea, including Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis who noted, appropriately, that it “will lead to more debt and more inflation.”
Among the questions now: just how gullible are American voters, and when will more Republicans realize they’re being made fools of?
Sal Rodriguez can be reached at salrodriguez@scng.com