Trump’s Taxes, First Presidential Debate

With the New York Times’ series of stories on Trump’s taxes earlier this week, we now know that Donald John Trump is who we thought he was – a lying, cheating, violator of America’s tax laws who has used our government to benefit himself and his grifter children. No U.S. President has ever exploited the office in such an avaricious manner. His actions are akin to thievery.

Seemingly, he has spent most of his waking hours, since January 20, 2017, on a proverbial Easter egg hunt, searching every governmental nook and cranny for any monies he could put in his pocket or charge to his family’s various businesses. Unlike any of his predecessors, he has refused to place his corporation in a blind trust, choosing to run it from the White House.

Trump has held the public at bay while refusing to release his taxes, and he continues to rape and pillage the nation’s treasury. He uses the claim that he is withholding them because he is under IRS audit, a process that does not prevent him from doing so, as a shield to keep us from seeing his hand in the till. Trump is operating the government as his personal piggy bank.

While our nation’s citizens are being victimized by the COVID-19 pandemic, resulting in enormous job losses and a slowdown of the economy, the President is leaving them to fend for themselves and ignoring their declining access to health care and growing food insecurity while he continues to fill his pockets with their tax dollars. Trump has been masterful in that regard.

But most troubling about his tax chicanery, however, is that his current personal debt exceeds $400 million dollars. The questions are: To whom does he owe the money? Are any despotic foreign leaders involved: Russia’s Putin, Turkey’s Erdogan, the Philippines Deterge, and Arabia’s Bin Salman? Is Trump likely to become their asset and a national security risk?

Thus, Trump’s tax and debt issues, which will be in play even if he is defeated in this election, place the U.S. in political and security peril. Will Trump be under pressure to share governmental and military secrets? Given his intense narcissism, would he be prone to submit to blackmail to save his own hide? What is clear for all to have seen is that he is a man whose only allegiance is his allegiance to himself.

That became apparent in last Tuesday’s first Presidential debate which was a version of the Temptations hit song, Ball of Confusion, “Segregation, determination, demonstration, integration, aggravation, humiliation, obligation to our nation …Vote for me and I’ll set you free.” He was a whirlwind on the debate stage where he bullied the participants.

Since the debate moderator, Fox News’ Chris Wallace, had said beforehand that he would not engage in any fact-checking, Trump lied as usual with assertiveness and impunity. The entire discussion was akin to a food fight or MMA contest. In his efforts to energize and motivate his shrinking base to go to the polls, Trump pulled out all stops and was on a mission to that end.

The most revealing part of the contest was when Trump was called upon to denounce white supremacy. And when the moderator asked him to condemn the Proud Boys, a far right, neo-fascist organization, which engages in political violence, Trump asked them to “stand back and stand by” and said, “I’ll tell you what; somebody’s got to do something about antifa ….”

In that statement, he incited known white terrorist groups to riot against citizens of color. It was reminiscent of the Tulsa massacre of 1921 and the Red Summer of 1919 when white citizens targeted and killed Blacks in numerous U.S. cities because of their prosperity and/or growing numbers.

The Proud Boys immediately took to social media praising President Trump for his endorsement of their activities. A conspicuous Proud Boys’ enthusiast on Parler (a conservative social media website) said Trump appeared to give permission for attacks on protesters, and added that “this makes me so happy.” Proud Boy memes praising Trump were posted on right-wing sites.

This is the second time Trump has thrown an olive branch to white supremacists. The first was on August 14, 2017, two days after the murder of Heather Hyer who was protesting against a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. When referring to the white nationalist groups rallying against removal of a Confederate statue, Trump said “You had some very bad people in that group…But you also had people that were very fine people, on both sides.”

During an exchange, Biden called Trump a racist, which his past patterns of comments and behavior appear to confirm. Again, like his tax evasion and cheating, Trump is who we thought he is – a ribald, xenophobic, authoritarian, and self-absorbed sexist who has no business sitting in the office of the U.S. Presidency which he continues to defile on a daily basis.

With his assault on election integrity and the enabling of his Attorney General, William Barr, Trump still has a chance to win. As he did in the 2016 debate, when he asked Russia to hack Hillary’s emails, he issued a direct appeal to his supporters, including the long-gun-toting Proud Boys and Boogaloo Boys, to poll watch on his behalf in an attack on democracy.

Now that Trump’s back is against a political wall, his thuggish tendencies are in full view. He has no choice but to resort to any level of dishonesty to win. Hopefully, Trump’s intimidation tactics and his incorrigible lying motivate the Democratic base to come out and vote. An all-out Biden-Harris ground game could ensure success in that effort.