The Trump Org Tax Fraud Verdict Will Only Empower The Right
We must accept the conditions of the political playing field before claiming victory
This week we learned that the Trump Organization was found guilty on all 17 counts of tax fraud, which is likely not a shock to anyone. While the maximum fine of $1.6 million is trivial for a company of this size and Donald himself was not convicted, my fellow lefties have taken to the internet to blow up everyone’s feed with #TrumpIsDone.
To be sure, revealing years of shady bookkeeping is a step in the right direction. However, I think we’ll see the opposite reaction we’d expect from anyone else in this position.
Trump is anything but done. In fact, this will only further invigorate his base.
After all, conservatives cheered him on when he infamously claimed that paying no income taxes made him “smart” when called out by Hillary Clinton during the 2016 presidential debates. The fact that his nickname for years has been “Don the Con” doesn’t concern conservatives in the least, nor does his extensive track record of scams like Trump University.
Remember, the Republican ideology revolves largely around short-term profit, no matter the long-term cost. Thanks, Reagan!
To them, ripping off students to make a quick buck is a solid business move. Paying your taxes means you’re a sucker willingly getting robbed by the Deep State. They’ll be happy to hear that the Trump Organization is undeniably fraudulent. It doesn’t matter that the law demands payment. Taxation itself, in their eyes, is fraudulent.
The fact that many on the left truly believe this verdict will be a definitive nail in Trump’s coffin illuminates our own critically flawed understanding of reality.
Analogy Time!
It’s a great day for baseball. Two teams assemble on the diamond. The home team takes their defensive positions and waits for the leadoff batter from the visiting team to approach the plate. But where is he? The pitcher steps off the mound in confusion. Suddenly, he gets pummeled by a big burly dude in football gear and is tossed to the ground.
The home team manager storms onto the field and demands that the umpire take punitive action. Just as the umpire draws back his arm to eject the tackler from the game, he too gets pummeled by yet another football player.
The opposing team has arrived in full force. And yes, they’re a football team.
The umpire is escorted off the field to nurse a concussion while a new umpire takes his place behind the plate. Surprisingly, a football player picks up a bat and steps into the batter’s box, ready to play. The first pitch is thrown and misses on the outside corner. Ball one.
The football player abruptly shoves the catcher to the ground and then barrels around the bases, knocking over anyone in his path. The rest of the visiting team clears the bench to do the same and claims victory while dancing around home plate.
It’s madness.
In the days following this debacle, both teams are interviewed on primetime television. The baseball team’s manager complains that the opponents weren’t playing fairly and need to be reminded of the rules. The football team’s manager scoffs and, with a chuckle, gives a brief retort: “Those snowflakes just suck at football.”
Coming Full Circle
Democrats are the baseball team. Republicans are the football team.
We’re all competing on the same field, but we’re playing completely different games. The same rules do not apply to each team equally, if at all.
Democrats must stop acting as if uncovering fraud will convince Republicans to change their ways. It leads only to online bickering and whataboutisms. More importantly, it distracts from the possibility of focusing our combined efforts to back much-needed progressive initiatives.
We’ve seen time and again that all Republicans do when called out like this is double down and continue building on the same lies and conspiracies they’ve been spouting from the start. Yes, they contradict themselves at every turn, but that doesn’t matter to them. They don’t care about constructive debate for the sake of improving the lives of their constituents. They were elected solely to “own the Libs” and will do whatever it takes to do so.
That’s precisely why we can’t expect them to take respectful political discourse seriously when they only care about name-calling and winning shouting matches.
I can see Chuck Schumer on the Senate floor now, preparing to make a speech he believes will change the hearts of his Republican colleagues once and for all. He slowly looks down at his script and begins reading in his quiet tone, carefully articulating recycled cookie-cutter talking points. He peers over his glasses, which have slid down his nose, to scan the room only after sternly repeating a phrase he thinks was the knockout blow, making sure the GOP caucus has heard him clearly. No one cares. Ted Cruz is scrolling on Twitter while Mitch McConnell has fallen asleep.
Likewise, we can’t expect conservatives to believe peer-reviewed and thoroughly-tested scientific research when they think academia and intellectuals are an elitist cabal trying to indoctrinate society to fulfill their Communist agenda.
We can’t expect them to learn their lesson after exposing the Trump Organization’s fraudulent activity when they believe, at their core, that taxation should be abolished entirely.
On paper, our arguments and investigations are sound and would normally be enough to sway public opinion. But we’re navigating a weird crossroads where two very different realities intersect. I fear we’re only poking and angering the big nasty proverbial bear.
What Can We Do Instead?
I’m not saying we need to play their game and behave like trashy middle school bullies, too. But our elected officials do need to get more aggressive and stop putting up with the GOP’s dismissive BS.
Perhaps this comes in the form of more aggressive ad campaigns during elections, since we’ve seen that they were effective during the 2022 midterms. Maybe we need to amplify the international scientific community’s voice to force conservatives to hear the truth about matters they’d prefer to ignore. Or maybe this means forcefully taking the spotlight from conservatives when possible, or at least matching their public presence, to call them out in real time when everyone is listening. I’d wager it would help to elect more youthful and energetic officials, but we’ll need to get around our collective belief that old age means more wisdom first.
Whatever the solution may be, the fact of the matter is that conservatives have made it clear that nothing we do or say under current circumstances will change their minds, so traditional discourse is out the window. We need to do something different.
