ICYMI: Donald Trump is (already) running for president (again)
ICYMI: Donald Trump is currently running for president.
You may read that sentence and say, “No, he’s already president. We lost this fight already.” Wrong. He filed for re-election on January 20, 2017 at 5:11pm. He’s currently running for president again and we are all ignoring it.
HE. IS. RUNNING. FOR. PRESIDENT. OF. THE. UNITED. STATES. AND. HAS. BEEN. RUNNING. AGAIN. SINCE. DAY. ONE.
Yes, he filed for re-election the day of his inauguration. No, this is not normal. No, no other president filed for re-election the day of their inauguration. Yes, it’s crazy.
And you know what? We all need to start treating him like he’s running for president. We have to treat his actions as if this were a campaign because IT IS A FUCKING CAMPAIGN.
On January 20, 2017, Donald J. Trump For President, Inc. submitted FEC Form 2 to the Processing Division of the Federal Election Commission. You can see a copy of the letter here. His campaign continued to raise funds and reached the $5,000 threshold required to file the FEC form (he had $7 million raised by January 31, 2017). His letter says that the filing of the form was not a “formal announcement,” but his campaign is fully operational from inside 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
What does all this mean? Well, it means that Donald Trump was able to raise more than $13 million in the first quarter of 2017. It means that as of September, the Trump campaign quietly raised almost $37 million dollars – 3% of what the Clinton campaign raised throughout the entire 2016 election. It means that the rallies he has held have been campaign rallies (he says they’re not, but they’ve been paid for by the campaign). It means he can sell MAGA (“Make America Great Again”) merchandise.
It means that he can hold fundraising events that benefit both his campaign and the Republican National Committee, effectively allowing him to captivate the party whose name he uses but whose priorities he does not understand and whose ideology he does not necessarily support. It means he can hold these fundraisers at Trump Hotels and other Trump properties, lining his company’s pockets while stumping to hold the highest office in the United States for another four years (after these four miserable ones go by… reminder, we’re only ten months in).
Donald Trump is profiting off of his second run for president. According to FEC filings, more than $600,000 has been spent at Trump properties, on behalf of the campaign, in the first six months of 2017. At least $400,000 of what was spent in the first six months went to paying rent at Trump Tower. The rest was divided up amongst other Trump properties, Trump branded bottled-water, and “legal consulting.” And that’s just the money that has gone directly to Trump companies. As of July, the campaign had spent at least $10 million. If the trends in spending remained constant, that means that the campaign could have spent upwards of $15 million by this month (not official).
THEY ARE SPENDING MONEY ON TRUMP BRANDED BOTTLED-WATER FOR HIS 2020 CAMPAIGN. THEY ARE PAYING MONEY INTO HIS OWN GODDAMN POCKET. THIS IS A PROBLEM, DON’T YOU SEE IT???
Are you disgusted yet Do you need more info on the ethical ambiguity? READ ON.
There is a gray area in what is called “personal use” of funds. Campaign funds can, legally, be used for anything that helps you get elected to office or support your campaign while you are in office. The campaign money can’t be used for anything other than the campaign or the office that the person holds. Lawyers and scholars have never had to grapple with whether or not spending campaign money at your own businesses counts as “personal use.” Daniel Weiner from the Brennan Law Center at NYU argues that if your company is providing a bonafide service to your campaign, there isn’t anything illegal about that… but that leads to the question of whether your campaign is paying a fair rate for those services.
THE ETHICS ARE MORALLY AMBIGUOUS! DONALD TRUMP IS PROFITING FROM HIS OWN CAMPAIGN. DOES THIS COUNT AS BRIBERY? WHO KNOWS BECAUSE CONGRESS WON’T GROW A PAIR OF OVARIES AND DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT. THIS IS WHY WE NEED CAMPAIGN FINANCE REFORM.
People should be loud. People should be calling out the bullshit his administration is perpetuating. People should continue to take to the streets, show him that the Resistance can rise faster and higher and be more ferocious than he could have ever imagined.
People should treat him like he’s running for president.
The media should treat him like he’s running for president.
We should be treating his rallies (his first being in February, 29 days after he was inaugurated) as campaign rallies.
We should be asking him why he’s fundraising now for a campaign that won’t start for another year and a half. We should be asking him why he’s focusing on raising money when he should be focusing on leading the country. He should be working to save lives in Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. He should be trying to save healthcare, not take it away from millions of Americans. He should be protecting people, rather than destroying them.
We should be countering his television ads (the first of which appeared in August, and suspiciously looks like an ad America First Policies released earlier in the year… but the Trump campaign and America First Policies are prohibited BY LAW from coordinating ads… but who cares about laws today, anyway?)
We should take the RNC’s staffing up in battleground districts and states seriously. We should take their monthly meetings with the Trump campaign and family members seriously. We should be working to dismantle their work with grassroots movements touting Democratic ideals and showing the people how Democrats can help them thrive .
FOR FUCK’S SAKE WE DIDN’T TREAT HIM LIKE HE WAS RUNNING LAST TIME, THE LEAST WE CAN FUCKING DO IS TREAT HIM A.) LIKE HE IS PRESIDENT BECAUSE HE IS AND WE ARE CUTTING HIM WAY TOO MUCH SLACK AND B.) LIKE HE IS RUNNING FOR PRESIDENT BECAUSE IN DEFIANCE OF ALL THAT IS GOOD HE IS RUNNING FOR PRESIDENT. AGAIN.
We should be paying attention because if the election was held today, there is a chance he would win. And that’s a problem.
