Yesterday, The New York Times came out with a report on the money collection strategy employed by former President Trump during his reelection campaign, and today the former President fired back. It’s an interesting reflection on the President’s religious upbringing:
“Before our two campaigns, 2016 and 2020, Republicans would always lose small dollar donations … Now we win, or do very well, because we are the Party of Working Americans, and we beat the Democrats at their own game.”
“We learned from liberal ActBlue – and now we’re better than they are!”
“In fact, many people were so enthusiastic that they gave over and over, and in certain cases where they would give too much, we would promptly refund their contributions. Our overall dispute rate was less than 1% of total online donations, a very low number. This is done by Dems also.” [Graham Allen]
So how bad was the refunds?
While some refunds in national campaigns are common, Trump-Pence 2020 ultimately had to refund $122 million to contributors, which is unheard of: the then-president, the RNC, and their shared campaign accounts “refunded far more money to online donors in the last election cycle than every federal Democratic candidate and committee in the country combined.” [Maddowblog]
And how did this happen?
To briefly recap, the Times found that Team Trump, facing a financial shortfall, set up a default system for online donors: by adding easily overlooked pre-checked boxes and opaque fine print, the then-president’s operation was able to fleece unsuspecting donors for months.
Not surprisingly, banks and credit card companies were soon inundated “with fraud complaints from the president’s own supporters about donations they had not intended to make, sometimes for thousands of dollars.” Some donors even “canceled their cards” just to make the recurring payments to Trump stop. [Maddowblog]
Is this the telltale sign of a common thief? In isolation, yes, but in context?
It’s not.
This is the prosperity church theology in action. In that morality system, the acquisition of money will put you higher in heaven and in the world’s social register[1]. Misrepresenting the funds involved and ignoring the victims is just part of the game.
But that’s not the only facet involved. Back to Graham Allen for more of the failed President:
“In yet another highly partisan story, the failing New York Times wrote a completely misleading, one-sided attack piece this weekend that tried to disparage our record-setting grassroots fundraising operation during the 2020 campaign.”
“Except for massive voter fraud, this was a campaign that was easily won by your favorite Republican President, me!”
Trump just sounds like a tired, demented old man here, as he repeats the prosperity church mantra:
Those who lay claim to victory actualize it …
He hopelessly batters away at the reality that he lost, that all of his judicial appeals failed, and that his popularity has begun to fade away as more and more voters decide he was responsible for the January 6 insurrection.
In Trump’s view, he’s acting in accordance with the moral system he learned from the church. What distinguishes an individual’s good morality system from an individual’s bad morality system is how it affects the society in which it is functioning. We’re seeing Trump’s prosperity theology tearing this country apart, even more than his narcissism. It attracts grifters, con-men, and all nature of third- and fourth- raters who have first-rate ambitions. See the shambling wreck of Matt Gaetz, for example.
And Trump will never stop so long as he can twitch a finger. His Divinity has far too much power, in his mind, for him to ever challenge it.
1 The social register is an old reference to social status. It’s also a reference to an actual publication that continues even today.
