Joe Biden may turn out to be Donald Trump’s savior.
Hear me out.
The former President is motivated, as his family has said, by money and by fear of being seen as a loser. His entire “I won I won I won!” Trumpian bit is about satisfying those twin drives, as, in the latter case, Richardson notes:
In part, this appears to have been a fund-raising ploy. Thanks to a terrific story by Shane Goldmacher in the New York Times, we now know that the Trump campaign boosted revenues by tricking donors into making recurring donations before the election, replenishing its badly depleted funds. When unsuspecting donors found out and complained, the Trump campaign and the Republican National Committee ended up having to make more than 530,000 refunds worth $64.3 million. That money came in after the election, as Trump promised to fight the election results because, he said, he had been cheated.
And that has led to this:
But the more they harden Trump’s base by pretending that the former president won the 2020 election, the harder it is for them to move away from Trump. In Republican primaries in Republican states, candidates are vying to get Trump’s endorsement.
It is a vicious downward spiral, based on a lie. As Utah Senator Mitt Romney, who was the Republican candidate for president in 2012, said after the insurrection, “The best way we could show respect for the voters who are upset is by telling them the truth.” And yet, Republican lawmakers continue to feed the narrative that Trump won in 2020.
But here’s the conundrum Biden may be solving. Each of those Republicans that publicly believe in the Big Lie that Trump really won the election – by a landslide – despite the multiple recounts and court cases that Trump unequivocally lost, even when they landed in the courts of judges appointed by Trump, these Republicans, whether they are outlandish fourth-raters like Gosar or Gohmert, or they’re nameless members of the base, are a signal.
They are a signal to the rest of the world that the moral depravity at the center of the Republican Party may also infect American society as well. International observers do take note, it’s part of their duty.
And what does moral depravity say about the dependability of the United States as a … pillar of international financial?
The value of those dollars will decrease.
Yeah. With every lie Trump tells in his desperate attempts to extract more and more money from his base, each of those dollars’ true value decrease as a result of international observers’ judgement that the United States is not as trustworthy as it once was.
Trump is, essentially, chasing the proverbial receding goal, with his every step causing it to recede ever more.
The error of short-term thinking, which is all Trump has.
His savior? JOSEPH R. BIDEN, President of the United States, who has displayed great energy in acknowledging and engaging with problems that Trump could do little more than cry out that they were minor and would go away, even as his Administration crumbled around him. While the results of Biden’s efforts are not known, and will not be known for a while, and will not all be positive, the character of these efforts are those of a highly competent, knowledgeable politician who knows to push back on hatred, how to successfully engage with his political opponents, and how to run a massive bureaucracy.
And that supports the stock of the United States in the world, and thus the financial worth of Trump.
Nothing, though, can support and advance the honor and trustworthiness of Trump. At this point, the mass of lies has no excuse. And that’s part of the equation, too, isn’t it? Doing business with the dishonorable is always bad for business.
But right now it’s plausible to think that the efforts of Biden are playing some small part in keeping Trump from a disaster he could never forecast for himself.
