Last week I spoke of Donald Trump’s endless grievances and boundless persecution complex, but little did I know what was coming. In the midst of the barrage of ridiculous excuses coming from Trump and his MAGA allies as to why he was holding classified materials at Mar-a-Lago, the overriding message isn’t just that he’s innocent of any wrong-doing, but that he’s being persecuted by the “deep state.” After months of screaming about the “radical left,” Trump and his allies have gone back to focusing on the deep state. If it isn’t one boogeyman it’s another. Next they’ll blame “Critical Race Theory” for ordering the search at Mar-a-Lago. Let me ask again, was there ever a man as wronged as Donald Trump?
As Charles Blow said in the in the NY Times, the MAGA movement was born of Trump “weaponizing the siege ideology” (I would call it the cherished victimhood of white privilege) held by many white Americans and framing himself as their “messiah and potential martyr.” One peculiar consequence of this warped ideology is that Trump, along with his allies and supporters—those MAGA minions who have bonded with him because he shares their simmering anger—firmly believe he is above the law. Considering the way these people carry on about the rise in crime and “Blue Lives Matter,” it’s amazing how they think their martyr and messiah should have such privilege, but that’s seemingly one of the perks of victimhood. Yes, somehow the GOP, once the party of “law and order” has become the party of “defund the FBI” and has no qualms about encouraging violence against “the feds,” the attorney general, or any of their enemies.
A Man who Owes at Least $1 Billion was Never a Good Security Risk!
We still don’t know what information was contained in the materials seized at Mar-a-Lago, but considering Trump’s actions on January 6th, when he was happy to sit by and watch while his vice president and political opponents were subject to being killed by his MAGA mob, it’s hard not to fear the worst. Is it what the Saudis were promised in exchange for giving Trump’s creepy son-in-law, Jared Kushner, $2 billion to start a hedge fund? Is it stuff he promised his friend Putin in exchange for a financial bailout? Is it information he could use to blackmail our allies or world leaders, or even the U.S. government itself to keep himself out of prison when the ball finally drops on one of his many pending legal cases? It’s most likely all of the above, whoever bites first at the highest price, assuming they haven’t already.
Talk about failing to meet the requirements for a security clearance! Here is a man with access to the nation’s greatest secrets who knew he was at risk of going to prison for the rest of his life. Wouldn’t it be ironic if stealing documents that he thought would be his insurance policy against going to prison turn out to be what finally puts him behind bars?
We need to kill the damn carried-interest loophole! “
While your humble spirit applauds the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act, especially given it’s long overdue (if still grossly inadequate!) tackling of climate change, the final bill falls far short of addressing the gross inequities in our tax code. In particular, it did not end the special lower tax rate on carried-interest income granted to private equity and hedge fund managers, a no-brainer I have written about on numerous occasions. (I should mention that Trump’s 2017 tax bill lengthened the asset-hold period from one year to three, one small thing he got right.)