Trump said at yesterday’s press conference that it’s “fake news” that he paid only $750 in federal tax in 2016 and 2017. If it is, then it’s easy for him to rebut. All he has to do is publish his tax returns for those years.
Note to any Trump supporters reading this: the retort “Why should he do what his opponents tell him?” would be infantile. Refusing to publish this information while denouncing what his opponents say about it is pathetic. It makes him look weak. As does almost any path from where we are now. Bad news indeed for the “greatest” man in the world. This is what the puncturing of a brand looks like. This guy will go down in history as a cardboard-cutout blowhard and “fake”. His whole “Apprentice” image was fake. His whole wrestling ring image as a man worth not one billion, not two, not three, but seven, was fake. He can hardly open his mouth without lying.
In one TV debate in 2016, Hillary Clinton suggested that the reason Trump wasn’t releasing his tax returns was because he hadn’t paid anything in federal taxes. He replied, “That makes me smart”.
So which is it, then? Is it
a) the allegation is true, and it is also flattering, because tax avoidance is something to be proud of?
or
b) the allegation is false, and outrageous too, because he would never do anything so disgusting?
In principle, either of those positions could be argued, but obviously not both. And in this particular case, Trump isn’t going to be able to argue either of them. All he will be able to do, for as long as he stays in the presidential race, is bluster, rage, and scream at his critics that they’re stupid, traitorous, communist, corrupt, and anti-God.
I have to say, this is beautiful timing by Trump’s opponents.
Let’s hope they understand the importance of combining timing with surprise and a concentration of attacks on weak spots – laws of strategy that they handled pretty badly in 2016.
The media’s sudden falling into “silent mode” regarding the Trump vs Vance case before the federal appeals court (2nd circuit) remains unexplained. I hope Trump’s side hasn’t had too much of a hand in that delay. But whatever the reason, it’s clear that nobody pushes the Grey Lady around.
Trump is, literally, a fascist leader. And his spiel is now collapsing into little more than denunciations of a conspiracy of Godless “communists” and traitors paid by foreign powers. He has literally said the Democratic Party has been taken over by “socialists” and probably beyond that, “communists”. And he keeps going on about how somebody spied on his campaign in 2016, which he is convinced was the greatest crime in the history of the USA. Didn’t he win that election? But so what? Deep down he knows he’s fake, he feels he’s a “loser”, a man whom the whole world is against. Poor guy. Soon it will be over.