While Americans are hurting, Donald Trump is preoccupied with golden statues of himself and various taxpayer-funded vanity projects.
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Before departing for a high-stakes summit in China, Donald Trump proclaimed that he is not thinking about the economic struggles of Americans as he conducts his war with Iran. On the way back we found out what is on his mind (courtesy of his social media posts): a ballroom, a new vanity project in Washington, DC, and a golden statue of himself.
It’s a stark reminder of the difference between Trump the candidate and Trump the president.
On the campaign trail, his superpower has always been that he knew exactly what would get his supporters riled up. His kryptonite, on the other hand, it actually being in power. Because once Trump can do whatever he wants, all those promises go out of the window and make way for personal enrichment, retribution, and things nobody else cares about.
And, while the president is not on the ballot in November, his GOP enablers are… and voters will make them pay for his tone-deafness.
“China has a Ballroom, and so should the USA!” Trump wrote in a post praising China’s president. “It’s under construction, ahead of schedule, and will be the finest facility of its kind anywhere in the USA. Thank you for all the support I have been given in getting this project going.”
In another, he touted a new “National Garden of American Heroes” that will “will feature the MOST BEAUTIFUL collection of statues of AMERICAN HEROES, featuring our Illustrious Founding Fathers, Military Warriors, Religious Leaders, Civil Rights Champions, World Class Athletes, Artists, Entertainers, and MORE.”
It’s tough to see how either of these projects will help Americans who increasingly can’t make ends meet. That’s especially true because their tax dollars will help pay for them.
However, that is nothing in comparison to another scheme the president and his administration are hatching.
According to reporting from ABC News, Trump’s Department of Justice is planning to settle Trump’s frivolous, $10 billion lawsuit against Trump’s IRS before a judge can throw it out. The report also states that the president would drop his equally frivolous lawsuits regarding the raid of Mar-a-Lago to retrieve documents he had illegally hoarded there, and the investigation into whether his 2016 campaign was involved in Russia’s efforts to defeat Hillary Clinton.
In return, the Trump administration would create a $1.7 billion compensation fund from which self-proclaimed “victims” of the Biden administration’s “weaponization” of the Department of Justice would be paid.
Those “victims” include the more than 1,500 individuals who were held to account for participating in the January 6 insurrection, including by assaulting police officers, and who were subsequently pardoned by Trump.
At the time, those pardons were already unpopular. A whopping 83 percent of Americans said that those convicted of violent crimes in connection with the attack on Congress should serve their time, and a majority felt that none of those who were convicted should be pardoned.
Now imagine how they will feel when those Trump supporters cash in on their experience even though the entire country witnessed what happened that day.
And not only do the insurrectionists stand to walk away with large sums of money, regular Americans will foot the bill at a time when they increasingly can’t pay their own.
Not surprisingly, Democrats are incensed.
“The president has no authority to conjure up billion-dollar compensation schemes or raid the Judgment Fund which exists to settle valid lawsuits,” said Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD), the ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee. “Trump is systematically converting neutral government mechanisms into a presidential slush fund to build his army of political dependents.”
And they are right, of course.
Then again, the Democrats are the ones who stand to reap the benefits of the outrage that will follow when cash-strapped Americans learn that their hard-earned money was used to make someone who assaulted cops on January 6 a millionaire.
What will be interesting to see is what is going to happen when Democrats try to put an end to this grift. Just like the ballroom funding, that will put Republicans in the unenviable spot of either angering their voters or incurring Trump’s wrath.
If they do the former, they risk losing an election. If it’s the latter, they forfeit the chance of being featured in the glorious new National Garden of American Heroes.
