Tuesday, July 08, 2025

Excursion to the bizarre world of Trump: The one-trick pony

Trump seems to have compartments into which he sorts his challenges and, in each compartment, he trots out variations of the same "solution" to all the problems in that category.

Trade? Tariffs. 

Disloyalty in the party's elected officials? Primary them.

Foreign heads of state disagreeing with him? Oh--tariffs again. Or bombs.

Opposition in the US by the other party? Threaten lawsuits or even arrest. Call them names and brand them as evil and crazed.

Accurate media revealing his faults and grifts? Again with the lawsuits and threaten arrests and loss of license as well as Hitler-like characterizing them as the enemy of the people.

Judges rule against him? Accuse them of being loony radical leftwing activist judges and just ignore them otherwise.

Trump has led a life fronted by lawyers, virtually all of them willing to break the law, lie, and use dirty tactics to get to a win for him. In the past, his corporations have had to cover those billable hours; now the US taxpayer covers the $millions paid to his many lawyers.

His lawyers scheme and manage clever cons to draw exorbitant fortunes to themselves and to Trump himself. His campaign machinery works hand and glove with those lawyers to funnel campaign donations to line Trump's pockets, including, for example, more than $107 million[1] in campaign donations straight to his lawyers to cover all the fees from his dissembling and flatly illegal actions, with the remainder of the $254.1 million contributed between January 2021-March 2024 just for Trump and his campaign. As the New York Times discovered investigating federal records: "The remarkable sum means that Mr. Trump has averaged more than $90,000 a day in legal-related costs for more than three years — none of it paid for with his own money."

Tariffs, attorneys, name-calling, and threats to primary some and arrest others. Each problem is sorted into the one-trick pony compartment where it gets that reaction. In the end, the blowback is referred to the lawyers, who, at billable rates estimated[2] at about $1200/hour, are thrilled to do his dirty work and heavy lifting, giving him the little boy freedom he loves.



[1] https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/03/27/us/politics/trump-cases-legal-fund.html

[2] https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2023/08/trump-legal-fees-indictments-fundraising-2024-campaign.html

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