Trump is Officially a Deadbeat

We’re going to put that guy in charge of the economy?

Photo by Ricardo Soria on Unsplash

Note, edited to correct the source of the fines he faces.

Trump’s army of lawyers announced today that he cannot pay the nearly $500 million+ he owes NYS for corrupt business practices, after putting up a $90+ million bond for defaming E. Jean Carroll, and was turned down by thirty bond companies while trying to raise the money. Thirty.

They don’t want his real estate as collateral, likely because he has borrowed against it so much already that there is little equity there. He’s broke. 

It’s not a big surprise to anyone that his bluster about his wealth is baloney and has been. In the context of today’s ultra-wealthy, the Musks and Bezos of the world, his claimed fortune wouldn’t even register on the scale. But his business prowess was his only claim to fame when running for President in 2016.

It’s time to let a businessman run things, he said.

Some have speculated that many of the MAGA voters who had watched him pretend to be a businessman on reality TV actually thought the show was real. It was not, it was a scripted scenario and he was playing a character who happened to be named Donald Trump. He collected a paycheck for that role.

The reality of electing a reality star to be President of the United States was not lost on many of us, but it came to be, ridiculous and scary as it was. But now we know how royally incompetent he is. And we know because his own lawyers say so.

This is the guy who is going to fix the economy? First, the economy is not broken, not even close. Yes food and gas prices are still high but that is the product of price gouging by big business, not inflation.

You can be certain that a President Trump would never buck those big businesses. He admires them.  After all, he gave them enormous tax breaks the first time around which resulted in many huge companies paying no taxes at all.

The guy is a bum. That alone should keep him away from elected office. But there is something far more alarming behind this story (there always is in his world).

You have a guy who is desperate for a huge loan but has been turned down over thirty times from legitimate lenders. He is also an admitted admirer of oligarchs, dictators, and other bad actors across the globe, men who can loan him this money. But those kinds of loans come with mafia style conditions and would represent a real risk to national security.

And Trump has a record of being open to loans under shaky circumstances. He has built the connections and probably would make the promises required to satisfy those organized crime requirements. The man is at the end of his rope financially and desperate men do desperate things.

Again, why would we elect a man in that precarious position?

His campaign is making noises that they may bring Paul Manafort in, a man who has worked with Trump before but was convicted of corruption involving Russian money, sentenced to jail, and who Trump pardoned early in 2020 right before Trump left the presidency.

Uh, the coincidence is a bit too stark here. You desperately need big money, so you turn to a guy who knows people?

This would be theater of the absurd if it was not real and very public. Not a conspiracy theory, not reality TV, not something he can brush off with excuses, though I’m sure he will try. The question is, why would the American people support a known deadbeat on a scale that is off the charts?

A lot of serious questions, and this doesn’t even touch on the endless indictments and court cases he faces or the fact that his Party is broke after paying an estimated $53 million of his legal bills. It was a major red flag that he needed their money months ago to keep his lawyers, yet the media reported it as though it were perfectly normal for a presidential candidate to have $53 million, and counting, in legal bills.

To be honest, all the media, legit and questionable, are at fault here for not calling a spade a spade and trying to somehow balance his scams and crimes with unfounded claims against his opponent Joe Biden, claims that are going nowhere.

The media is complicit in legitimizing a man who is far from it.

By the way, in case you live is a cave, last week he completed his party takeover when he appointed his daughter-in-law to lead the Republican National Committee and she oversaw a purge of 60 party officials, replacing them with Trump loyalists and pledging that all their money would go to Trump.

A few brave GOPers balked at that, knowing any money was needed by the hundreds of other Republicans running for office all over the country. Cutting them off from funds would seriously weaken Republican rule, even in red states. Money is the lifeblood of politics and it could be cut off.

If there was any, which it seems there may not be.

I think a lot of us watching this frightening election thought his alleged crimes and court cases would be the story that chipped away at him this year. But it might be something as sordid as the civil suits finding he sexually abused and defamed a woman, and paid off a porn star, then covered up the payments he made to shut her up about their affair.

Really, you can’t make this up. It really reads as some kind of satire about power, greed, and outright stupidity. If this was a reality show, it would be absurd but it is actual reality.

When you are looking for corruption, especially in politics, follow the money. And in Trump’s case, the trail is as clear as footprints frozen in mud. They could be traced into the swamp years ago, but not the government swamp Trump decries. No, this swamp is far more sinister and dangerous for the country.

The man needs money and will do anything to get it. Think about that, then think about his admiration for men like Putin and Orban, admiration that looks more and more like a man who needs a loan, a big one.

The deadbeat of all deadbeats.

~ I write The Grasshopper, a letter for creatives, The Witness Chronicles, a place for my articles on politics and climate, and The Remarkable, a recovery letter, about my addiction and reentry experience. All are weekly and free, however this is how I live and I strongly believe all writers and creatives should get paid, if we provide value. Your upgrade to a paid subscription helps make that happen. 

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