Trump's Fakery: An Opportunity for Democrats

 People Are Noticing that Trump Is a Fake

Trump’s supporters are finally noticing what has been obvious to most of us all along: his populism is fake. The fact that his own supporters are noticing that his populism is fake provides an opening that can be exploited in next year’ elections and in 2028.

 Mr. Trump is a billionaire real estate developer from New York, and he has a mansion in a part of Florida where he is surrounded by the same people he associates with in New York. Why would anyone expect him to know or care about people outside of his very narrow circle?

However, he is a very good salesman, and like any good salesman, he is able to project empathy when it will help him to make a sale. So, he has been able to persuade millions of people that he cares for them and works for them in spite of the fact that the biggest achievements of his first and second administrations have been tax cuts for himself and his wealthy friends.

Within the Republican Party, the role of Trump and his MAGA movement has always been to provide a smoke screen behind which the traditional, business Republicans can enact tax cuts and roll back environmental and financial regulations.

Spectacular Corruption

Trump is also spectacularly corrupt. He uses his presidential prestige and power to promote deals for his companies. As the New York Times reports,

The Trump Organization is in talks that could bring a Trump-branded property to one of Saudi Arabia’s largest government-owned real estate developments, according to the chief executive of the Saudi company leading the development.

The negotiations are the latest example of Mr. Trump blending governance and family business, particularly in Persian Gulf countries. Since returning to office, the president’s family and businesses have announced new ventures abroad involving billions of dollars, made hundreds of millions from cryptocurrency, and sold tickets to a private dinner hosted by Mr. Trump.

His Supporter Are Waking Up

However, his supporters are beginning to wake up. As Abraham Lincoln said, “You cannot fool all of the people all of the time.” People know that their grocery bills are rising. So, when he says that the price of food has gone down, they know that he is lying. People know that the cost of their health insurance is unaffordable, and that unaffordability makes them angry. So, cracks are appearing in the Republican coalition.

Marjorie Taylor Greene, one of Mr. Trump’s strongest supporters, now thinks that he is on the wrong track. The Hill quotes her as saying,

“I never thought that fighting to release the Epstein files, defending women who were victims of rape, and fighting to expose the web of rich powerful elites would have caused this, but here we are,” the Georgia Republican wrote in the post. “And it truly speaks for itself. There needs to be a new way forward.”

She added that “toxic political industrial complex thrives on ripping us all apart but never delivers anything good for the American people, whom I love.”

Meanwhile, American farmers and rural communities are suffering from the effects of the Trump tariffs and other policies, and they know the source of their suffering. The Trump coalition is falling apart.

Can Democrats Seize This Opportunity?

All of this provides an opening that Democrats can exploit in next year’s elections, but to exploit this opening effectively, they will need to understand that today’s elections are not just about interests. They are about identities. Voting Republican or Democratic has become an expression of a voter’s identity, and Democrats cannot gain many votes from Republicans merely by appealing to what appears to be their interest. Instead, Democrats must find ways to appeal to voters’ identities.

There are many ways to do this, but one example might be a TV ad in which we see a white, middle-class husband and wife at their kitchen table. He is an electrician, and we see the name of his firm on his shirt. She is a nurse still in her scrubs. They talk about how they feel betrayed by the policies of the Trump administration, but hat they say is not the sole focus of the ad. It also makes the audience see that these people – white, small-town working people – are expressing their sense of betrayal. People who see themselves as “like” the couple in the ad may identify with them and with their feelings. Their shared sense of betrayal may then override their Republican identity, especially if the couple say that they have never voted for a Democrat, but now they are thinking about doing just that. Showing the ad once won’t have much effect, but showing it over and over again would be a different matter.

Here is another possibility. In a TV ad, three handsome young men on a ship are taking a break from their work. They are commercial divers – underwater construction workers – and they talk about how glad they are to have the work and what a difference the construction of offshore wind farms is making in their lives. Again, the things they say are only a part of the message. The other part is that they are saying these things, and they are people with whom many Trump supporters can identify.

These are only a couple of possibilities. There are lots more. Let's get to work.

Drifting Toward Another Long and Pointless War

A Path to War

Pres. Trump is taking us down a path to a long, costly and pointless war. We have seen our navy blowing up ships in the Caribbean Sea and the Eastern Pacific. The administration claims that the boats were running drugs, but it has presented no evidence to support that claim. The administration also claims that blowing up the ships is legal because the drug runners are ”narco-terrorists” and “enemy combatants” who present a security risk to the United States. The president says that he is not going to ask for a declaration of war. Instead, we are just going to kill the people who are bringing drugs into the United States. 

We Have Been Here Before

We have undertaken costly and pointless wars before on the basis of questionable intelligence.  Do you remember the Tongkin Gulf Incident that triggered the Vietnam War? How about Saddam Hussein's alleged weapons of mass destruction that were the excuse for the Iraq War? Do we really want to do this again?

The actions of our navy may be another of Trump’s theatrical efforts to portray himself as a tough leader and to divert attention from his efforts to promote oligarchy and serve the interests of the ultra-wealthy. Trump may also be trying to divert attention from his domestic problems on the eve of a midterm election. He would not be the first leader in the world to do that. Unfortunately, playing this kind of game on the international stage can have tragic consequences. People get killed.

Trump may talk himself into a position where he has to overthrow the government of Venezuela just as Pres. Bush talked himself into a position where he had made such a good case (based on lies as it turned out) for invading Iraq that he had to do it. In Iraq, our military was able to defeat the Iraqi military easily, and our military will also be able to defeat the Venezuelan military within a few weeks at most.

How Many Americans Will Die?

But what will happen after we overthrow Venezuela's government? Do we think that the drug trade will disappear, and our country will become free of drugs miraculously? Or will the cartels find new ways to transport the drugs? In Iraq, we found that the overthrow of Saddam Hussein meant only that all of Iraq’s problems became our problems, and the defeat of the Iraqi army was just the beginning of a ten-year war. Many Americans died, and we gained nothing.

Do we think that Venezuela will be different? If we overthrow Venezuela's government, will we be able to declare victory and go home, or will we become involved in a long guerrilla war? In neighboring Colombia recently, there was a guerilla war that went on for decades. Do we think that the drug cartels will just disappear, or will they fight to defend their extremely profitable business? 

How many Americans will die?

Cancel Your Subscription to Spotify Today

Last week, I cancelled my subscription to Spotify because the company is running recruitment advertisements for ICE. I told the company that I was doing it to protest against the ads and that when they stopped running the ads, I would reinstate my subscription. I cancelled my subscription as a part of a national movement to boycott Spotify in protest against the running of the ads.

Why did I feel that I had to do that?

We Must Use the Weapons We Have

Our democracy is in danger, and ICE has become the symbol of the drive toward oligarchy. In our fight to preserve our democracy, we must use all of the weapons at our disposal. The Trump administration is doing everything that it can to turn our country into an oligarchy, and raids by masked ICE thugs are one of the means that the administration is using to increase its power and to make us afraid to oppose it.

The normal political weapons to oppose Trump's effort appear to be ineffective. His party has full control of the legislative branch, and the party’s members fear to oppose him even when he damages the interests of their constituents and even when he claims powers that belong rightfully to the legislative branch. Thus, for example, he has been able to impose tariffs on imports without Congress’s approval by faking a national emergency. The judicial branch also seems to be under the president’s control at least partially. The Supreme Court has regularly overturned rulings by lower courts in order to facilitate the drive toward oligarchy.

We may be able to take control of Congress away from the president in the 2026 elections, but that outcome is far from guaranteed. In any case, we cannot afford to wait another full year to begin to oppose the administration’s disastrous policies. We must do what we can do now with the weapons that we have.

The would-be oligarchs have rallied to Mr. Trump’s support as we can see from their donations to his project of building a newballroom at the White House. However, the would-be oligarchs are vulnerable to pressure from their customers. We can make it expensive for the oligarchs to support Mr. Trump, and we can use that power today.

We Must Stick Together

We should stick together and follow the leadership of progressive organizations. The boycott of Spotify is a national movement that is being promoted by strong national organizations including No Kings and Indivisible. Many of us joined them recently in the largest, peaceful, political demonstrations in our country’s history, but if we want to win in the struggle against oligarchy, our commitment must extend beyond a single day's protest. We must continue to stick together in solidarity with such organizations. We will not agree with them on every issue, but progressive forces cannot win by fighting among themselves. If the boycott is effective, it will show the would-be oligarchs that the people have power and that we are prepared to use it. However, the boycott cannot be successful unless we stick together to support it.

We Must Focus Our Efforts

You may ask why we are focusing our efforts on Spotify. After all, several companies are supporting the drive toward oligarchy. Why do we attack Spotify and not those other companies. The answer is that we cannot do everything at once. We have limited resources, and we must focus our efforts if we are to be effective. The boycott of Spotify is not the only possible action, but it is a real national action that we can support now. If allow ourselves to be immobilized because we can see that other actions are possible, we will never do anything, and we will never win. The boycott will fail without our support.

We Should Do An Easy Thing Today To Avoid Big Sacrifices Tomorrow

A day may come when we have to make big sacrifices to save our democracy. That day is not yet, and perhaps, if we act now, that day may never come. So, let us act now and hope that we will succeed.  Cancelling a subscription to Spotify is easy, and if we do enough such easy things before it is too late, perhaps we will not need to make big sacrifices later. 

So, I urge you to cancel your subscription to Spotify. We must stick together; we must use the weapons that we have; and we must focus our efforts to be successful. Resist!