Grifter in a Hurry

A Man in a Hurry

Our Grifter-in-Chief (GC) is in a hurry.  He is in a hurry because he knows that he has only a about a year to pull off one of the greatest and most spectular long cons in history: his plan to change the tax system and cut key programs in order to steal money from his working and middle-class supporters to give to billionaires like himself, like Elon Musk or like Jeff Bezos. The GC has only about a year to pull this off because historically, the president’s party loses support in the midterm elections, and because once the election season begins, he will have little chance of passing major legislation. 

A Grifter Masquerading as a Populist

In order to pull of his spectacular long con, the GC ran for office claiming to be a populist, a voice of the people against an oppressive elite. He claimed that the government was controlled by a shadowy elite in alliance with a deep state, and he said that he would be the voice of the people. If he were elected, he claimed, the people would truly be represented. 

However, the GC's populism was always a masquerade. We can see that in the main achievement of his first term in which he did nothing for working Americans but did provide a major tax cut for wealthy people like him. That was the first stage of his long con, and I imagine that he was surprised that he could pull it off so easily. 

Now, he wants to steal still more money from you and me to give to billionaires, and if he succeeds, the effect will be the greatest transfer of wealth from the American middle class to the very wealthy that our people have ever seen. To achieve that goal, he will have to cut government spending severely because otherwise, the deficit hawks in Congress will block him. His only hope of pulling off such a huge transfer of wealth is to cut services like Medicaid, Medicare and SNAP that many of his voters depend on. Such cuts will inevitably alienate many of his supporters.

The GC's populist masquerade allowed him to build a political coalition which included rural voters and the racist right. To satisfy the racist right, he promised to deport millions of immigrant workers.  Unfortunately for his coalition, that effort will decimate the work force on which many farmers and agricultural businesses depend. So, deporting the workers will split the GC's coalition, and therefore, he has to do it quickly before opposition has time to organize.

Tariffs are also a part of the GC's plan. In fact, they are a key part of the con. He has proposed that the revenue from the tariffs (paid mainly by the middle class) will replace the revenue lost when he cuts income taxes (which fall heavily on the rich).  The tariffs will not hurt the rich very much because they do not spend much of their income on goods that are taxed, and any small hurt that they feel will be more than offset by benefit they receive from a reduction in the income taxes that they pay. 

The tariffs will mainly be paid by poor and middle-class consumers who have to spend a large part of their incomes on goods that are taxed. In addition, the tariffs will bring more inflation as they cause prices to rise, and that, too, will hurt the poor and the middle class. Finally, the tariffs will bring retaliation from trading partners. The retaliation will hurt American agriculture, which depends on exports. So, the GC must complete the con before people notice what he is doing. He must cut taxes, raise tariffs and deport millions of people all before the midterm elections because he will very likely lose his control of Congress in 2026. He has just over a year to pull it off.

Time Pressure Underlies Political Conflicts

The pressure of time explains some of the political conflicts that the GC is involved in. For example, he and his supporters are furious at Judge Boasberg because his court orders will delay the deportations, and delay is the one thing that the GC cannot allow. So, he is calling for the impeachment of federal judges, and his supporters are looking for other ways to rein them in. 

The pressure of time also explains the speed of Musk’s firing of federal workers and dismantling of federal agencies. Again, the GC has no time for niceties like following legal procedures. He has to eliminate trillions of dollars in spending by the fall in order to be able to pass his tax cuts in the current Congress.

The pressure of time also explains the GC’s suppression of dissent including the muzzling of Democratic law firms. Dissent could lead to effective opposition and bring his carefully planned con to the attention of the voters. All of that would create delays that he cannot tolerate. So, he does what he can to suppress dissent.

A Ray of Hope

The time pressure that the GC is under is a ray of hope for those of us who want to preserve programs like Medicare, Medicaid and SNAP along with a progressive tax system and American democracy. Delay is our friend. We don’t have to defeat the GC decisively in the courts. We only have to delay the implementation of his policies for a year, and our system of justice provides an ideal means for doing that. We can tie him up in endless lawsuits and thus spoil his plan to rob the American people. A year is a blink of an eye in our judicial system. We can delay the long con that long. Of course, the GC will do what he can to defy or delay court rulings, but that effort will itself take time. So, there is light at the end of this tunnel.