You didn’t know this when you voted, but you made us partners with Donald Trump in the Trump Organization.
All that nonsense in the campaign about pay-for-play, and turns out that what Trump really wanted was the opportunity to build and rent out more luxury rooms and suites to fatcat bigwigs and foreign dignitaries without taking any risk.
Pretty smart on his part, actually. Get rich(er) off other people’s money. Trump was born on third base, and he’s been inching toward home plate for 70 years without having to step into the batter’s box for himself.
Game’s a lot easier to play when you never have to consider the consequences of striking out.
The stuff about Trump recasting us as Robin to Putin Russia’s Batman is, sure, a bit troubling, but it’s again in the context of how he’s not putting himself at risk for anything.
Trump knows that there’s gold in Russia, and not just in the, ahem, golden showers. Putin is sitting on a cache of oil that can re-enrich his country, if only the markets would play along, in the form of higher gas prices.
You’ve noticed gas prices going higher, I bet.
Yeah, well, small price to pay. Because the Russians aren’t known for being smart about spending their money when it’s flowing like water flowing down from the Urals after the melting in the springtime.
If Trump helps Putin get the Russian economy back on its feet, sure, it ends up benefitting the Trump Organization, and maybe Putin isn’t so paranoid about his borders. (Or maybe he’s more emboldened, because maybe he does have crap on Trump that effectively makes DJT his stooge. Who knows?)
It’s a gamble worth taking, if you’re Trump, and you can personally make coin either way.
Helping make Russia get back to the superpower status that we waged that silly little Cold War over for four-plus decades is another small price to pay.
And again, it’s not one that Trump himself has to pay. The super elites don’t feel pain from things like wars and economic calamity. Trump himself would tell you that wars and recessions are opportunities for the wealthy to make even more money.
And then some guy just hands you his Purple Heart, and you thank him by mocking those who got them the hard way, and millions are offended not at you, but at the media, because, you know, the media.
The media, his sworn enemy, supposedly, is a willing co-conspirator in all of this. The silliness about the wall, fake news, draining the swamp – that’s just for your entertainment pleasure.
Give Trump a lot of credit on this one. He didn’t make himself rich, but he knows how to get people to pay attention.
To what he wants them to pay attention to, anyway.
Even the self-styled smartest among us fall for it, so don’t feel bad.
Column by Chris Graham
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