Donald Trump thrived in business by inflating his assets to match his ego. He has thrived in politics by telling big lies millions regard as truth.
But yesterday’s judicial ruling and pending criminal cases indicate that his fraudulent business practices and dystopian political rhetoric are coming home to roost.
Trump crime family
Nearly every aspect of Donald J. Trump’s life and career has been under scrutiny from the justice system over the past several years, leaving him under criminal indictment in four jurisdictions and being held to account in a civil case for what a jury found to be sexual abuse that he committed decades ago. But a ruling on Tuesday by a New York State judge that Mr. Trump had committed fraud by inflating the value of his real estate holdings went to the heart of the identity that made him a national figure and launched his political career. …
The former president now faces not only the prospect of having to pay $250 million in damages, but he could also lose properties like Trump Tower that are inextricably linked to his brand.
(The New York Times, September 27, 2023)
Judicial check keeping democracy in balance
Thank God for the judicial branch! After all, but for judicial interventions, MAGA Republicans would have used the executive and legislative branches not just to help Trump mount a coup but to install him as president for life.
Indeed, he’s a cross between a political P.T. Barnum and a legal Houdini. Indeed, he has escaped so many business, political, and legal entanglements that Trump could be forgiven for feeling uncatchable. But he’s finding himself increasingly hogtied by the legal system, i.e., the system he used to run through like a knife through butter.
But this case cuts at the jugular of his self-styled identity as the billionaire master of the Art of the Deal. After all, a judge has now ruled that he’s just a fraud and charlatan who mastered the art of the steal.
Commentators are hailing this ruling as the corporate death penalty. But celebrations over Trump’s corporate death are misguided. After all, his identity now is being a cult leader. And his business is fleecing his followers to support his political ambitions and fund his self-aggrandizing lifestyle.
The judge will fine him more than Trump change
The unfolding irony is richer than Trump’s exaggerated net worth. This gilded-tower grifter built a house of cards by inflating his assets. Now, it’s falling down because a judge found that he inflated his assets for decades. That’s poetic justice, with a dollop of schadenfreude.
Except that, as indicated, Trump can lose his whole organization and still gain billions from fundraising. That could more than compensate even for a $500 million fine.
Besides, he could still win the presidency even if he loses all pending criminal cases. And if he makes it back to the White House, you know he’d have no compunction about renaming it the new Trump Tower. Not to mention the ways he’d find to monetize the presidency to enrich himself.
Tarnished brand
Still, there’s no denying the blow to his brand. After all, “Trump” is now associated as much with sexual abuse, tax evasion, and fraud as with skyscrapers, hotels, and golf courses.
Never mind the blow the name had already sustained from his failed Casinos and university. Or how he cheapened it by branding steaks, wines, and an assortment of strange merchandise.
MAGA Republicans, last refuge of this grifter-in-chief
Trump continually teased running for president but never did because it was only ever intended as a PR stunt to promote his businesses. He just took it too far for 2016 and, thanks to dumb luck, got elected. It’s been downhill every day since.
Indeed, the irony cannot be lost even on him that, thanks to the presidency, he’s losing his businesses. Or, surely worse still, he might be losing his freedom with four criminal cases pending. It’s self-evident that Trump has more reasons than he can count to rue the day he was elected president of the United States.
Meanwhile, Trump is relying on his MAGA Republicans – who he can get to proselytize any lie, no matter how absurd. That explains them dismissing every adverse judicial ruling as part of a Democratic conspiracy.
Their alternate reality champions Trump as a victim of zealous political persecution to prevent him from returning to the White House. In reality, judicial rulings and indictments have found that he’s the boss of a brazen criminal enterprise.
So, you can expect MAGA Republicans to react to this ruling against the Trump crime family by hurling baseless whataboutisms at the “Biden crime family.” But the trials of Donald J. Trump have only just begun.