Prediction: Trump will get bailed out.

I don't think Donald Trump will file bankruptcy.

A foreign government or American billionaire will rescue him. Probably the billionaire.

First, let's acknowledge that a half-billion dollars isn't that much money -- not for a national sovereign fund or a multi-billionaire.

Dozens of countries around the world could loan Trump the money. It would stink to high heaven, but the world already saw Saudi Arabia make a two billion dollar investment in Jared Kushner's start-up hedge fund, and the world shrugged. Republicans kept their focus on small potatoes Hunter Biden. Swing voters in battleground states didn't care. 

A Baltic country might make the loan to put Trump and Republicans solidly on board in case Russia attacks them. They see what Republicans are doing to Ukraine -- walking away -- and a half billion dollar loan to Trump is cheaper and more effective than building up a military big enough to stop a Russian invasion. It would be a smart move. Hungary might make the loan. Victor Orbán has nothing to lose with Democrats. Putin's Russia would happily do it, but I suspect Republican campaign strategists have already killed that deal. It is too obvious. 

A foreign sovereign fund is a possibility, but I think an American billionaire is more likely. A billionaire could act quickly and impulsively. And why not?

At some point, money loses its meaning except a way to signal status or values. Once you have private jets, multiple houses, and university presidents that fawn on you, what else is a billionaire to do with money that has meaning or consequence?

Only $500 million

The 50th richest American has more than $16 billion, according to the Forbes list. Some of the people in this pool are politically active. (George Soros has only about $10 billion. If he were an American he would be ranked around 90th-richest.) What is the marginal utility of yet another jet, private island, or post-nuclear-war getaway in New Zealand? There is no status gained from having more toys.

Only $350 million

The way to show off status is to own a professional sports team, a major news organ, or a Supreme Court Justice. What tops owning a Supreme Court justice? Owning POTUS.  

A loan of $500 million to Trump elevates some run-of-the-mill multi-billionaire to the A-list. That billionaire gains an immediate platform. He could pick an issue to serve as the excuse for the loan. 

"Trump supports Israel."

"Trump support oil."

"Trump is pro-family."

Any of those will do. 

Trump reversed positions 180-degrees on TikTok after meeting with billionaire GOP donor Jeff Yass. Yass owns $15 billion worth of ByteDance, the Chinese company that owns TikTok. I had never heard of Yass until a week ago. Now he is bigger than Harlan Crow, who sponsors a mere Supreme Court justice. Yass showed that he has the power to move Trump, and with him the GOP. Yass stepped up.

Trump's opposition to TikTok was transactional. Republicans don't seem disgusted by Trump's switch. They are falling into line, scrambling to reverse policy, now talking about face-saving tinkers, not bans. After all, Gen-Z likes TikTok.

Saudi Arabia's investment with Kushner proved that no one cares about Trump grift. It is a given. Harlan Crow showed that Democrats are helpless to complain about corrupt appearances, and Republicans don't care. They love Clarence Thomas. The process stinks, but they like the result: The Kushner/Trump family is richer and Thomas and his wife are happy.

Which is the better way to be a "person of consequence?" A $500 million gift to one's alma mater or a $500 million loan to Trump that may never be paid back? Would you rather be treated very nicely by a college president or a United States president?  If you are a multi-billionaire, you can have both. And why not?

University gifts are a risk. Snot-nose humanities majors at the graduate school with your name on it might start mouthing off about Palestinians getting a raw deal. Ken Griffin learned that the hard way.

Trump cannot be trusted to stay bought any more than Harvard could, but at least Trump can be trusted to do what is in his own best interest. Harvard couldn't even do that. If it's in Trump's best interest to stiff you -- and it almost certainly is -- you don't fuss about getting stiffed. Let it go. He might stay grateful and happy. So it's not a loan; it slowly becomes a gift over time. Your accountants will work out the details. And so what? You have billions to spare. 

Win or lose in 2024, Trump will be around, shaping a political party for at least a decade. Being a "friend of Trump" is good currency with GOP officeholders. Get Trump in your debt and you buy a whole party. 

I predict some Republican billionaire will step up. Democrats will say it is corrupt. Of course it is corrupt, but Republicans will say "so what?" and swing voters think everybody in D.C. does it so it won't sway many votes. The billionaire will get to play some golf with Trump and Lindsay Graham. People will pay attention to the billionaire for a while. 

Money well spent.

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Trump Bankruptcy 101: Spring Term.

Bankruptcy expert Conde Cox updates his prediction from 50% to 60% that Trump will be forced to file Chapter 11 bankruptcy. 

Trump needs to hold his creditors at bay. He isn't liquid, and the assets he has for possible sale have a low cost basis.

Today Conde Cox describes Trump's bankruptcy options. Cox is a commercial and business disputes lawyer and an expert on businesses in trouble. He is the immediate past president of the Federal Bar Association — Oregon Chapter. He has been rated for many years as a Thomson-Reuters "Super Lawyer" in the field of business bankruptcy. 

Tomorrow I will offer my own prediction. Cox's final sentence points in the direction I think more likely.

Guest Post by Conde Cox

Conde Cox website

Trump is facing something worse than a cash crunch: He is facing forfeiture of low-tax-basis real estate assets to his judgment-holding creditors.  Such forfeitures not only would result in fire-sale prices for his best assets, but also would constitute a “taxable disposition” of these assets. Many of those have an ultra-low tax basis as a result of many years of depreciation deductions or as a result of having been acquired via long-ago tax-free 1031 exchanges. With a forfeiture of low-basis assets, Trump would lose the properties but would not receive the cash he needs to pay the capital gains tax he would owe.

[Editor's note. That would probably be a 35-40% tax, between federal, state, city, and other taxes. So if he forfeited $500 million, he would owe nearly $200 million in taxes.] 

Normally, a real estate owner like Trump would not sell these assets but, instead, would engage in a 1031 tax-free exchange and thereby acquire a new property. (A 1031 exchange is not possible under a judgment creditor seizure of the assets.) Without a 1031 exchange, developers like Trump would simply keep these low-basis assets until they die. Then their heirs would inherit the property and avoid the capital gain by taking the perfectly legal "step-up in basis" for the property. By acquiring the properties at the fair market value at the time of Trump’s death, his family avoids paying tax on the increase in value of the property over the decades.  In America that’s how the ultra-wealthy avoid taxation of their most valuable assets -- they die with them.

 

Trump has a serious tax problem.

 

He can avoid triggering the judgments and tax hit by either filing Chapter 11 which does not require a bond, and requires only his signature and a $1,400 filing fee, or obtaining a bond for the full amount of the judgment, plus interest that will accrue on the judgment during the couple of years the appeal is pending. He can only get this bond if he has liquid assets or high-value illiquid ones with little or no encumbrances. He would avoid triggering the capital gains tax if they are merely posted as collateral to the bonding company. The bond would have to be about $500 million to cover the New York Attorney General's judgement. It is accruing interest of $30 million a year.

 

It seems, from new reporting, that Trump has been turned down flat by over 30 different bonding companies. This is not surprising. We know Trump has been convicted of lying about the value of his assets, and he just posted s bond of $100 million for E. Jean Carroll. That case probably tapped most of his cash and probably imposed liens on some of his properties. 

Trump is publicly begging the appellate courts not to require that he follow the law every other judgment debtor must follow: Get the bond, or lose your assets, or file Chapter 11.

A Chapter 11 filing by one or more of Trump’s various companies could allow Trump to avoid filing Chapter 11 personally. This is possible if those companies, and not Trump personally, own the more valuable assets. It is far more likely that the assets that need protecting, including his famous Trump Tower three-story condo and the commercial space in its lower floors, are in Trump's personal name. Possibly a filing by one of his entities (such as 40 Wall Street LLC, which is also a co-defendant under the NYAG judgment) could provide a basis for Trump asking the bankruptcy court to issue a “channeling injunction” or “Section 105 supplemental stay” to protect Trump personally. This is usually refused, but may be worth trying here with a new judge, i.e., the bankruptcy judge in Florida. 

Two weeks ago I predicted that there is about a 50% chance that Trump files Chapter 11 soon. I now increase that prediction to 60%, because of the failed attempts by Trump to get the bond. 

Trump entities have used Chapter 11 six times in the past. It would mean no payments to the judgment creditors for at least a year, no capital gains tax bill, no posting collateral, and the right to continue to operate his businesses in the ordinary course of business. No trustee would be appointed in his Chapter 11 case, and the New York receiver now running his New York businesses would stay in place. He then will appeal and try to settle the Carroll and New York AG judgments while the appeals are pending. The current U.S. Supreme Court dislikes punitive damages. Settlement for less than 50% is entirely possible. 

He needs to stop the asset foreclosures, and the way to do that without a bond is by filing Chapter 11. 

Unless--

There is one other way. He could get the money he needs from Putin, the Saudis, Musk, or some other very deep pocket.

 

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The nature of insurgencies

Israel cannot win. It can only lose.

You cannot kill your way to victory against an insurgency. 

Today's guest post author is not an expert on the Middle East. He is an American veteran of the U.S. experience in Vietnam. 

He came out of that experience with a simple, clear idea: A foreign power cannot defeat an insurgency. It can try. We tried in Vietnam and learned that a country can kill individuals, but not an idea that gives purpose to a people. Stalin tried mass murder by starving Ukrainians, but Ukraine and Ukrainians survive. Hitler tried mass murder, but Jews survived and have a homeland. White Americans tried with the Indigenous people of North America. Native people survived, and more of them are crossing the southern border, repopulating the U.S. right now.

Jews can be killed, but the tribe, its culture, language, and religion could not be destroyed. They are an insurgency that arose empowered by the tragedy of the Holocaust. Israel's problem is that Palestinians can be killed but the Palestinian tribe, culture, language, and religion cannot be destroyed. They, too, are an insurgency, empowered by the tragedy of their own history.

Larry Slessler

Guest Post by Larry Slessler 

HAMAS is in reality an insurgency. Insurgencies are rarely defeated. A few examples of my point:

***The American insurgency forces win a revolution against Great Britain.

***The French were defeated by the Viet Minh in the 1950's. This is followed by the U.S. defeat at the hands of the Viet Cong in a decade's long counterinsurgency effort from the late 1950's through the early 1970's.

***The Soviets took a loss after their decade-long effort in Afghanistan ended in 1989. ". . . and the band played on."

Overwhelming military force is no guarantee of a victory over an insurgency. It is "fool's gold." Insurgencies are not wars of taking ground, that easy measuring-stick guaranteeing victory or defeat. The insurgency is a conflict of the heart, soul and beliefs of the insurgents.

Insurgencies enjoy a stacked deck. The insurgency will win by not losing. The invading military force does not have that luxury. The major military power has to post a complete win, or they lose. In Vietnam we won battles time after time. We enjoyed complete air superiority and overwhelming firepower. However our enemy triumphed by never fully losing.

Part of this can be explained by the fact that the Insurgency is fighting on its home turf. Another major factor is illustrated by the allegory of a "Bacon and egg breakfast." In that meal, the chicken is involved but the pig is committed. I served in Vietnam with a goal of going home alive (involvement). My enemy was defending his home country, was committed to the war for the duration, and was much more willing to die than I was (commitment). U.S. leaders tried to convince us we were in Vietnam to contain evil communism and to free the oppressed people of Vietnam. Those goals were not embraced over time by the majority of Americans. LBJ's decision not to run for re-election in 1968 was a result of a failure to convince a majority of Americans that the war was worth the cost.

The cost-factor is critical for the anti-insurgency forces' home population. They will grow tired of the cost of the war and the body bags and the return of their wounded loved ones. Think British in the American Revolution and the U.S. in Vietnam.

Unless the homegrown insurgency is 100% rooted out and destroyed, time is always their ally. The strategy of winning by not losing has played out over centuries of conflicts.

Israel seems to believe that overwhelming firepower will ensure victory. It never has, and my bet is it won't for the Israelis against Hamas. Every person Israel kills will be a recruitment opportunity for Hamas.

As I stated at the top: Bet on a Hamas victory somewhere down the line. Or maybe better called a defeat for Israel.

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Bloodbath

Trump: "Now, if I don’t get elected, it’s gonna be a bloodbath. That’s going to be the least of it. It’s going to be a bloodbath for the country."

The foreign press noticed the word "bloodbath." So did Democrats.

I woke up yesterday morning to headlines like this from India, Brazil, Australia, and Africa. Their media know the warning signs of a fragile country.

This morning was more of the same. Here is MSNBC on my kitchen TV. A panel warns that Trump threatens violence.

This is a good case for untangling the real message from the denoted one. Trump said "bloodbath" in the context of saluting the "hostages" convicted of invading the U.S. Capitol in search of the Vice President and members of Congress. Trump played a recording of the prisoners singing. He saluted them, called them "unbelievable patriots," and promised to pardon them. His overarching message was a threat, saying if he wasn't elected to expect violence. He was giving permission to his supporters, putting it on the table as new norm, an expectation. Connect the two events: Trump loses and bloodbath.

But not exactly. Trump's speech was scattered and confusing, but his literal and immediate context was that the American automobile industry would be a bloodbath of failed auto companies. Why? Because Biden would not impose the huge tariffs that Trump was proposing. Trump did not say it would be a bloodbath of rioting Trump supporters -- not literally, not exactly, not right then. You caught the distinction if you paid close attention.

This is Trump as his most cynical and effective. He gets across a threat while having deniability. Indeed, he and his allies call him a victim, saying Democrats are taking him out of context. Yesterday's Sunday show guests included U.S. Rep Mike Turner, in whose district Trump spoke, saying to ABC host Martha Raddatz:

I want to congratulate you, Martha, that you correctly identified that the president’s statements concerning ‘bloodbath’ were about what would happen in the auto industry.

Sometimes "accurate" is the enemy of "true." I am content to be accurate, but that does not absolve Trump. The "bloodbath" speech reveals his cunning. Trump knew better than to tell Georgia Secretary of State Raffensperger to "manufacture" 11,000 votes. He said to "find" them. That was smart and careful. Trump operates in the shadows of the law. One does not create a paper record telling an accountant to "invent" deductions. Just tell the accountant what needs to happen. He will understand.

"Be there. It will be WILD," Trump tweeted.

"He wants us to make it WILD," an Oath Keeper leader wrote in response to other Oath Keepers. "He called us all to the Capitol and told us to make it wild!!! Sir. Yes sir!!!"

People get it.

And on January 6 2021:

You don't concede when there's theft involved. Our country has had enough. We will not take it anymore. . . . You will have an illegitimate president. That is what you will have, and we can't let that happen. . . .If you don't fight like hell you're not going to have a country anymore'. . . . I know that everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard.

"Peacefully and patriotically." He dropped in the disclaimer, his get-out-of-jail-card. The people at the Capitol on January 6 got the message to scare Mike Pence and the Congress into throwing out Biden's electoral votes. They heard the fight like hell. But he didn't say climb through windows and make your way to the Vice President. Not exactly. But they got it.

Trump is free. They are in prison. 

For decades Trump has been communicating like a mob-boss worried about wire-taps. He is well-practiced and good at it. It kept him from being convicted in an impeachment vote and it may well keep him out of prison now. 

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Easy Sunday: Faith and Begorrah.

Happy St. Patrick's Day.

Today let's turn our attention away from politics here in the U.S. All the talk of another American civil war is such a downer. A civil war wouldn't be between red and blue states. It would be between red and blue neighbors and neighborhoods.

Is such a thing possible? Yes. That was Ireland during "The Troubles."

But then, after 30 years, came the Good Friday accords.

Gerald Murphy was born into a huge Irish Catholic family, the eighth of nine kids. He retired from his career as a high school English teacher, but still writes short plays for schools and community theaters. He used to write satirical posts on the Next Door site with a narrator voicing quirky ideas. That ended. He was kicked off the site after neighbors complained. They didn’t recognize satire or his light-hearted touch.

Guest Post by Gerald Murphy

Faith and Begorrah

My mother had a brogue. She came over from Northern Ireland when she was 19, but no matter how hard she tried, she could never lose it, although it did soften a bit by the time she was in her 60’s. But it never completely disappeared.

“I hate it when I ask a clerk a question in a store around here and he starts with the ‘Faith and Begorrah’ nonsense! Do they think that’s funny? Well, it’s not funny! Not a bit. Besides, no one ever said that in all the time I was in Ireland. ‘Faith and Begorrah’ indeed!"

Years later I got to test the truth of this when my wife and I visited Ireland. We started in Dublin and made a clockwise circle down to Cork and then up the west coast to Galway. Ireland is so tiny that we made our way to the Northern Ireland border in less than two days. We heard no “Faith and Begorrahs.”

The town of Strabane was our introduction to Northern Ireland, or “Ulster,” as the “Prots” call it. This was 1993, six years before the Good Friday Peace Agreement, so we were stopped and searched by British soldiers at the guard tower before we could enter. Seeing British soldiers set me back a bit, but that’s the way it was that year. The towers were at all the border crossings, bristling with soldiers and automatic rifles. The towers were accepted by the Protestants and hated by the Catholics (or the Prots and the Papists as they called each other).

The Papists want to make little Ireland one country, while the Prots were happy to keep Ulster in the UK. Both sides looked alike, talked alike, and had shared values in all but religion. But they hated each other because of that one sticking point. And neither side missed an opportunity to stick it to the other side. And both sides were able to find plenty of opportunity.

When I met my cousin Finton there, he had just gotten out of the notorious “H Block” prison in Belfast. He was in his late 20s, and he claimed he was totally innocent and never should have been in jail. All he had done was move a few rifles from the Republic. “Without any weapons, how will we protect ourselves?” he asked.

Most of my other cousins found him to be a "pain in the arse." He had gotten into all sorts of scrapes all his life. And besides, he had a drinking problem. They said Finton pretended to be an IRA soldier, but he was really just a ‘"eckin’ eejit" -- someone who wasn’t disciplined enough to be a real part of the struggle.

But he had spent five years in prison, and that gave him some respect, especially with the young men in the area.

I was curious about H Block and asked Finton how he survived it.

“It was terrible at first,” he said. “I was in a tiny cell with no one I knew, and half the place was Unionist thugs prowling about looking for someone to beat up. The IRA guys were just as bad if you didn’t know them. Both sides found ways to kill informers.

I was scared out of my mind."

“What was the worst part?” I asked.

“If you were Catholic, like me, you had to follow the IRA rules, which were the opposite of prison rules. You had to refuse to work, and you could never say 'Sir' to the guards. And some of the really hard IRA guys refused prison clothing, which meant they stayed naked all the time. That was a bit much for me, but I followed the other rules.”

“How did the guards handle this?” I asked.

“Some of them were used to it. You know, just trying to earn their pay with as little hassle as possible. But this one guy really liked to take it out on me. He was on the night shift and every night as he passed my cell he would bang the bars with his little truncheon and scream at me how he would kill me if I ever made it outside the Maze. This was every night. You’d think I’d get used to it, but I never did. After a about a month of this, I was going crazy with fear and desperation.”

“So what did you do?”

“It was easy to find out who the IRA leaders were because they all had a certain look about them. Like you didn’t want to mess with those guys. But I finally got the gumption to seek one out. Turned out he was a nice guy and he sympathized with my problem. He told me, ‘Just hold on a bit more and we’ll figure something out.’

A few days later I was out in the yard when he stopped and handed me a slip of paper. It had an address on it. ‘What should I do with this?’ I asked. He smiled at me and said, 'When the feckin’ pile of shite comes by tonight, just hand it to him.'

"I couldn’t figure out how an address could solve my problem, but when the ‘feckin’ pile of shite’ came by that night, I called him over and gave it to him. He read it and he immediately changed his attitude. 'How’d you get this?' he asked.

'It’s a message,' I answered. 'from the IRA.'

“You mess with my sister and I’ll kill you,” he warned.

"So it turns out the address was for the guard’s sister and her family. And now the guard knew the IRA had the address of his family and he knew what that meant.

"All this happened at the end of my first month in H Block.

"I was never bothered again.

"Faith and begorrah!"

 

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Two Americans urge Israel to stop.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and journalist Nicholas Kristof have credibility to say things that some other people cannot.

Kristof is telling Israel to stop the killing in Gaza. 

Schumer is calling for both Israeli and Palestinian leadership to leave. 

The U.S. has been trying for decades to influence how Israel deals with its Palestinian problem. The dilemma is that both Jews and Muslims consider the same land a sacred homeland. Given bitter history, neither side wants to share the land or co-exist. Neither side trusts the other, and for good reason. Each side is led by leaders looking for a mix of victory and revenge. Each side believes it was badly treated by the other. Children on both sides learn that lesson.

Click here: "Gifted" New York Times article. No paywall.

Both Kristof and Schumer recognize that Israel has a grave security problem. It experienced a murderous invasion intended to be provocative. Hamas' attack on Israeli civilians was cruel, malicious, and cleverly strategic. It forced Israel's hand, requiring an armed response, which interrupted promising peace talks with Saudi Arabia. Hamas does not want peace between Israel and its Arab neighbors. Hamas wants war and division, so it acted as a proxy for Iran, a long-established culture and nation of Persians, not Arabs. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is part of a bigger rivalry within Muslim civilization. It is a dilemma squared. Or cubed, because the U.S., Europe, and Russia also have complicated relationships with countries in the Middle East themselves. They need its oil. Or maybe it is a dilemma to the fourth power, because the politics of Israel and Palestine are part of the politics of the U.S. Swing state Michigan has many first-and-second generation Muslims who sympathize with Palestinians. Young voters nationwide tell pollsters they see Israel as an aggressor, not a victim.

Hamas doubled down on its malicious cruelty by using their own people as human shields, positioning military equipment inside hospitals and schools. Israel must do something to protect itself, but everything they do inevitably kills Palestinian civilians. It has created a humanitarian crisis and a public relations nightmare. There is no way to sugarcoat images of Gazan toddlers killed. 

This blog is about messages and messengers. In a theoretical world of logic, the identity of a person who advances an idea is irrelevant. The idea is the idea, and it rises or falls on its own merit. In the real world of politics, the message and messenger are intertwined. Some people have credibility to express disapproval and others do not. 

Nicholas Kristof is an American Jew who has spent decades in and out of the Middle East observing and writing. He writes that Israel needs to stop bombing Gaza and it needs to stop blocking American humanitarian aid. I link to his article above. No one who urges restraint on Israel is exempt from charges of being unrealistic, and maybe antisemitic, even observant Jews. There is a term for Jewish critics of Israel and fellow-Jews: "self-hating Jews." Moreover, Kristof is an outsider, an American, able to return to New York and a farm in Oregon, thousands of miles from Hamas. His critics note that it is easy for him to call for restraint. He isn't living it, bearing the risk. Still, he has an argument, urging Biden to put pressure on Israel to stop the killing.

Chuck Schumer made a consequential speech this week with a message parallel to Kristof's. He said the status quo is intolerable. He urged changes within Israel that angered Israeli leaders and their supporters, plus right-wing supporters of Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu here in the U.S.

Chuck Schumer, by coincidence a college classmate though not a reader of this blog, is an observant Jew, a U.S. senator from New York, and the majority leader of the U.S. Senate. He made a tough-love speech. His speech begins with paragraphs attempting to qualify himself as a friend of Israel. He said how he rejoiced at Israel's founding as a boy. He says he continues to believe Israel has a right to exist and to defend itself. He said he has friends in Israel and has met with families of hostages. He knows Bibi. But then he says the hard part. The status quo must end. He outlined four obstacles to peace.

Click here: Times of Israel transcript

1.  "Hamas, and the Palestinians who support and tolerate their evil ways" must go. The people of Gaza, with the cooperation of Arab states, need to remove them from power.

2. "Radical right-wing Israelis in government and society" must go. Schumer names names, Ministers Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir. He adds the extremist Israeli settlers in the West Bank. Schumer said Israeli voters need to elect a new coalition.

3. President Mahmoud Abbas must go. He is the current president of the State of Palestine and the Palestinian National Authority (PNA). Schumer called him corrupt and a poor role model and spiritual leader. 

4. Netanyahu must go. Schumer said he leads an extremist party. Schumer acknowledged that Israel is a democracy and the current coalition needs to be removed by Israelis, not Americans, but he said it must happen if there is to be peace.

Schumer said these changes will require pressure from two sides. The Arab countries surrounding Israel must push out Hamas and encourage new leadership for Palestinians. And the United States must leverage its power to push change within Israel. 

Both Schumer and Kristof say there is no one-state solution that brings stable peace. Circumstances have made a two-state solution all there is, however difficult and currently unpopular it is on both sides. There is no good solution. Mass death or forced exile -- the solutions of earlier eras of conquest -- are neither good nor possible. Both peoples will continue to share that land. There is no solution other than a two-state solution, however difficult and however seemingly impossible. 

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"We are under attack!"

A Republican explains Trump supporters:

"They are experiencing a sense of loss in the America they live in."

I am trying to understand why people would support Trump. 

Some people I think I do understand:

    *** My U.S. Representative, Cliff Bentz, announced support for Trump for political advantage. Bentz explained that he was trying to ingratiate himself to the winning team within the GOP caucus in the House. It would give him credibility with them in getting support for things he really cared about, like the Salmon River dams. Politics is his job, and he was just taking care of business. I don't admire this, but I understand it.

     *** I think I can understand anti-abortion purists. If they really think a fertilized egg is a human soul created by God, as human and immortal as any other child of God, then Auschwitz-style mass murder is taking place in America. In that case it makes sense to support the candidate that better moves the country toward the goal of totally outlawing abortion. That would be Trump rather than Biden.

     *** I think I understand frustrated working people, the subject of so much commentary. They are struggling to get by, not quite in the middle class, angry about offshoring of manufacturing, angry about immigrants, suspicious and angry about seeing others get benefits and advantages, and worried about crime in their neighborhoods. They are falling behind economically and think they have nothing to lose by electing someone who will shake things up, maybe burn things down. That's Trump.

The people I have a hard time understanding are people who I have referred to in two prior posts with the old fashioned term "square." I think of them as "normal" good Americans. They are law-abiding good citizens, patriotic people who obey laws. These are people who teach their children to be good sports and to do their homework. They teach children to respect their teachers, respect their elders, and respect police officers. They come in any race, any gender, any age, any socio-economic group. So why in the world would law-abiding  people like these support Trump?

My guest post author is such a person, a "square." He is unusual only in his advantages: White, male, educated, prosperous, successful in a well-paying profession, married, 401k, house, and community involvement and leadership. He has a great deal to lose from a politician who upsets the apple cart of American government and culture. The guest post author isn't a scofflaw himself, but he supports someone who openly and proudly flouts laws, insults judges and prosecutors, is flagrant in his nepotism and grift, and tries to overturn an election. A leader with the absolute immunity that Trump asserts a president has could confiscate the author's property and take away his freedom. Laws and civil order protect people with something to lose. So, of all people, why does he support Trump and think other people like him do as well?

He thinks he had something to lose and already lost it: His values and world view. Progressives stole it.

Anonymous guest post.  

Square Republicans have little time to ponder or act on the culture war issues you mention. They are hardworking people involved with their family, their work, their church, and their Rotary club. They rely on their elected leaders to do the right thing for them. They don't ask for much - only to be defended from the progressive changes that are detrimental to them.  

For years, the Romney-type leaders represented them and had many "reasonable" understandings and agreements with the opposition without the full understanding and consent of the Squares. Over time the Squares have observed that their American dream is under constant attack and they are experiencing growing angst when they read the news reports, see the riots where the rioters are not stopped or punished, the smash and grab mass robbery of stores they purchase from without the robbers being caught and punished, see news reports blaming white men for all the problems, see women's sports challenged in unreasonable ways, are accused of being bad people in general and are more fearful everyday. They are experiencing a sense of loss in the America they live in.  They see themselves at the Mad Hatters Tea Party where nothing is familiar to them and everything seems wrong. For Squares, the truths of the 20th Century that they accepted are all now being rejected  and the Squares are being accused of all sorts of dastardly deeds. Their heroes are now said to be villains.  

The Squares don't have community organizers to advance their interests. They believe they can take care of themselves and their families. They want to be left alone to pursue their dreams. They believe they have been let down by the Romney-types and are turning to Trump because he is the rough and tumble leader that will not make the same "reasonable" understandings and agreements that appear to have undermined their place in the world. The Squares want to be loudly defended and protected. The Squares don't hate anyone. Their gripe is with the results of the never ending pace of change.

My comments are not a battle cry, but an attempt to understand the situation you described in your blog. The Squares don't trust the old guard and believe the old guard let them down.  

 

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