Original article from: The CNN
It was the moment when Donald Trump’s “Art of the Deal” fabulism, billionaire tycoon bluster and populist standard-bearing for forgotten Americans was revealed to be what it always looked like: a sham.
A stunning New York Times exposé of the President’s tax returns Sunday revealed a pitifully inept businessman and a serial tax avoider crushed by massive debts that could expose him to conflicts of interest given his position as President and power to help undisclosed lenders.
LEFT VIEWPOINTS
Trump was broke even before he broke America
- The New York Times exposed that Trump paid nearly zero in taxes because he loses money in almost every business he operates.
- Trump’s financial means came from his image of being a successful businessman, not from actually being successful.
- Trump funded his lavish lifestyle on loans that require him to take on more debt to pay. His personal finances are more like a Ponzi scheme than a business.
- Currently, Trump needs to remain president so he can put off the consequences of his financial ruin indefinitely. This is why when he says, “12 more years,” he isn’t joking.
This story isn’t fake news. In fact, for many, it isn’t news at all. The New York Times pieced together a comprehensive overview of Trump’s financial status. The data came from many sources. The President’s defenders will likely attack those sources rather than the President.
Before they change the narrative, consider this: If Trump wishes to dispute the New York Times, it’s easy for him to do. He only needs to share his tax returns as every other President has done. If he isn’t lying, it will give him an enormous political win. But he won’t do that because it will reveal the truth. Donald Trump, 45th President of the United States, is a fraud.
Why Trump’s tax returns and financial fraud won’t this matter to Trump Supporters
The simple answer comes from one psychological concept: cognitive dissonance. Trump Supporters will confront their cognitive dissonance in several ways:
- They will call it fake news.
- The will say that other politicians are frauds, too.
- They will deny the sources of the story.
- They will blame an evil conspiracy out to get the President [ergo QAanon].
- They will acknowledge it, but they will claim that Trump is still the better option because democrats are too far left.
The fact is that there is nothing that will shake the core Trump supporters because they’ve built an emotional defense mechanism to avoid dealing with Trump’s fraud.
Why is this scary?
Donald Trump represents a genuine threat to democracy. For people who already accepted that Trump was a fraud, The New York Times’ story isn’t news. The Netflix Series, Dirty Money, did an episode on Donald Trump’s pre-presidential history. The episode interviewed former business acquaintances and colleagues who knew Trump and were swindled by him. It covered the Apprentice producers, who went out of their way to make Donald Trump appear successful. It was all a fraud.
It’s scary because his supporters won’t care and will justify anything and everything he does. They rationalized the pandemic’s failed response, which killed more than 200,000 Americans and destroyed the economy. They accepted him dismantling the Pandemic Response Team, withdrawing from WHO and the Paris Climate Accord. Time and again, his supporters got on board with or rationalized everything Trump said and did, which likely makes Donald Trump the greatest con man in American History. And with the nomination of his third Supreme Court Justice, this cult-like behavior may alter our country’s direction forever.
Ultimately it will come down to voters. People must realize that they were conned and get angry at the one who conned them, not those who exposed it. People need to get upset with politicians who continue to back Trump because he fits their agendas. Our country needs democracy to survive, and it’s very much under attack right now.