The truth is, Donald Trump sees power as nothing more than a means to his ends. He wants the middle class to pay the price for another huge tax cut that would mostly help him and his rich friends.
Barak Obama Speech at Democrat National Committee, Aug. 21, 2024
[W]e have to help [Kamala Harris] win because we know that Donald Trump would sell this country for a dollar if it meant lining his own pockets and greasing the palms of his Wall Street friends.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Aug. 20, 2024
Donald Trump’s net worth dropped by about $700m to $2.3bn (£1.65bn) during his time as president, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
Business reporter, BBC News, 18 March 2021
One of the storylines the Democrat News-media Fairytale Machine concocted during the first Trump presidency is that he ran for president in order to enrich himself. If that is true it would appear that he did a rather poor job of it since, as Business Reporter and others report, Trump lost $700 million in his first term. Yet he is seeking a second term. One can only assume these leftist geniuses believe he wants to lose another $700 million in his second term since he lost so much in his first term.
Since virtue-signaling Democrat propogandists feel entitled to criticize Republicans and conservatives who acquire wealth in political office, it is only fair to examine their own record (something that never, apparently, occurred to them).
When virtue-signaling socialist comrade AOC was first elected to office in 2018 her bank balance, as a bartender, was, apparently, 7,000 dollars. Celebrity Net Worth now lists her bank balance as 200,000 dollars, almost 30 times what it was when she entered congress.
When Barak Obama and Michelle entered the presidency in 2008 their net worth was about 1.3 million dollars. It is now about 70 million evil capitalist dollars. Needless to say, Michelle is more “proud” of the United States today than she was when they were only worth a measly 1.3 million.
Further, back in the old days when Barak was virtue-signaling about how caring he is, he criticized George Bush II for accepting about 200 thousand dollars for speeches after he left office. However, after Obama left office in 2017 was paid 400,000 evil capitalist dollars for one speech. In 2017 CNBC reported that:
“Less than 100 days after leaving office, Obama … accepted a $400,000 speaking fee from Cantor Fitzgerald investment bank … nearly twice the $225,000 price commanded by Mrs Clinton during three speeches to Goldman in 2013.
Mr Obama could not be reached for comment.“
One of Obama’s former ardent supporters (not any more) wrote, with real sadness, that, “[Obama’s] mission was never racial or economic justice. It’s time we stop pretending it was. … This was fantasy. His high paid speeches were a sign that his post presidency, like his presidency, will be Democrat business as usual.“
In 2017, Vox, not a bunch of right-wing wackos, remarked that, “Obama’s $400,000 Wall Street speaking fee will undermine everything he believes in. To fight the rising tide of populism, mainstream leaders need to raise their ethical game.“
Michelle Obama, who never held any office, charges 200,000 dollars per speech.
It should, therefore, be no surprise that after leaving office, the Obamas retired to the seven bedrooms, eight and a half baths, several stone fireplaces carbon footprint with a two-car garage, a detached barn, a large pool, a boat house, a pond and a private beachfront with deeded rights in their definitely Venezuelan free mostly white neighbourhood in Martha’s Vineyard – an excellent location from which to lecture the greedy peasants for not “paying their fair share” to filthy-rich politicians like Him. Since the Obama’s mansion is at sea-level they are not, apparently, worried about the sea level rise which Democrats use to frighten to peasants into giving them money and power.
Unfortunately, there is no reason for Obama or other Democrats to “raise their ethical game” when most of what passes for our “news” media spends most of their time groveling to their media-generated glory and cashing-in themselves by covering for them.
There is another reason why the Democrat criticism of Trump’s alleged profit during his time in office (actually a loss of $700,000) is qualitatively different from the money Democrats pocket during and after their time in office. For, there is no reason why Trump should not have legitimately made money while in office. Unlike Barak Obama, Hillary Clinton and most politicians, Trump was a billionaire businessman, his empire including many hotels, golf courses, TV shows and other enterprises before becoming president. Although most politicians, and what passes for our “news” media, more at home in Karl’s Marx’s Communist Manifesto than they are in Milton Friedman’s Free to Choose, may not grasp this fact, but businessmen make money by rendering these things called “services”. They provide something in market that people want, in exchange for which they take a fee that those buyers, in a competitive free market, are willing to pay. In other words, businessmen/women create things, hotel rooms, golf courses, etc., that satisfy people’s needs/desires. If Trump makes money during his presidency by virtue of his businesses he is doing so because he provides services people want. And there is no legal reason for him not to do so during his presidency.
If a politician in office who is a doctor makes $100,000 for performing a life-giving operation, they are being rewarded, not for their political power, but for having provided a medical service. They, so to speak, created a new opportunity for life in the patient. There is nothing shameful in this. Similarly, there is nothing shameful if Trump makes money during their term in office for providing services people want.
By contrast, politicians, as such, never create anything (except red tape and hot air). They wouldn’t have the faintest idea how to do so. When politicians make money in office via their political power, it is not because they have created anything people freely want to buy but by siphoning off some taxpayer’s money as they redistribute it to their comrades. Even Karl Marx knew that capitalists create wealth. Politicians squander it.
Thus, even if Trump had made money during his presidential term via his business empire there is nothing intrinsically shameful in this. There is, however, something shameful in politicians, the impotent class unable actually to create anything, for accruing vast wealth via their political power.
Trump is continuing to run for the presidency despite being the victim for 8 years of never-ending Democrat-media hoaxes. He has been indicted in a series of clearly politically motivated attacks. He has been shot in the face. But he doesn’t stop. If anybody has shown they are willing to sacrifice for the country, it is Trump, unlike all the Peter Pan’s in the Democrat Party and media newsrooms who could not have endured that for a few weeks.
The attempt to smear Trump for profiting from his business empire during his term in office is just an attempt by his political opponents to represent as shameful something that is actually praiseworthy, namely, provide services people freely want to pay for. If Democrats want to criticize illegitimate wealth-making by politicians, they need to look at their own unbelievably crass political class.
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