Dem
51
Ties
1
GOP
48
Donald Trump's corruption is obvious to anyone paying attention. The problem is that most voters don't pay much attention to politics, at least not until the elections draw close. Nevertheless, gradually, the word is getting out that Trump is using the presidency not to help Americans, but to help himself get rich.
Evidence that people are starting to pay attention is a new Reuters/Ipsos poll that shows that they are catching on. One question was: "Do Trump's businesses influence his decisions as president?" Here are the results:
Two things are noteworthy here. First, almost 70% of independents think that Trump's own financial interests affect how he operates as president. Second, even almost half of Republicans also think that.
Trump has also discovered that cryptocurrency can be a big money maker. First, selling $TRUMP coins to the
rubes his supporters is a nice grift. But even better is that foreign governments who want some policy changed, or
criminals who want to avoid prison, can buy lots of Trump crypto and possibly get away with it. The bribery laws were
never designed for this. In the old days, corrupt businessman [X] gave corrupt politician [Y] a suitcase full of $100
notes in return for a specific favor. The concept that the corrupt businessman would buy a load of "product" that cost
the corrupt politician nothing to produce didn't exist.
The closest anyone has come to what Trump is doing—and it is not very close—is then-House speaker Jim Wright (D) putting together a collection of his old speeches in the form of a book and negotiating an unheard-of 55% royalty rate and then getting people who wanted a favor to buy, say, 1000 copies to distribute to customers or others. But even then, there was an actual product (the book). Nevertheless, when this came out, it was a scandal and House Democrats forced Wright to resign as speaker. The book cost $5.95, so someone buying 1,000 copies was handing Wright $3,273 in royalties. But this was big enough for the Democrats to dump Wright. Trump is taking in billions of dollars in crypto sales (with no actual product) and nary a peep from Senate Republicans. Still, the voters don't like what Trump is doing. The poll asked: "Is it appropriate for Trump and his family to earn money from cryptocurrency?" Here are the results for that:
Again, by a margin of more than 2 to 1, independents don't think it is appropriate for Trump to be making money on crypto. If Ipsos had asked: "Is it appropriate for Trump to earn money from building hotels and golf courses?" there might have been more support, since that is a normal business deal. The crypto is so scuzzy that it comes very close to a straight bribe in sheep's clothing (not that sheep need to wear clothes).
For the Democrats this information is valuable and they are starting to exploit it. The message is that Trump is spending his time as president taking bribes and getting rich off billionaires and has no interest in the fact that you are barely making it, what with high food, gas, and other prices. It is the contrast here that is potentially an issue. He is raking in billions and you are struggling and he doesn't give a hoot. Bill Clinton famously said: "I feel your pain." Maybe he did, maybe he didn't, but that is at least the right thing to say. Trump is saying: "You have no pain. Just shut up."
For a campaign theme to work, the public has to be receptive to it already. For example, if the Democrats were to say: "Trump spends too much time playing golf and not enough time presidenting" it wouldn't work because not a lot of people think the problem with Trump is that he plays too much golf. But harping on his corruption is likely to work because people already believe that and bringing it up a lot reinforces an underlying belief. (V)