Dem
53
Ties
1
GOP
46
Donald Trump thinks he has a winner with this offer to send $5,000 checks to all adults if the Republicans "win" the midterms. And yesterday, he reiterated that he is "serious" about it, posting a 33-second video on the subject to his social media platform for lies, damned lies, and damned liars.
We can't find an embeddable version of the ad, though you can click through the link, if you really want to see it. Here's a transcription:
I'm going to give all adult citizens in the United States of America $5,000. Democrat policies won't allow this to happen. In fact, the opposite. They're going to raise your taxes. If the Democrats win, you will have an economic depression. If the Republicans win, you will each have $5,000 in your pocket and economic success for our country like we have never, ever seen before.
This is so nonsensical as economic policy, it's hard to know where to start. He obviously won't deliver on his promise, no matter what happens on November 3. However, even if he did plan to do so, how would he come up with that much money without raising taxes? And how would he distribute it without causing big-time inflation, and thus risking a recession? Won't these issues occur to people who might be tempted to change their vote in search of $5,000? OK, maybe not everyone, since you'd need to have some basic familiarity with economics. But even if you know nothing at all about how economies work, there's still a very obvious question sticking out like a giant sore thumb. And that question is: "Mr. President, if you have the ability to deliver 'economic success for our country like we have never, ever seen before,' why aren't you doing so right now?"
We continue to believe that this "Hail Mary" attempt isn't going to move the needle, and isn't going to help Republican prospects on Election Day. The only real significance here, as far as we can see, is that it's a reminder that Trump is getting more and more desperate, day by day. So desperate that he's barely trying to disguise the fact that he wants to use federal funds to buy people's votes. We are not sure if he's being so brazen because: (1) the Supreme Court granted him so much leeway to abuse his powers, or (2) it's hard to prosecute someone for bribery (and associated crimes) unless they actually make the bribe (which, again, isn't going to happen because he will never, ever follow through with this).
And as long as we are on the subject of commercials, let's mention something that probably doesn't merit its own item, but that will serve as a nice dessert for this item. As readers know, PACs can spend unlimited amounts of money on ads, but they cannot directly coordinate with campaigns. The campaigns are pretty good at getting their instructions out there indirectly, though—say, by posting a list of their opponent's weaknesses to the campaign website. Then the PACs know what to put into their commercials.
The campaign of Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) is very good at this non-coordinating coordination, since there are several Collins-allied PACs that help her out every time she runs for office. One of those allied PACs is Defending Main Street, which got the message that it would be quite helpful if voters in Portland saw a commercial warning them about "Taxin' Troy" Jackson. So, the PAC made that happen. Unfortunately, the PAC and the campaign failed to coordinate on one rather key detail: Which Portland to air the ad in. And so, viewers in Portland, OR, this weekend were very confused as to why they were getting ads for a Senate race on the other side of the country.
Cue the sad trombone. And thanks to reader J.G. in San Diego, CA for bringing this story to our attention. (Z)