UNCLE SAM, MEET DON CON

 UNCLE SAM, MEET DON CON

I have finally figured out Donald Trump’s definition of public service: the public supplies the money, and everybody else services his ego. His administration is using taxpayer dollars to air presidential self-promotion, including a recycled campaign advertisement bearing the declaration, “Paid for by the U.S. Government.” Consider the magnificent arrogance required to send Americans a commercial celebrating your leadership and then charge them for watching it. Even the fellow selling counterfeit watches on a street corner generally pays for his own folding table.

This little production captures the administration better than a thousand presidential portraits. The government has become a stage, the presidency a merchandising opportunity, and the American taxpayer an involuntary investor in the continuing manufacture of Donald Trump’s greatness. His defenders can dress it up as public information until their tongues develop blisters. A campaign commercial does not become a public service because somebody changes the billing address.

What makes the spectacle so repulsive is the distance between the performance on television and the country outside the frame. Americans were promised lower prices, restored stability, and freedom from foreign entanglements. Instead, they confront the costs of a war in Iran while their president devotes government resources to telling them what a splendid job he is doing. Apparently, relief is coming just as soon as everyone agrees to applaud the absence of it.

Trump’s central flaw has always been his inability to distinguish being admired from being useful. He approaches the presidency with the instincts of a man who believes a broken elevator can be repaired by installing a larger photograph of himself in the lobby. Failure produces another announcement, embarrassment another accusation, criticism another demand for loyalty. The actual problem remains unattended while the entire building is ordered to admire the portrait.

His administration has made this defect its operating philosophy. Subordinates learn which answers please him, which facts irritate him, and which displays of submission keep their careers alive. Over time, an organization built around protecting the leader’s feelings loses the ability to correct the leader’s mistakes. The country then pays for errors nobody in the room had the courage to challenge. Loyalty becomes a professional qualification, and competence becomes an awkward guest who stops receiving invitations.

But I am thoroughly tired of discussing this catastrophe as though Donald Trump personally hypnotized an innocent Republican Party. These people have offices, staffs, committee assignments, and perfectly serviceable vocal cords. They know the difference between governing and glorifying a politician. They simply decided the personal inconvenience of resisting him exceeded the national cost of indulging him.

For years, Republicans lectured Americans about fiscal responsibility and the menace of an overgrown federal government. Now public money helps promote their president, and the guardians of the Treasury suddenly become amateur theater critics: perhaps the lighting could be improved, perhaps the message needs work. The obvious objection—that Americans should not be compelled to subsidize presidential vanity—gets lost beneath their calculation of how angry Trump might become. Their principles have acquired a remarkably precise expiration date: the moment enforcing them becomes uncomfortable.

The same moral collapse surrounds the family’s financial interests. A president reporting more than a billion dollars in income from family cryptocurrency ventures while his administration helps shape the industry’s future presents an obvious demand for scrutiny. Americans do not need a graduate degree in digital finance to understand why public authority and enormous private interests require separation and oversight. They need representatives willing to ask questions without first checking whether the president will call them disloyal.

Remember the Republican enthusiasm for investigating presidential relatives? Every business connection demanded a hearing, every transaction suggested a conspiracy, and every unanswered question justified another televised expression of righteous disgust. Apply that standard to the Trump family and suddenly the investigative bloodhounds develop sinus trouble. The party which could smell impropriety through a concrete wall now requires a signed confession, three eyewitnesses, and permission from the suspect.

This hypocrisy matters because it exposes the bargain beneath the slogans. Ordinary people are instructed to accept higher costs, uncertainty, and sacrifice as evidence of their patriotism. Meanwhile, the people closest to power continue pursuing extraordinary financial opportunities. Sacrifice travels downward; opportunity travels upward. The administration’s preferred national arrangement increasingly resembles a country club where the members dine inside and the rest of America receives the landscaping invoice.

Trump believes outrage remains his great political escape hatch. Say something grotesque, provoke another confrontation, dominate another news cycle, and perhaps nobody will remember the problem which started the argument. But distraction has limits when the underlying grievance arrives every month as a bill. A family cannot pay its expenses with a presidential insult, and a small business cannot deposit a culture-war victory at the bank.

Every boast now risks becoming a reminder of an unmet promise. Every advertisement praising strength invites voters to examine results. Every demand for gratitude sounds more offensive to people who expected competent government and received another compulsory episode of the Donald Trump Appreciation Hour. He may believe he is humiliating his opponents. I believe he is supplying them with material while forcing his own candidates to stand beside the exhibit.

My expectation for November is a punishing Republican defeat, with the possibility of losses severe enough to fracture the party’s carefully maintained fiction of unity. No election becomes a certainty because somebody writes an angry editorial, and competitive races still require turnout, organization, and persuasion. But Republicans have burdened themselves with a president who demands ownership of every success while distributing responsibility for every failure. His name may not appear on their ballots, but his behavior will be standing directly behind theirs.

Losing the House would mean losing control of the committees which can demand records, summon witnesses, and investigate executive conduct. Losing the Senate would add another powerful constraint, including Democratic control over whether presidential nominees advance. Republican defeats in state and local contests could further weaken the network of political protection surrounding him. The consequences would extend into 2027, when an administration accustomed to indulgence could face officials whose careers do not depend on keeping Trump pleased.

A Democratic majority would inherit an obligation to make accountability concrete. Follow the spending, examine the financial conflicts, establish who authorized what, and insist on answers supported by records. Pair that scrutiny with a serious effort to address the costs and instability Americans actually experience. Public trust will require visible evidence of a government doing its job after years of being ordered to admire itself.

Afterward, the Republican explanations will arrive by the truckload. They will blame hostile coverage, poor messaging, misunderstood accomplishments, and voters who somehow failed to appreciate the privilege of financing their own aggravation. A few will discover they had grave private concerns all along. Private courage, unfortunately, has never stopped a public abuse of power.

I want their defeat to be decisive enough to destroy the notion that surrendering to one man is a sustainable way to govern a republic. They chose his approval over their responsibilities, his mythology over their judgment, and his survival over the public’s patience. November offers Americans the chance to make those choices expensive. Donald Trump can keep producing commercials about his greatness; the voters can deliver the cancellation notice.

STC