Trump’s Dangerous Rhetoric
In this week’s note, Fred examines two issues in the news — first, the growing dangerous rhetoric coming from former President Donald Trump, and second, Washington’s corrupting campaign finance system and the record-breaking growth of influence-seeking money in politics.
>> Trump’s Dangerous Rhetoric
An adage among lawyers goes like this: “If the facts are on your side, pound the facts. If the law is on your side, pound the law. If you have neither the facts nor the law on your side, pound the table.”
Former President Trump is doing a lot of “pounding the table” lately as his first criminal trial currently scheduled for March 2024 gets closer. The criminal case, brought by Special Counsel Jack Smith, relates to Trump’s efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.
Trump is betting that by “pounding” judges, prosecutors, their families, and their staffs, he will override the facts and the law and save himself from being convicted.
When Trump says, “If you go after me, I’m coming after you,” it’s a threat that he will go after those involved in his trials, including witnesses, and a signal to his most aggressive supporters to do the same.
When Trump calls for a citizen’s arrest of New York Attorney General Letitia James, who is suing Trump and the Trump Organization for business fraud, Trump is inciting his followers to go after her.
When Trump attacks Jack Smith as “deranged” and “a Trump-hating prosecutor” and says Smith’s “wife and family despise me much more than he does,” Trump is declaring open season on Smith and his family.
We already have compelling evidence of just how dangerous Trump’s rhetoric is – just look at the deaths, assaults, and destruction that followed Trump’s incitement of the January 6 mob that attacked the Capitol.
Trump is also taking his rants to new heights.
When Trump refers to various groups as “vermin” to be eliminated and attacks migrants as “poisoning the blood of our country,” he is using language right out of Hitler’s playbook.
In numerous ways, including the “revenge and retribution” campaign he’s planning against his perceived enemies, Trump is announcing that there will be no guardrails, no rule of law, no constraints on him, if he has a second term.
His plan is quite simply, a full-on authoritarian regime.
>> The Corrupt Political Money System
This week two business organizations, the U.S.-China Business Council and the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations hosted a dinner for visiting Chinese President Xi Jinping. For $40,000 each, corporate executives were able to purchase a seat at Xi’s table.
Rep. Mark Gallagher (R-WI) called this purchase of access to the Chinese President “unconscionable.” Democracy 21 shares this view.
But, Rep. Gallagher’s response also brings back memories of the classic scene in Casablanca when Claude Rains, playing Captain Renault, says as he shuts down a nightclub, “I’m shocked! Shocked to find that gambling is going on in here,” as a croupier hands him money and says, “Your winnings, sir.”
The reality is that political money in Washington works the same way as this week’s dinner with President Xi.
Democrats and Republicans give donors special access for large contributions. And there are few, if any, officeholders claiming this purchase of access is “unconscionable.”
Buying access and influence with both Democratic and Republican officeholders, and making large contributions and receiving special access and perks at political party fundraisers, are the ways of Washington.
And the Supreme Court has facilitated this corrupt system. In McCutcheon v. FEC, the Court opened a huge loophole in campaign finance law when it struck down the longstanding aggregate limit on the total a donor can give, allowing officeholders, candidates, and parties to solicit massive individual contributions.
Punchbowl reported this week an example of how this works. House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-LA) is creating a new joint-fundraising committee to raise money for dozens of candidates and various political committees.
In the absence of an aggregate contribution limit, Scalise can solicit, and a donor can give, a $586,200 contribution to Scalise’s joint-fundraising committee, according to Punchbowl. This has the potential to buy a huge amount of influence with the second most powerful Member of the House.
In the 2020 presidential election cycle, more than $14 billion – much of it influence-seeking money – was given to federal candidates, party committees, Super PACs, and others, double the $7 billion given in the 2016 cycle. Total giving in 2024 is bound to be higher.
The political money system is corrupt. It makes most Americans second-class citizens to the big money donors, and traps Democratic and Republican officeholders and candidates in the system.
The system will continue to grow worse, until a clean, small donor, public matching system is created to give federal candidates a way to finance their campaigns.
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Fred’s Weekly Note appears on Thursdays in Wertheimer’s Political Report, a Democracy 21 newsletter. Read this week’s and other recent newsletters here. And, subscribe for free here and receive your copy each week via email.
