Donald Trump will almost certainly never be President of the United States. Even if he succeeds in winning the required majority of delegates, the Republican establishment has made it clear they have no intention of handing him the nomination. Trump’s supporters will revolt at the Republican National Convention in July. People will be hurt. And one way or another, Trump will be superseded by a “safer” pick made by the GOP establishment — and anointed by their benefactors. Trump will declare a third-party run and split the Republican vote, ensuring an easy victory for the Democratic nominee.
So breathe easy — at least for now.
At the same time, it doesn’t hurt to prepare oneself for the worst-case scenario — and in this case, that would be President Trump. He’s campaigning on his strengths as a businessman and not much else, so the question before us now is this: Would Trump run the nation like a corporation? And is that something we really want?
The Donald’s Business Acumen
Before we get too far down the rabbit hole, let’s take a moment to appreciate Donald Trump’s business savviness — or, more accurately, his lack of it.
Donald Trump would have you believe that he’s a self-made man: The sort of claim that was enough for sainthood back in the Reagan days. Trouble is, Trump is nothing of the sort.
The Trump empire as it appears today was made possible by a loan to The Donald from his father — a loan in the amount of $1 million, and a sum that Trump has called “small.” That he regards that much money as pocket change is strike one against his business acumen. An American President should understand the value of a dollar, and growing up as sheltered and privileged as Donald Trump is the quickest way to warp any understanding you have of the value of both money and hard work.
Even more damning? That loan represented just 2.5 percent of the vast fortune Trump inherited from his father’s estate.
Need some more truth to douse Trump’s sensationalism? Here’s something else:
Companies under Donald Trump’s leadership have declared bankruptcy not once, but four separate times. While it’s true that Trump may not have been directly responsible for each of these failures — the casino industry has seen across-the-board “hardships” in recent years — it’s clear that Donald Trump is, at best, an average businessman, if not a lousy one.
Look — it’s clear that corporations know what they’re doing, and there’s something to be said for their organizational structure and approach to problem solving. As the American economy is forced to confront powerful competitive pressures from overseas, we’re going to need people who know how to scale sound business fundamentals across an ever-larger organization.
But it’s very clear that Trump is not that person.
Following along so far? It turns out that the Republican frontrunner — a political party that claims to pride itself on fiscal responsibility — is a businessman who inherited his fortune and under whose leadership four companies have filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Still sound like a safe pick?
Trumpian Economics Are Republican Economics
It’s no secret that unthinkably rich people in the business world can have strange priorities and warped perspectives on life. There’s a reason why diamond-encrusted iPhone cases and thousand-dollar umbrella stands exist: Because there will always be people rich enough, and foolish enough, to spend money on them.
Donald Trump exemplifies this sort of childish gravitation toward the extravagant, and nothing makes this clearer than his quixotic determination to build a wall along the Mexican border — and have Mexico somehow, magically, pay for it.
If this wall is a case study in how President Trump would run this country, an honest accounting of the scale of this project should be enough to finally nail the coffin shut on his Presidential bid.
According to even modest estimates, this time brought to us by John Oliver’s crack team of researchers, Trump’s wall will cost a minimum of $25 billion or so, and that excludes maintenance. This is a huge expense, and one that Trump doesn’t appear in the slightest to want to justify, or explain where the money will come from. And Trump has never mentioned the degree to which Eminent Domain would have to be used to seize land owned by taxpaying American landowners in order to build this thing. Eminent Domain is one of the most outrageously undemocratic concepts ever conceived, and Trump is giving it his approval by remaining silent about it.
For comparison’s sake, Senator Bernie Sanders’ proposals concerning tax overhaul and universal health care would save this country more than $5 trillion over the next decade.
Once again: Which party is the part of fiscal responsibility? Which party is prone to flights of fancy?
Consider, too, Trump’s claims about the state of wages in this country. Even a cursory glance at the available data from the last few decades reveals that average CEO pay has risen by an unimaginable 937 percent since the 1970s, while average workers have received a raise of just 10.2 percent over that same period.
Here’s the kicker: Donald Trump is on record stating that American wages are too high. His tax plan is also a grotesquely irresponsible giveaway to the wealthiest Americans. In other words, Trump is preaching more of the same kind of garbage that landed us in our current mess in the first place.
Where do Republicans receive their educations in basic economics? Because it’s clear by now that none of their proposals — least of all Donald Trump’s — have anything to do with reality.
If Trump was as fiscally savvy as he claims — and he wanted to run America as though it were a multinational corporation, he’d have no choice but to come to terms with the fact that the Fight For Fifteen movement is not a flight of fancy. It is not unreasonable. It is simply a living wage, and one that stands a chance at helping American workers survive inflation intact.
When workers are taken care of, they’re happier and spend more money. That, and nothing else, is the key to a solvent economic future in America: Bringing about modest improvements to the minimum quality of life in this country. Neither wealth nor prosperity trickle down from the top, Trump — they swell up from the bottom.
Header Image by Gage Skidmore