Why Trump's Big Bribe Is Designed To Fail

0:00As the United States enters the last two months before the midterm elections, President Trump, whose personal polling is at record lows, decided that what a contest needed was more Trump. Pretend I'm on the ballot, he suggested, apparently in a brief out of some hair help. So the GOP just held a midterm convention, pretty much unheard of for the midterm elections, where a number of the candidates in the hardest-fort seats stayed away. And Donald Trump himself spoke for two hours, because that should definitely sort American voters out. Now some of that was standard political stuff demonizing the other side of a point of parody. There would be a communist takeover, Trump said, unless voters elected Republicans in November. Mind you, he also said that after the midterms, the Iran war will quickly come to an end, and a price of gas will plummet like a stone.

1:00That's the Iran war that he said would be over in just a few days, and has predicted the rapid end of numerous times since. But he keeps going regardless. But he said the Iranians were only keeping it going in an attempt to damage him in the midterm elections. They were so close to collapse, they would be seeking an end of a conflict immediately afterwards. Does he actually believe it? Whoever knows what he really believes anymore. But either way, if you think all of this smacks a little of desperation, you would be in good company. But that wasn't even the highlight of the convention, or maybe the low light, because in this morally degraded political landscape, well, why not engage in out and out bribery? What's that you say? Federal laws prohibiting expenditures to influence voting? Sorry, is this a history lesson? Because the world has changed, don't you know?

2:02Yes, Donald Trump promised there would be a $5,000 bribe. Sorry, I meant dividend, as defining the authorised Trump dictionary, to every adult citizen if, and only if, Republicans retain power in both the Senate and the House. Or a stunning first of its kind cash promise, if you take the Fox News version. Trump announced it, saying, it will be called the Trump dividend. Because of course it will. It was an actor's supreme restraint for him not to call it the Trumpy Trump Trump from Trumpistan with an extra helping of Trump on the side. He did, after all, also, Repeated jib that the straight of Hormuz should also be renamed after him. Various commentators including Republican lawmakers labelled that headline grabbing offer as a sign of desperation. If it were followed through on, it would cost $1.3 trillion. You will take $100 billion.

3:07Where would that come from? You might casually wonder. Oh, but there's masses of money according to Trump. All that money that's pouring in from tariffs. And this is just like a successful corporation paying dividends to its shareholders. Now, cynics and people in possession of a functioning brain have wondered if so much money is pouring in that you can afford to chuck over a trillion dollars of it around on Donald Trump's whim. Well, how come the National Debt has been soaring up past 40 trillion in recent weeks? Given that the interest on that debt is bigger than the defense budget, wouldn't that alleged mounting of cash be better spent in bringing that deficit down? The bond market certainly seems to think so, as the cost of US debt in term of long-term bonds continues to rise. Well, of course, the point is surely that Trump doesn't expect to actually be

4:08paying this out. His conditions for doing so, but Republicans keep control of both the Senate and the House. That is not considered likely, but if the promise of a big fat bribe, dividend can get enough people to vote at least to keep hold of the Senate, then that would somewhat blunt the obstruction Democrats could create by being in charge of the House. And then since only one of the criteria had been fulfilled, well, no payout would be triggered. After all, if it was really a dividend, such as that paid out by successful corporations, as he said, then why not pay it out right now? I mean, you have control of both houses right now. So, sure, pay it out if you think the American people deserve it. Of course, if they tried, it would quickly become evident that the deficit hawks in the GOP would be numerous enough to prevent such

5:10a payment being agreed. Trump, as president, cannot single-handedly make the commitment. So, Trump's message is essentially, pretend I'm on the ballot, and I'll reciprocate, by pretending to give you money. Voters may also remember, they were supposed to get a payout, for all the savings that were achieved by Elon Musk's doge operation. Although, fair enough, I suppose, because they're one tiny, not on any significant scale, although, I don't think they've ever officially admitted that. He also said they would give a payout to people from all are money coming in from tariffs a while back. Although, fair enough, I suppose, because those tariffs were ruled as illegal, so most of the funds had to be repaid to companies. So, you could say, this is the Donald Trump, fool you once, shame on me, fool you twice, shame on you election. Even if it wasn't, it's generally agree that splashing

6:12out checks when unemployment is relatively low, and inflation is relatively high, that would raise prices even faster, while also adding to the debt load. Because, of course, the mountains of cash, they're only really in Trump's head. But then Trump has an answer to that one as well, the truly genius solution of just lying about it. Indeed, at the convention, he was to be heard saying that almost every item across the country is getting cheaper. So, no, don't believe your lying eyes, don't believe your complaining bank balance, believe Donald Trump. Not he's only Whopper, of course. He also claimed there had been over $20 trillion worth of major investment announcements so far in his second term, which goes way beyond even the official White House made up number of $11 trillion, which was found in a detailed review by CNN to include trillions in vague

7:15pledges of bilateral trade or economic exchange, rather than concrete commitments for investment. Mostly though, Trump talked about the crazies and the communists on the other side. How scary they were, how important it was to keep them out. Because, if greed turns out not to be a credible message, well, let's fall back to the other one, fear. How's the representative Brandon Gill summed up the spirit of a message saying this? We have to admit that every party has their crazies. The difference is the Democrat party is nominating theirs for Congress. It's not exactly a knee-slapper of a joke, especially when your party puts for craziest of crazies actually in charge of a White House. Yeah, call me picky if you must. It's still a few years before all the people that supported Trump will be swearing that they always saw through him, and of course they never actually

8:17supported him. But meanwhile, Republicans are asking what this event was even for. As Trump pollster John McLaughlin told The Free Press, it's an event where the Republicans get to set their agenda. At the equivalent event two years ago, we had a 17-page platform that the president personally approved that set up a foundational message that enabled us to win in September and October. Now, he was saying all that before the event actually happened, we can only speculate if he was disappointed that actually all he really got was a promise to pay shed loads of money out in return for votes. The point of all of this is that it misses the essence of the moment in the United States of this inflection point. The GOP has allowed itself to be taken by the fruit and guided to the edge of democratic destruction, the biggest system change of the United States in its 250-year history, and also by the way,

9:23the destruction of the global world order, which some of the rest of us also care about. How things go from here depends so much on how long Trump retains his authority over the party and how much they decide to continue down the path for him to act after he has left. Whether successors have to demonstrate their fealty to him every step of the way because he retains influence, or if they distinguish themselves by quietly dropping the most crazy, maybe the most dangerous stuff, or even doing a strict 180-degree about term. Democrats likewise have to understand whether they can reimagine themselves as the adults in the room that bring a country back to its senses, which they may or may not realise is not how they are seen by rather a lot of their voters, and also whether they can interrupt the anti-democracy patterns in a way that has been happening in post-all-Ban Hungary, for instance. Or whether alternatively,

10:25they simply decide now it's their turn, and they're going to make some use, not as crassly perhaps, of the new opportunities for imposing their will because the ends justify the means. Now that's the post-2028 question. In the meantime, the question is whether you're laying the foundations for that, or whether you're just taking pot shots at Trump on a purely opportunistic basis. Nobody's talking about that, and that's largely because Trump is out of ideas, having flooded the zone for two years is now pretty much washed up, and Democrats are just trying to ride the momentum. Believing that Trump has failed so badly, it must surely be their turn in these coming elections, and surely in the ones in 2028 as well. But they don't know who's going to be leading them at that point, and they don't understand yet what they're going to be seeking to achieve. All of that, against the backdrop of war, democratic decline, global energy

11:27and food crisis, climate change has become more visible, trade system dismantling, and the rapid technological upheaval of AI. The stakes could not be higher, and the logical conclusion is it's going to get pretty messy from this point on.