Trump Is Fleecing Us -- Thomas L. Friedman NYT

[ancianita]

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/07/opinion/trump-250th-july-4th.html?unlocked_article_code=1.v1A.qYAR.T9-weEA4BC8b&smid=url-share

... Since the start of Trump’s second term, it’s been widely reported that he has been exploiting the presidency for financial gain, but the story needed a real number and real victims. Now it has both — $2.2 billion in total gains for Trump and at least $3.81 billion in losses for his investors. That’s a bumper sticker. Trump famously boasted that he could shoot someone in the middle of Fifth Avenue and his supporters would still be with him. Will they also stick with him when he fleeces them? ...

... to my mind, the right themes for Democrats going into the midterms are two: If they win, they will expose how much Trump has been ripping off his own supporters; and if they win they will make bringing the country together a priority... I believe the quest for national unity is the most underestimated political force in the country today. It is not an accident that CNN reported last month that “nearly half of Americans say they don’t consider themselves a part of either major political party...

I am sure that is true because I heard the best political analyst I know make the same point. His name is Barack Obama. ... It was Obama’s speech at the opening ceremony of his presidential center in Chicago, which I attended. My favorite passage from Obama was this:

As algorithms keep feeding us a steady stream of distraction and outrage, as only the loudest, most extreme voices get attention, fanning our prejudices, appealing to our basest, most tribal instincts, it’s tempting to give in to cynicism and even despair, to stop trying. We start thinking that appeals to democracy and civic participation are corny and old-fashioned and boring and naïve, that the very idea of working on behalf of the common good is a sucker’s bet, and that in order for us to win, somebody else has got to lose. I get it. I am not immune to anger or doubt, but I do know this: When we lose faith in each other, when we stop believing that voting matters, that citizenship matters, that our collective voices matter, that how we treat each other no longer matters, and we give away our power to decide our own futures, we open the door to the most ruthless, or the most careless, or the most fearful among us, who see some groups and some people as more equal than others, and see government as nothing more than a way to divvy up the spoils and punish enemies and keep those who are different in their place.

The fact is, though, Obama continued, “I do not believe that is the story of America that prevails in the end. … I remain convinced that the overwhelming majority of Americans … aren’t looking for perpetual anger and division. They are looking for fairness and common sense and mutual respect, that deep in our gut we want to find a way to turn toward each other again, not further away.”

So, Democrats, you have your assignment. It’s to not let Trump bait you into blind rage and extreme ideas. He feeds off that. Just focus on how much he has been fleecing all of us while tearing us apart. And how much Democrats intend to pull the whole country together.
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Good points on the fleecing as a campaign theme. But Democrats have to go beyond the fleecing part.
"... intend to pull the whole country together."? Too vague.
If the United States of America has ever been united at all, it was in world wars.

Does it stand to reason that if Democrats have united the "United" States in war, that they can unite it in peace?
They certainly made sure that Americans benefited from being on the winning side of WWII.
I'd say they can convince independent and young voters that what's benefited them has due to Democrats' doing, not due to "intending."
Democrats can inform voters, and get them to agree that millions have been fleeced on the trump side, along with rollbacks on previous benefits.

But more important, Democrats can convincingly teach the history of what Democratic administrations have actually done for generations of The United States. That Democrats have always united the country more than divided it by a) creating benefits through law, and b) voting against the Republican erosion of Americans' rights as citizens.
Democratic candidates need to campaign on what Democrats need to rightfully, factually, and more insistently claim credit for actually doing--
food assistance (SNAP),
healthcare coverage (medicaid),
higher education and student aid (Pell grants, essential job training, science research),
school meals (subsidizing free and reduced meal programs),
legally protecting the census,
legally promoting racial equity across federal agencies, and
advance non-partisan voter registration ... among other things.

Democrats can win campaigns on uniting the disunited states because history shows what Democrats have already done for the United States. Democrats don't just "intend." Democrats get shit done.
If young and independent voters don't know that history, who will reach them and teach it, if Democrats don't?

[usonian]

1. In related news, water is wet.

Pray, Jezus, spare us from those evils.



Oh, and by the way: