Would You Buy a $5,000 Used Car From a Scammer Like Trump?

At the recent Republican midterm “convention” President Donald Trump promised to pay all American adults $5,000 if Republicans retain control of Congress after November’s elections. Any reader who believes that this is a serious promise should contact me immediately; I can make a very reasonable offer to sell you the Brooklyn Bridge.

Trump obviously was not promising to pay this money out of his own pocket. In fact, giving around 270 million American adults $5,000 would cost about $1.35 trillion (with a T!), which even the rich Trump does not have.

So the money would have to come from the US Treasury, which is funded by taxpayers. It would be about one-fifth of the total current annual budget. And to add more than a trillion dollars to an already horrible $2 trillion annual deficit would be extremely irresponsible.

One would hope that even a Republican Congress wouldn’t vote for such a crazy bill. So like the many contractors and other creditors that real-estate mogul Donald Trump has stiffed, Americans who count on receiving the $5,000 will be disappointed.

It would be wonderful if he would employ such big time creativity instead to promote the general welfare of Americans.

Trump’s offer is just one more indication of how worried he is that Republicans are going to lose the November elections big time. His efforts to prevent Democrats from voting—also based on his fears about the coming elections—are not going well in the courts, so why not try bribing voters with their own money?

I suppose a certain number of Americans will fall for Trump’s obviously desperate promise. As showman P.T. Barnum supposedly once said with regard to suckers, “There’s one born every minute.” (And this was when the population was smaller.)

But nobody who is familiar with Trump’s casual approach to truth will swallow this promise. After all, he is now telling people that gasoline prices will fall below $2 a gallon.. after the election. That the war in Iran will end immediately... the day after the election. That all sorts of wonderful things will happen... after the election.

Some of us may still remember Trump’s promise to end the Ukraine War immediately after the 2024 election. He didn’t. He promised to pay Americans $2,000 each with the riches that would be extracted from foreigners by his tariffs. Nobody got any money.

But of course even though he spoke frequently of making foreigners pay, tariffs are actually paid by Americans in the form of higher prices for imported goods.

Future historians and psychologists will have an interesting time analyzing Donald Trump’s language, including the huge number of lies he has told. And the man exaggerates constantly. Everything is either “the worst in human history” (speaking of his political opponents, especially Joe Biden), or “the best and most wonderful” (referring with typical immodesty to his own accomplishments.

There is no room in Trump’s rhetoric for any middle ground, for things that are better or worse rather than best or worst. Superlatives run wild in his speaking.

And yet one must admit that Mr. Trump has a wildly creative imagination, given the numerous ways he has taken advantage of the opportunities presented by the American political system to bamboozle voters; to get his fingers in the Treasury’s cookie jar; to apply pressure to get large corporations, law firms, and even some universities to do what he wants.

This, Trump is truly a genius at!

It would be wonderful if he would employ such big time creativity instead to promote the general welfare of Americans.

But for Mr. Trump to do this would require a U-turn comparable to the one made by Ebenezer Scrooge in Charles Dickens' famous 1843 novella A Christmas Carol.

In the absence of such an about-face, we need to count the silverware when Trump comes to dinner. And before we fall for another of his scams, we must ask ourselves whether we would buy a used car from him.