The Trump (and Biden) Trials: Bread and Circuses for The Masses

Why is nobody outraged about what really matters: unfunded liabilities and the national debt?

On Friday, Jonah Goldberg captured my sentiments exactly on the People of the State of New York v. Donald J. Trump verdict: 

Donald Trump had sex with an adult film actress while his third wife was nursing their newborn child. He had an affair with a former Playboy model. He denies this, but as far as I can tell no one else does. Even Trump’s staunchest defenders don’t try—at least not very hard—to do so. He falsely recorded his effort to pay off to [sic] Stormy Daniels as legal expenses. He spent his entire professional life abusing the legal system, stiffing contractors out of their fees by threatening to bankrupt them in frivolous legal actions. As a landlord, he violated fair housing laws. As a presidential candidate, he promised to put his business interests in a blind trust, but once elected he didn’t and monetized the presidency for his own benefit. Also as a presidential candidate, he led chants of “Lock her up!” about his political opponent. He invited Russia to release information about her.  He was impeached (the first time) for abusing his power in an attempt to intimidate a foreign leader to investigate Joe Biden for corruption. When he tried to steal the 2020 election, he pressured his own Justice Department to allege crimes to buttress his false claims that the election was illegitimate. This was also around the time he encouraged a mob that visited riotous violence upon the Capitol in an effort to intimidate Congress out of fulfilling its constitutional duties. He’s promised to pardon people who beat up cops on his behalf. He calls them “hostages” and plays their warbling rendition of “The Star-Spangled Banner” before his rallies, like some weak-tea Americanized version of the “Horst-Wessel-Lied.” He defended the mob that chanted “Hang Mike Pence.” He’s argued—through lawyers in court—and in his own words that he should be immune to any criminal charges that stem from actions he took as president, and to a certain extent, as ex-president. He’s vowed that when he’s president again he reserves the right to do what he’s outraged is being done to him. I could go on, but you get the picture.  

Now, I want to be clear: Except for the misdemeanor of false records, none of these things are proven crimes and some of them are not crimes at all. Contrary to a lot of talking heads, politicians are not legally barred from trying to “influence an election.” That is what running for office is. Nor is paying off parties to adulterous engagements illegal. If it were, I have no doubt many politicians would be in the clink.  

But as a matter of common sense, karma, moral intuition, or whatever term you like, I am utterly incapable of mustering the slightest sympathy for Donald Trump. If I were to publish a dictionary of common phrases, I would put his picture next to the entry on “F—k Around and Find Out.”  

His entire life has been one extended experiment with testing, violating, and abusing the rules—some legal, some moral, some normative—for his own benefit. The system isn’t supposed to apply to him. This, in almost dialectic fashion, has invited responses that also violate the rules of the system. I’ve been making this point for nearly a decade now. Trump’s violations of norms have elicited countless violations of norms from his opponents. That’s what happens when you break the rules: You give permission to others to break them, too. 

Should Hunter Biden and his daddy be charged and found guilty of similar misdemeanors in future valid or retributive court cases, my sentiments will be, if not exactly copy/paste of the above, then a variation on the same theme.  

The abuse of the justice system that so many are up in arms about may be real, but it’s far from our biggest problem. I’m not a conspiracy theorist; I don’t think people in general, and politicians and bureaucrats in particular—not even captains of industry, the World Economic Forum and Jewish bankers—are capable of staging intricate plots to rule the world. But in these court cases, I must admit a temptation to believing that someone may covertly be orchestrating these events as bread and circuses for the American public. Why? So we won’t start thinking and worrying about what really matters: Social Security and Medicare unfunded liabilities and the national debt.  

Both Trump and Biden have stated that Social Security and Medicare are off the table for this election and the next presidential term. And the polls supposedly support them as most Americans like the programs though deathtraps in disguise, so why risk alienating us? Social Security and Medicare are part of the “bread.” It’s “free” stuff. No, our presidential frontrunners don’t want to discuss “saving” the two programs because that would force us to make some hard choices and, God forbid, lower approval ratings even further. And don’t even mention the only morally Right approach: returning control of retirement and healthcare choices to individual Americans by dismantling the government fiscal and regulatory near-monopoly over the next few decades. 

According to an Open The Books investigation based on data from the U.S. Treasury’s Financial Report on the State of The United States Government Fiscal Year 2023, the Social Security and Medicare unfunded liabilities have reached some $175 trillion ($175,000,000,000,000), assuming current contribution levels and outlays continue unchanged until the end of the century. America is aging, and we don’t have enough young people to sacrifice (i.e. to pay Social Security and Medicare taxes) to fund the retirement and healthcare benefits for the old’uns. Add the current $34.5 trillion national debt which keeps growing because of our chronic deficit spending, and we’re on the hook for well over 200 trillion the next 75 years. 

It is tragic that the greatest country in the history of the earth can only produce two geriatric presidential candidates, both of whom are slaves to pragmatic, seat-of-the-pants leadership (or lack thereof), unable to run on a coherent, visionary platform that would address real problems. Somehow, we’ll survive the next four years. Hopefully both the MAGA right and the Progressive left will run out of steam, and both parties be able to produce candidates with a spine who are willing to confront us, the American public, with what really matters. Candidates who have confidence in our ability to face the hard truth without the need to be pacified and distracted by bread and circuses.