Crooked Donald

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This election cycle, we’ve allowed ourselves to accept a simple narrative: Trump is the deranged maniac who will say anything at all, and Clinton is an untrustworthy politician with a pattern of criminal activities. This is the dichotomy we have set up because it plays so nicely into that cliché of choosing between two evils. Do we want Crazy Donald or Crooked Hillary? The problem with this narrative is that it allows Trump to skate on his long history of illegal activities.

The fact that “Crooked Hillary” was coined by Trump only proves that he has won the branding war in this election, which makes sense, because he’s a businessman first. The problem, though, is that as a businessman, he’s pretty crooked himself.

We can start with the well documented case of Trump Management – of which Trump was the president – being sued by the Department of Justice in 1973 for its litany of unfair renting policies against minorities (Trump’s racism is a whole other article). Trump and the DOJ came to a settlement, but a few years later they were at it again.

Trump fits the role of the cartoonishly evil real estate developer so well, it’s like he materialized out of a 1980s movie with plans to demolish the local community center.

Those crimes, which he never admitted culpability for, were a long time ago, his supporters will say, if they even acknowledge they exist at all. So let’s look at his more recent criminal activities.

The massive scam that is Trump University surely comes to mind, and it will be interesting to see what happens with that. Even if we’re being generous – why does alleged billionaire Donald Trump deserve our generosity – at best you can say is that the “school” vastly overstated Trump’s involvement. In reality, it was fraud plain and simple.

Much as there are those who are disappointed that Clinton hasn’t been brought down by her own scandals, it’s unlikely that Trump will face any personal repercussions from his connection to the bogus diploma mill. That’s just how it works for the rich in this world. That doesn’t make it any less crooked, but we probably won’t get to see Trump ever admit any wrongdoing. Best case scenario, he’ll settle without any admission of guilt like he did with the DOJ in the 70s.

You might assume that with the spotlight focused on Trump every second of every day, he would be more careful with the way he conducts business. You would be wrong.

Trump’s campaign has been engaged in a number of shady dealings. The unscrupulous way he is conducting his campaign certainly suggests, as many people are saying, that Trump didn’t run for president to win but to increase his personal fortunes. Winning the nomination was probably never the intention, especially as it has forced him to commit so much time to speaking to plebeians. Like any good businessman, though, he’s turning lemons into lemonade.

Initially, the Trump campaign’s fundraising efforts were absolutely dwarfed by those of the Clinton campaign. In the last couple of months, that gap has been mostly bridged, though Trump still lags behind his rival. And yet, with that increase in donations, the Trump campaign’s advertising budget hasn’t kept up. So what is he spending that campaign money on? Rent, apparently.

Trump has the serious misfortune of having one of the most infamous landlord’s in the city: Donald Trump. Someone really should have warned Candidate Trump about Businessman Trump’s long history of unfair rental practices. While Candidate Trump should be spending as much of his campaign money on winning the election as possible – so he can fulfill his many outlandish promises to the nation – he is instead paying $169,758 a month in rent to Trump Tower Commercial LLC, a 500% increase from the $35,457 per month he was paying at this time last year.

On this point, I can commiserate with Trump. Renting in New York City is a treacherous ordeal.

There is no question that pocketing campaign money is illegal. There’s no gray area on that. Taking campaign money and using it to pay yourself through a company you own would seemingly be just as illegal, but apparently not. Either way, it’s unlikely anything will come of it. Instead, Trump will skirt that fine line of being “legal on technicalities,” the same sort of frustrating tightrope that those on the Right accuse Clinton of walking.

Just today, Trump’s campaign was hit with yet another scandal: Apparently his campaign manager, Stephen Bannon, is illegally registered to vote in Miami-Dade, County, Florida. It’s possible something could come of this, but since Trump has been quite willing to dump campaign managers in the past, this will probably never actually touch the candidate.

When we stare aghast at Crazy Donald while wagging our fingers at Crooked Hillary, we’re playing into Trump’s preferred talking points and ignoring a far more serious reality. Allowing ourselves to accept that simplistic narrative is a huge disservice to the nation. Donald Trump is crooked, and that’s a story we shouldn’t let get buried just because Trump says ridiculous things. If Candidate Trump is scary now, imagine how absolutely terrifying it will be to have Businessman Trump in office.

About Post Author

J Lyttleton

Travel. Writer. Creator of 10 Cities / 10 Years. Currently in Brooklyn.
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7 years ago

I am with the crew here: WHY? WHY? Why is always Hillary’s emails, all the time? Donald Trump is much more likely target but he is forever ignored.

Admin
7 years ago

They forgive him all of his sins, because of “that’s just Donald Trump.” It’s infuriating.

Glenn R. Geist
7 years ago

Nothing came of Ann Coulter being illegally registered in Palm Beach County, so I expect more justice Republican Style, but I’ve been saying for some time that Trump projects his buried sins and disguised motivations onto his enemies. The only thing that surprises me is that he doesn’t criticize Hillary’s hair.

Reply to  Glenn R. Geist
7 years ago

Give him time Glenn. I expect to hear that criticism and more any day now. Now why is the press seeming to “bury” so much damning information that would justify the “crooked Donald” meme? It bothers me, and I even wrote to CNN, and MSNBC, and actually received a response from the latter: “Thank you so much for contacting our news department.”

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