Clinton vs. Trump
As someone who has been supportive of Bernie Sanders, I have come to the conclusion that the sooner the Democratic Primary race ends the better for our republic. I think Trump represents an existential threat to our democracy and the sooner the Clinton campaign can turn to defining Trump, the better. The biggest problem for Sanders was that his whole campaign was premised on getting a large number of the 93 million eligible voters who did not participate in the 2012 election, to turn out and vote for him. They never showed up and in fact, evidence points to Trump drawing more new voters than Sanders or Clinton. This should be troubling for Democrats but frankly, Democratic leaders like Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Chuck Schumer are delusional in thinking that running against Trump would be easy. Here is Schumer in a press conference on Wednesday.
Trump’s nomination as the Republican presidential candidate seems all but assured and with it the end of the Republican Senate majority. Donald Trump won’t make America great again, but he’ll make the Republicans the minority again.
As soon as Trump secures the nomination he will move aggressively to the center, tone down his rhetoric, surround himself with female and Black surrogates and turn his fire on Clinton. What Clinton needs to do before he can pivot is to define Donald Trump as the candidate of the 1%. All his bluster about looking out for the working class is nonsense when one focuses on his tax plan, which would save his family about $3 billion over the next ten years by scrapping the estate tax and corporate tax, according to Marketwatch.
According to Trump’s own calculations, his estate contains at least $5.5 billion in net tangible assets. Now it’s true that we haven’t seen his most recent will, and we don’t know how exactly Trump plans to dispose of his fortune when he finally buys that big casino in the sky. But he’s 69 years old and so this isn’t purely academic.
Scrapping the 40% inheritance tax will save his family a lot of money on what he leaves them. Indeed if he leaves them that $5.5 billion, it would save them about $2.2 billion in taxes.
That’s an extra $400 million or so for each of his five children. How’s that for estate planning?
Meanwhile scrapping the corporation tax, and slashing income taxes, would further save the family a fortune. We don’t know exactly how much but the number must be at least $100 million a year
The Obama campaign in 2012 was able to define Mitt Romney way before the convention as the candidate of the plutocrats. Quite frankly, Trump’s tax plan makes Romney look like a Democrat. There will always be time to highlight Trump’s misogyny, temper and other ugly attributes in the fall.
But the first task is to separate him from the “Reagan Democrats” who crossed over to vote for him in states like Ohio. Polling tells us that 60% of Republicans want to preserve Social Security and raise taxes on incomes over $250,00. Trump tells these voters with him in the Presidency, they will be winning again. But if he gets his way on taxes, the only people who will be winning will be his family and his fellow billionaires.
