The mugging of America

There is no low bar when it comes to to Trump's acts of criminal theft from the American purse.

There are days when I think, " That’s it, Trump has gone as low as he can go,” and then he rises to the challenge and dives even lower. This $1.776 billion slush fund for his allies is an abomination; there’s no other way it can be described at a time when inflation is crushing families, and gas prices are turning driving into a rich man’s pastime.

This is an administration that has normalised lies and deceit, and is now looking to normalise economic pain for the bottom 90% as the top 10% are living it up in their ‘let them eat cake’ world. The problem I have here is that I’ve been writing and talking about this for what seems like forever, and it’s like I’m peeing into a headwind. I simply can’t come to terms with the choking grip a convicted criminal madman has over a political party that knows what he’s doing is wrong, yet goes along with it.

The Republican Party has become the historic equivalent of the villagers that lived adjacent to the Concentration camps and pretended like nothing was going on as millions of innocent people were being murdered. I ask myself, “How can these people sleep at night?” but the answer is clearly “like a baby”. For any right-minded person bearing witness to this eviceration of societal values, it’s extremely difficult to grasp. I, for one, am struggling with the whole sorry affair.

(Illustration by Shayanne Gal/Barron’s; Getty (5), Dreamstime (1))

Trump is literally governing for 35 million people without a thought for the remaining 307 million. I need someone to explain to me, like I’m a child, how one man holds 307 million people hostage in the service of his own self-enrichment. We are at the point of lunacy where governing by consent becomes a total contradiction. What makes this truly terrifying is that Trump’s whole economic and foreign policy agenda is built on sand. The problem is so bad that the markets have decided to ignore the flashing red lights and wailing sirens, simply make hay while the sun shines, expand the wealth gap, and hoard money in preparation for a market correction they know is coming.

If you want to understand the playbook, cast your mind back to the last two economic shocks in 2008 and 2021, when the housing crash and COVID hit. Unlike after the Great Depression and World War II, when the wealth gap collapsed, the 2008 crash and COVID saw the rich widen the wealth gap, using their enormous accumulated asset wealth not just to insulate themselves but to widen it further. The stockholder class now believes it has become invincible. They know that the cost of any economic collapse will fall on the shoulders of the bottom 90%, with those at the bottom suffering the worst. In short, they simply don’t care.

You don’t have to look too far to see how this works. On 18th May, the Wharton School of International and Public Affairs at Brown University published a research brief looking at the cost of Trump’s failed extortion attempt to steal Iran’s oil. More importantly, it examines the additional costs this failed war imposes on Americans. The brief notes that:

As of May 18, 2026, our calculations show that Americans have spent over $40 billion on extra gasoline and diesel costs, above what they had been paying in February.

In terms of providing context, it goes on to note that these additional costs:

• Could pay for the entire federal Bridge Investment Program announced in 2024 to repair, restore, and modernise over 10,200 of the nation’s bridges

• Exceed the estimated cost of completely redoing the U.S. air traffic control system ($31.5 billion)

• Are twice (2x) the cost of the Federal EV Charging and Electrification Programs proposed under two laws passed during the Biden administration ($18.9 billion

It concludes:

On average, each U.S. household has paid over $300 more for gasoline and diesel since February 28, 2026, than it would have without the war. Overall, the higher prices resulting from this conflict increase the everyday costs of Americans. This data shows that energy price shocks function as an economy-wide, unacknowledged tax on households, with costs comparable to large federal programs and policies

These are real costs being passed on to hard-working American families who overwhelmingly DO NOT support this war. Once again, Trump wasn’t joking when he said out loud:

‘I don’t think about Americans’ financial situation,’

Tsvetana Paraskova wrote in a piece for oilprice.com :

“At the current rate Americans are spending more on gasoline due to the Iran war, the daily savings from suspending the federal gas tax of 18.4c/gal would be erased in just 2 hours and 49 minutes if it was implemented today,” De Haan noted last week.

She goes on to note:

“If the Strait doesn't re-open soon, I believe we could see the national average price of gasoline reaching $5/gal as early as sometime in June,” GasBuddy’s De Haan said last week.

None of this is rocket science. For Trump’s entire life, others have paid the price for his repeated business failures; he has never paid the price once, and intends never to pay it again.

Returning to his nonsensical lawsuit against the IRS, it’s important to provide some context on how Trump managed to convert his frivolous, chancer attempt to extort $10 billion from American taxpayers over the leaking of his tax returns. It’s critical to note at the outset that, as a rule of thumb, returns have been declared by previous presidential candidates without exception since Nixon’s fall from grace in 1974.

The Tax Policy Centre, in a report by Howard Gleckman in December 2022, noted:

Unlike every president since Richard Nixon, Trump refused to make his tax returns public, either as a candidate or while serving in the White House. However, even while Trump successfully kept his returns from the public, he faced another obligation: As president, his returns were supposed to be subject to mandatory examination by the IRS.

It is worthy of note that Trump, as reported by Alison Graves in PolitiFact on January 20th 2017:

.. promised to release them during his campaign, but he has yet to do so, citing an ongoing audit by the Internal Revenue Service.

“I’m under a routine audit and it’ll be released, and as soon as the audit is finished it will be released,” Trump said at the first debate in September.

This was just another chapter in a fairytale that points to a man who has cheated people his entire life, including his country, by dodging the draft. A man who has absolutely no redeeming features whatsoever. Someone who even stole money from his own charity. Despite all of this, he was allowed to run for the presidency. How did the mighty US Constitution protect America from this political vampire who had extorted people all his life? He is the very definition of the fox being invited into the hen house to guard the hens. What could possibly go wrong? Now we know and will be living with the consequences for decades to come.

Trump is a man who waltzed into the White House despite his involvement in repeated questionable business practices, systemic tax evasion and false accounting. Practices that eventually led to his conviction on 34 felony charges of false bookkeeping, and that’s before we discuss 6 bankruptcies that left untold numbers of employees and businesses, large and small, owed millions of dollars. He is the man with a master’s degree in deceit and corruption from the University of Self-enrichment. For God’s sake, he even ran a fake university.

The question arises again and again, WHAT WERE AMERICANS THINKING when they elected this monster? Trump knew exactly what he was doing when he filed suit against the IRS. He knew it was a case he couldn’t win. It was just another example of a maximalist demand on the understanding that he would find some sort of win-win, even if it meant circumventing the law.

In an NPR report by Carrie Johnson on May 18th 2026, she noted that U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams stated:

"Defendants—federal agencies represented by the Department of Justice, which has an independent obligation to uphold the 'public's strong interest in knowing about the conduct of its Government and expenditure of its resources' and the 'fair administration of justice,' — neither submitted any settlement documents nor filed any documents ensuring that settlement was appropriate where there was an outstanding question as to whether an actual case or controversy existed,"

Johnson goes on to note:

Edward Whelan, a prominent conservative lawyer, had told NPR it would make sense to pause the litigation until Trump leaves the White House.

“There is a glaring conflict of interest with Trump being on both sides of the claim,” said Whelan, a former lawyer at the Justice Department who once clerked for the late Justice Antonin Scalia. “It is outrageous that he and those answering to him would be deciding how the government responds to these extravagant claims.”

The level of manipulation of the legal system is off the charts. Trump knew he would lose in court, so he literally manufactured an off-ramp that still works to his benefit. The DOJ’s collusion with Trump now provides a slush fund he can control and use to reward whoever is prepared to do his bidding. I cannot understand, for the life of me, why this is not deemed illegal? One can only hope it will be challenged in court. However, Trump knows it will take time for the courts to act, giving him time to pay off whoever he chooses. This is literally corruption central in play.

Image - Getty Images

If that wasn’t enough, in one of the most blatant acts of corruption on corruption, Todd Blanche, Trump’s acting ventriloquist dummy, attempted to quietly insert an addendum to the agreement to protect Trump from any retrospective investigations into his and his family members’ personal and business tax affairs. This is beyond outrageous as he attempts to gain yet more immunity for his criminality. Be in no doubt that on his way out of the door, he will then look to give him and his family immunity from any future prosecution. In true mob boss tradition, he’s tying up any loose ends and covering the bases should he lose control in November.

Surely this MUST be stopped? After all this is over, unless the US instigates corruption trials to hold this regime accountable for the incalculable damage they have done to America, it will be very difficult for the US to be welcomed back to the global community of nations that stand firm to the values the US once held.

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