Trump the Cheat

While running for president in 2016, Donald Trump made campaign promises, many of which he kept, unfortunately.

For instance, he promised to ban Muslims from entering the United States. This also applied to Afghans who had helped our military. They were cheated out of their promised right to seek safety in the United States when Trump proclaimed an end to immigration from various Muslim-majority nations. That was overturned because it was a clearly discriminatory executive action, but his lawyers’ revisions made it acceptable to the increasingly conservative Supreme Court.

He also promised to tax the rich and that his tax policies wouldn’t be good for him, personally. That turned out to be a lie. The only major legislation he and the Republican Congress passed in his four years as president was a $17 trillion tax cut that almost entirely benefited corporations and the wealthy, including him, his business and his family. It cheated the rest of us, who are stuck with paying the debt from even larger deficits.

Even so, Republicans have chosen Trump, again, to be their leader and candidate for president, despite the fact that, in a word, he is a cheat. He has many character flaws, in my view, but many of them flow from the fact that he wants to “win” so badly that he is not only willing, but seems compelled, to cheat.

He has been proven to be a cheater in courts and by highly respected news organizations that diligently research allegations to determine the truth. Trump cheats on his wives, his taxes, in his businesses, even at golf. He cheated people who donated to his charitable foundation by using the money for his campaign in 2016 and for personal expenses. He was fined $2 million and the so-called charity was dissolved.

He cheats his customers, for instance at Trump “University,” which cheated people out of thousands of dollars promising to make them rich real estate dealers like him. He eventually paid millions of dollars to settle lawsuits from fleeced individuals. As a builder, he cheated contractors, many of whom lost their businesses after his refusal to pay his bills and his ability to endlessly litigate their lawsuits that tried to force payment.

Most importantly, Donald J. Trump cheated to win the presidential election in 2016 and cheated to try to stay in office after he lost the presidential election in 2020 to Joe Biden.

He is in court four days a week now, facing felony charges for reportedly cheating during the 2016 election by paying to suppress damaging stories to keep them from voters, and falsifying business records to avoid disclosing the payments as campaign expenses. The payoffs were made right after the “Access Hollywood” tape was made public. That was the one that caught him boasting he could kiss and fondle women at will. He feared, if allegations of affairs by two adult film actresses got out, he would lose even more votes. Court documents reveal that he suggested delaying the payments to Stormy Daniels until after the election, so he could allegedly cheat her of the promised money.

Eventually, unless the Supreme Court agrees with his contention that presidents can’t be charged with having broken the law while they were president, he’ll be tried in federal criminal court for cheating in a multitude of ways in his unsuccessful effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election.

Trump stacked the Supreme Court with right-wing extremists, with help from Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., who cheated Democratic presidents of the right to appoint two justices by refusing to consider a replacement for Antonin Scalia after he died in February 2016, claiming nine months was too close to the next presidential election. Then, in a complete reversal, when Ruth Bader Ginsburg died only two months before the 2020 election, he rushed through the nomination of Amy Coney Barrett.

It’s worth noting that, even if they rule against Trump, conservatives on the court, including his three appointments, have already delayed this decision long enough to make it doubtful that Trump can be tried on those charges before the election.

Most people accused of a crime who say they aren’t guilty want a quick trial to clear their name. Trump’s strategy is to cheat the voters of the crucial answer to the question of his guilt by delaying his trials until after the election, when, if he should win, he might try to order them dismissed.

“Cheaters never prosper” turns out not to be true. But “nobody likes a cheater” is a belief almost all of us share. Before you vote for Donald Trump, or when speaking to anyone who intends to vote for him, remember this adage: “Once a cheater, always a cheater.” 

(this essay appeared in the April 23rd edition of the Charleston Gazette-Mail (WV)