Donald Trump can’t even get grifting right

| 2:17 pm EDT September 8, 2017
Dear Palmer Report readers, we all understand the difficult era we're heading into. Major media outlets are caving to Trump already. Even the internet itself and publishing platforms may be at risk. But Palmer Report is nonetheless going to lead the fight. We're funding our 2025 operating expenses now, so we can keep publishing no matter what happens. I'm asking you to contribute if you can, because the stakes are just so high. You can donate here.

Earlier this week I advised Palmer Report readers to stop trying to figure out Donald Trump’s evil genius strategy, because there isn’t one (link). If he had a solid strategy or priority, he would be succeeding in some aspect of the presidency, but instead he’s failing on every level. Some readers keenly pointed out that his priority in office may simply be to grift as much money as possible. But I would argue that he’s not even succeeding at that.

My original premise was that presidents tend to focus on one of three areas: short term popularity by pandering to the moment, long term respect by building up accomplishments, or merely surviving by playing it safe. Donald Trump is failing at all three of these, with his historically low approval rating, total lack of accomplishments, and exploding scandals. But let’s entertain the idea that none of these are his priorities, and that he really is just looking to pocket as much money as possible during his time in office.

There’s a case to be made that Trump sucks at this as well. The power of the presidency is extraordinary, and anyone who enters office can easily decide to begin grifting and pocketing money from it. In fact a competently corrupt president should be able to pocket nearly limitless amounts of money in short order. Instead, Trump has shown himself to be a small time grifter. He traveled to his various golf resorts every weekend, for instance, so he could charge the Secret Service for space and equipment rental. But that took a ton of effort on his part, and it only netted him a few million dollars. Moreover, he foolishly brought attention to his grift by bankrupting the Secret Service budget too soon, instead of spreading it out.

But there’s another aspect to grifting: to be considered good at it, you have to stay in the game. If Donald Trump’s plan really is to just sit back and steal as much money as he can from the public, he should also be focused on trying to remain in office as long as possible. That requires having an approval rating headed in the right direction, and a skilled manner of handling scandals. Trump has failed on those fronts. He’s going to get himself booted from office before he can finish stealing nearly as much money as he’d like to. So I would argue that even if grifting is Trump’s true priority, he’s failing at that as well.