Nebraska Elections - The Cult Is Weakening

There's overwhelmingly good political news nationwide, Trumpism was delivered a sharp rebuke, even in states that were thought to be irrevocably Republican, like Texas. But not in Nebraska. In statewide contests Republicans were returned to office. Why? Did Nebraskans not see what the rest of the country did? The answer is more nuanced than "Western Nebraska is full of stupid people" or "rural Nebraskans vote against their interests".  

First of all, Nebraska isn't the only state to send Republicans to the Senate: Idaho, Montana, South Dakota, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Kentucky, West Virginia, Florida, and Tennessee all elected Republican candidates. But the story there is the number of Democratic victories where the seat flipped from Republican to Democratic: Maine, both Carolinas, Ohio, Iowa, and Texas. We're still waiting for final results from Alaska and Mississippi. Lots of flipping in the House as well, two dozen seats at last count, including Nebraska District 2. Some of the maps circulating make it look like we're the only morons still voting MAGA — but that's not the case. What did happen here?

The week before Election Day I wrote an article called The Cultists In Nebraska where I discussed some of the reasons why majorities of Nebraskans vote Republican. 

"Even before Trump arrived on the scene Nebraskans reflexively voted Republican. Or at least they have done so for the last 30 years. A lot of this corresponded with the reign of Newt Gingrich in Congress and his crusade to move politics away from bread & butter and toward culture war issues. As the nineties ended Nebraska had a Democratic Governor, Ben Nelson, who went on to serve two terms as Senator, ending his second term in 2012. Since then no Democrat was elected to statewide office in Nebraska. Gingrich's handiwork had done its work. A majority of Nebraska voters, usually around 60%, were convinced that Democrats were out to take their guns, were pushing for abortion up to the moment of birth, and that immigrants were going to take their jobs. In recent years additional culture war issues have come to the forefront, with Democrats painted as communists. They can't comprehend that a typical Nebraska Democrat is a far cry from being a radical leftist, or even a liberal. Most Nebraska Democrats would be considered conservatives on either of the coasts. They have gotten to the point where, in their minds, the worst, most incompetent Republican is preferable to any Democrat. 

Finally there's the rural-urban divide. This has always been an issue in Nebraska politics. Farmers and small town Nebraskans resenting the influence in state government of the senators from Omaha and Lincoln. There's always been a tendency among rural and small town Nebraskans to view "coastal elites", people from Los Angeles and New York City, as not real Americans. Eight years ago, former senator and Nebraska governor Bob Kerrey, when running against Deb Fischer, was attacked for being out of touch simply because he took a job in New York after he left the Senate. This has only gotten worse with Los Angeles and New York representing all that they see as wrong with America and as symbolic of Democratic influence. Any Nebraska political candidate who claims to fight for Nebraska values against "those New York communists" will without a doubt receive rousing applause."

In addition to these items, Republicans this year were pushing a Constitutional amendment to ban transgender girls from girls sports. This helped get the portion of the regular Republican electorate who were against transgender people (not just in sports) motivated to get out and vote. Governor Pillen leaned hard into his backing for this amendment, cementing his support among the anti-transgender bigots. (Sorry — if you're claiming that transgender people are pretending to be another gender, or mentally ill, or transgender women are "men in dresses", you're a bigot). I don't think a lot of the anti-transgender voters even realized that it was already illegal for a transgender girl to compete in all-girls sports in Nebraska. 

Governor Pillen campaigned in 2022 primarily on his pledge to "run the state like a business" and to lower property taxes. (State government doesn't set property taxes, but it can and does provide credits to offset those taxes, as well as pass laws to limit budget increases by local government). By any measure he has failed at his main goals. Additionally, due to his bill lowering income taxes, corporations and high income individuals saved a lot of money, but property taxes still kept going up. He bragged that he lowered property taxes by 20%, but this was simply changing a property tax credit that had to be claimed on a taxpayer's tax return to an automatic credit. (Most taxpayers did not claim the credit). A result of lowering income taxes and his failure to ameliorate the property tax burden, any objective review of his first term would be that it was a failure. He continually goes on about running government like a business. Any business that had a CEO with his record would have dumped him long ago. Yet around half of voters thought we should give him another four years. 

Are we collectively a bunch of idiots?

Let's look at the numbers.

Jim Pillen won the election with 50.5% of the vote. His nearest competitor, Lynne Walz, received 42.5%. It wasn't even close. Pillen received votes and Walz didn't for some of the reasons stated above. There were some people who didn't care how incompetent Pillen was, at least (according to them) he wasn't a Communist. Those people will vote for anybody as long as they're not a Democrat. But you may have noticed that those numbers only add up to 93% — what about the other 7%?

Brett Lindstrom, a former Republican legislator ran as the America First Party candidate and received 4.4% of the votes while Rick Beard, the Legal Marijuana Party nominee, received 2.7% — a total of 7.1% (there's rounding errors in there) in "Not Pillen" votes. So, there's two ways we can look at the numbers: one is that Pillen beat Walz by 8%, which looks like a severe beating. Another way we can look at the numbers is how much of the vote Pillen actually received, which is only 0.5% greater than half of the votes. The "Not Pillen" votes accounted for 49.5% of votes cast — almost half of voters wanted anyone but Pillen. So the effective margin of victory can be expressed as 0.9%. Now, I suspect that a lot of the Lindstrom and Beard votes were people who didn't want Pillen, but couldn't bring themselves to vote for a Democrat. 

Okay. He still won. You don't need a landslide in an election to win. In fact, in most states you don't even need a majority to win, as long as you get more votes than anyone else. In the 2022 Republican primary Pillen only received 33.9% of the votes. But is the fact that he only squeaked by by a half percent significant? I think it is, for two reasons. In his first election against Democrat Carol Blood Pillen received 59.2% of the vote — a blowout that was pretty standard for statewide elections in Nebraska. Blood received 36.0% and third parties received 4.8%. From 2022 to 2026 Pillen share of the vote decreased by 8.7% — it's been unheard of for a Republican to limp across the finish line by so little. Pillen, in the aftermath of the election, is behaving as if he rolled up a landslide, a mandate, acting like a conquering general with "the people" cheering him on to keep doing the same old thing. He's threatening the legislature — that if they don't enact his plans to increase sales taxes that he'll get some petition drives going. (This is the guy who suggested that previous citizen initiatives that he disagreed with did "not represent the people speaking" — which it literally did!

Democrats have been emphasizing that even though their candidates lost, this election indicated that Democrats were making inroads in Nebraska. The figures that they like to tout contrast Pillen's lead over Blood in 2022 with his lead over Walz in 2026. In 2022 the spread was 23.4%, in 2026 it was 8.0%, a decrease of 15.4%. I don't think these figures give an accurate view of a Democratic swing though — they certainly show a decrease in Pillen's support, but Walz received 42.5% vs. Blood's 36.0% a swing toward the Democrat of only 6.5%, which I believe is a more realistic way to look at it. 

Ricketts win isn't quite the same situation. He wasn't demonstrably incompetent, just inseparably connected with the Trump regime. And as a Senator, any blame can be spread around, unlike an executive, like a governor. I think that the support he received depended more upon whether or not a voter supported Trump, although some of the "Not Ricketts" voters went the third party route because they couldn't bring themselves to vote for Osborn, who they saw as a Democrat, despite his Independent label. 

Ricketts received 50.1% of the vote to Osborn's 43.9%, a spread of 6.2%. (6% to third parties) In his 2024 Special Election against Preston Love, Jr., Ricketts received  62.6% of the vote to Love's 37.4% — a 25.2% spread. His decrease in the spread was 18.7%! But if you consider that Osborn was effectively the Democratic candidate in 2026, his increased share over Love's percentage was 6.5% — the same as Walz's. Of course Osborn has run for Senate before — against Senator Deb (I'll only run for two terms) Fischer in 2024. In that election he received 46.5%, so he received a lesser percentage ( -2.6%) compared to the last time he ran. Do with those numbers what you will. 

A county map of Nebraska will show mostly red for Republican, except for Lincoln & Omaha. I believe it's a mistake to assume that everyone in the Third Congressional District voted Republican, or pin insulting labels upon all western or rural Nebraskans.  A county by county breakdown seems to indicate narrower margins across the board for Republicans. And don't forget that there are Omahans and Lincolnites who vote Republican. 

Is MAGA support still a thing in Nebraska? I have no doubt, but its hold is weakening. People leave cults. I did. 

 

Can We Repair The Damage?

I'm not optimistic that the damage caused by Trump is fixable. 

Even if there is a "blue wave" next week, even if we elect a Democrat in two years, the scale of the damage is worse than most of us realize. It's not just that we have a horrible human being who is incompetent at his job and willfully ignorant of everything. It's the fact that we have a president who seems to revel in destruction that can't easily be repaired. 

Sure, some things are easily fixed. Another president can install competent cabinet secretaries and agency heads. That's easy. It's like redecorating the Oval Office and removing all that cheap gilt décor  — that's something that will occupy White House staff for an afternoon while the Inaugural Balls are happening. Appointing men and women who actually support the missions of their agencies is easy, rebuilding those agencies, restaffing all the positions that were eliminated under DOGE is more like rebuilding the East Wing after it has been bulldozed. Where are those people going to come from?

Perceptions about government waste and the supposed indolence of government employees is one of those things that people have strong opinions about. Since they don't really know in any detail what they do, they assume that it can't be very important. Most people don't think about government employees until they need a government service. Wait times at veterans'' hospitals, Social Security, and the IRS have been evident since the cuts last year — all common contact points between citizens and the federal government. HHS has reduced its workforce, significantly cutting thousands of positions across agencies like the FDA, NIH, and CDC. The NIH terminated thousands of research grants and over 160 clinical trials spanning cancer, HIV/AIDS, and chronic diseases. In Pittsburgh, a VA clinical trial for advanced head and neck cancers was placed on hold due to hiring and contract freezes. During the 2025 Texas measles outbreak, canceled CDC grants forced local health officials in Lubbock to pause response work and eliminated access to federal public health experts. Dallas County Health and Human Services had to cut staff and cancel 50 community vaccination clinics. Rebuilding any of those programs will take time, assuming anyone would want to risk working for the government again. 

The remaking of the military into an organization loyal to Trump, rather than the Constitution will be difficult to undo. The Judge Advocate General corps has been gutted in order to remove any legal obstacles to the Trump agenda. Generals and Admirals who objected to potentially illegal actions, such as blowing up boats of suspected drug runners, or kidnapping another nation's president, have been eliminated.  Secretary of Defense Hegseth is trying to convert the military into a caricature of a bad Steven Seagal movie where everyone is a "warrior" (or warfighter) and apparently you don't need cooks or IT people. The Department of Justice has become the Department of Retribution after anyone who was suspected of being insufficiently loyal has been purged. A Democratic president can appoint a new Secretary of Defense and Attorney General, but rebuilding the leadership structure in each agency will take time. 

Our standing among our allies I fear will never recover. Why should any of our allies ever trust us again when we can so swiftly turn against them, both militarily and economically? When we cozy up to dictators like Putin? And if a legitimate national security goal is to prevent Iran from building nuclear weapons, have we guaranteed that they'll never negotiate with us again?  

My concern is that a hypothetical Democratic president will be tempted to undo Trump's damage in the same way that Trump caused the damage, by extensive use of Executive Order. The use of Executive Orders as a way around Congressional inaction isn't new, it has been steadily building over several administrations. The next president can undo some of the more egregious Trump EOs by more EOs, but Congress is going to have to step up and do their job. I'm not optimistic that they will. Politicians are more interested in maintaining an adversarial relationship with the other party than with getting anything done. There is scant incentive to compromise or work together. President Biden went into office deluded into thinking that he could reanimate the old way of doing things, he thought he could cajole Congress into passing a comprehensive immigration bill, when they were only interested in preventing one from passing, ensuring that Trump would have a solid campaign issue. 

We have a huge mess and I don't think we have a big enough broom to sweep it all up.

The Cultists in Nebraska

Trumpism is a cult. I've written about it often. Use the search feature on this blog to find what I have said about the subject. I don't think it's even arguable any longer. But what about Nebraska politics? How does Trumpism translate into electoral politics in Nebraska? 

There are several strands of emotional decision making at work here in Nebraska. One is that all politics are now national. Every office holder, no matter how small in scope, is now judged based on how loyal to, or how vehemently opposed to, one is to Trump. So if one is drinking the Trump Kool-Aid, they're going to be voting for Jim Pillen, despite the fact that he is objectively bad at his job, so over his head that it's pitiful. In a state where property taxes seem to be the enduring issue, Pillen is pushing a culture-war issue, a Constitutional amendment to ban  transgender girls from girls athletics despite it already being illegal in Nebraska, and despite there being no transgender girls trying to compete in girls sports in Nebraska. Pillen made property tax reduction his signature issue four years ago; he then failed to achieve any property tax relief despite his shady math, there's a good chance that he will be re-elected. Why? One reason his his fealty to Trump. 

Even before Trump arrived on the scene Nebraskans reflexively voted Republican. Or at least they have done so for the last 30 years. A lot of this corresponded with the reign of Newt Gingrich in Congress and his crusade to move politics away from bread & butter and toward culture war issues. As the nineties ended Nebraska had a Democratic Governor, Ben Nelson, who went on to serve two terms as Senator, ending his second term in 2012. Since then no Democrat was elected to statewide office in Nebraska. Gingrich's handiwork had done its work. A majority of Nebraska voters, usually around 60%, were convinced that Democrats were out to take their guns, were pushing for abortion up to the moment of birth, and that immigrants were going to take their jobs. In recent years additional culture war issues have come to the forefront, with Democrats painted as communists. They can't comprehend that a typical Nebraska Democrat is a far cry from being a radical leftist, or even a liberal. Most Nebraska Democrats would be considered conservatives on either of the coasts. They have gotten to the point where, in their minds, the worst, most incompetent Republican is preferable to any Democrat. 

Finally there's the rural-urban divide. This has always been an issue in Nebraska politics. Farmers and small town Nebraskans resenting the influence in state government of the senators from Omaha and Lincoln. There's always been a tendency among rural and small town Nebraskans to view "coastal elites", people from Los Angeles and New York City, as not real Americans. Eight years ago, former senator and Nebraska governor Bob Kerrey, when running against Deb Fischer, was attacked for being out of touch simply because he took a job in New York after he left the Senate. This has only gotten worse with Los Angeles and New York representing all that they see as wrong with America and as symbolic of Democratic influence. Any Nebraska political candidate who claims to fight for Nebraska values against "those New York communists" will without a doubt receive rousing applause. 

Maybe this will be the year that enough Nebraskans will open their eyes and vote out the Republicans. In 2024 Deb Fisher only received 53% of the vote. Sure, that was enough to win, but it was down from the 57% percent that she got in her first two elections, and the 62% that Sasse and Ricketts received in their last elections. It's heading in the right direction. In the senate race Ricketts and Osborn are polling the same, but the governor's race polls show Pillen ahead though, even though he's unquestionably a failure as governor. 

So, we'll see. Hopefully enough voters will leave their cult and vote what's best for Nebraska. 

Division

Why is there division? The simple answer is because people disagree about things. People have always disagreed about things and always will disagree about things. Some of those things are inconsequential —who is the best rock band of all time?; who would win a bout between heavyweight boxing champions of different eras?; is pineapple an appropriate topping for pizza? While other disagreements reflect fundamental beliefs about the world — should everyone be treated equally under the law?; are some classes of people worth intrinsically less than others?; should everyone have access to affordable healthcare? The former, minor, disagreements can exist without jeopardizing friendships, how you think about the latter, major disagreements says a lot about the type of person that you are. 

Recently I have seen the claim that divisions among us are somehow caused from some outside source. For years I have seen the finger pointed at "the media"; politicians get the blame as well, the latest was that it was the "shadow government", also known as "the cabal". I'll concede that some media feed off divineness because it gives them something to report on. I'll concede that billionaires love to see us squabbling about petty bullshit because it distracts us from their tax financed empire building. I'll concede that some politicians need to foster discord because it makes them look like they're accomplishing something, that they're fighting for us. But despite my concessions on these points, I believe that divisiveness is simply the result of there being positions for which there doesn't seem to be a middle ground. 

Abortion is a stark example. For most of those who are against abortion it's no less than murder. No amount of compromise by the pro-choice side will convince them that abortion, at any point in the pregnancy, for any reason, is anything other than the killing of a human being. Pro-choice advocates can argue for a woman's bodily autonomy, dangers to women's health is some cases, even pointing out to those with religious objections that The Bible doesn't actually prohibit abortion or equate it with murder, but they won't budge. 

But there are many other areas where there is apparently no compromise. 

Most of the areas where there is a clear black or white, day or night difference involve who deserves simple human rights. One can support border security and vetting of immigrants without advocating for a government agency running rampant in the streets, shooting and killing people, or for the administration arbitrarily canceling legal avenues of attaining citizenship. A sincere argument might be able to be made for banning someone whose male biology presents an unfair advantage competing against female athletes without assuming that transgender people are "pretending" to be something they're not, or are mentally ill. We can support  politicians that push back against the current iteration of corporate capitalism, championing policies that value individuals' health and well-being rather than the bottom line without being tarred as communists. Yet cheerleaders for one "side" are fine with shooting people in the street and breaking up families; they push for making it difficult if not impossible for transgender people to live the lives they choose; they prefer that children starve rather than budget more for food assistance programs. 

That's why there's  division. 

No one is forcing them to believe as they do — no one is forcing us either. We all believe what we do because that's what we want to believe. And I want to be divided from people who devalue human life and prioritize religion or racial purity over people. I have no problem being friends with someone with whom I disagree about property taxes, or term limits, or student loan forgiveness. I do have a problem with you if you support shooting people in the streets who aren't actively threatening harm. I do have a problem with you if you think getting beaten up is an appropriate response for speaking against a politician I do have a problem with you if you're a bigot. 

What's crazy though, is some people have a problem with us for not being okay with beating people exercising First Amendment rights, for not being okay with shooting people in the streets, for not being a bigot. These same people believe that the problem with divisiveness is not so much that it exists, but that we have been persuaded by some outside force to be divided from them. Compromise or consensus isn't the answer for them, but acquiescing to their world view. This is similar to the Trumpist view of bipartisanship — not that both parties come to a mutually acceptable solution to the issue of the day, but that the other party bowing to his position. 

There are plenty of my fellow Americans that I am perfectly happy to be divided from. 

Do We Have a King?

On Saturday people across the country, and even in other countries, gathered for the "No Kings" protests. I attended the one here in Lincoln Nebraska for a few hours. Afterwards I spend some time perusing social media to see what "the other side" had to say about them Of course, the fact that the Trumpers, and Trump himself, would downplay, and even misrepresent them, came as no surprise. At the nadir of disgustingness, also no surprise, was the Truth Social post by Trump himself. The post featured a video of The Dotard at the controls of a military jet, which had the words "King Trump" emblazoned on the side, bombing the protesters with shit. Most of the other comments sunk merely to the level of childish taunts. 

The commenters who attempted to explain why the protests were a waste of time tended to focus on the fact that, literally, Trump is not a king. He is not a member of a royal family, nor did he inherit his position. He was elected to it. Variations on the theme included references to July 4th being the real "No King" day, or that we haven't actually had a king since 1776. All of that is true, so why have we, the Trump opposition, latched on to the "No King" label? One of the reasons comes from Trump himself. After inserting himself into the congestion pricing debate in New York, he declared that he was canceling it, and added "The King has spoken". He has also posted pictures of himself wearing a royal crown. Most of us, hopefully all of us, realize that Trump is not a literal king. We are using the term as shorthand for the kind of absolute ruler archetype that Trump is aspiring to become. Even those who rebelled against Great Britain in 1776, while using the language of opposition to a king, were in reality opposing the British parliament, since the actual king was at that time in their history not an absolute monarch, and parliament made the rules. It's shorthand, it's an image, intended to convey our protestation against rule by one man. The Trumpers' attempt at cleverness portrays their ignorance of symbolism and nuance. 

There are a number of other words that have been used to describe the Trump presidency: fascist, dictator, Nazi, authoritarian. I have seen some Trump opponents object to some of these because they aren't completely accurate in painting a picture of the regime. Some Jewish friends have pointed out that Trumpism hasn't yet sunk to the level of depravity of the Nazis in World War II; Fascism has a specific meaning that includes the economic in addition to the political side of things. There are even technical differences between an authoritarian and a dictator. This article lists the differences between the two. In short, while both are essentially one-man rule, an authoritarian relies somewhat on a constitutional structure and a dictator controls all aspects of the state and society. The article presents the differences in more detail; Trump's regime resembled the authoritarian model more closely (although I believe the author has defined "dictator" in a way that only the very extreme cases qualify). I have chosen to characterize Trump as a dictator, rather than an authoritarian, mainly because the word has more impact—doesn't sound as academic—and is more recognizable. 

I have had people argue with me that the fact that Trump was elected disqualifies him from the category of dictator, although it is pretty easy to find dictators who were initially elected but eventually accreted all power to themselves, like Putin in Russia. Others have maintained that the fact that we have been able to hold mass protests like Saturday's, or can publicly criticize the regime means that we aren't a dictatorship. I argue that a dictatorship exists on a continuum—not very dictator starts by going full Stalin—but that it builds and gets steadily worse. Yes, the protests were allowed to happen, and our social media accounts haven't been shut down, but the attacks on the First Amendment are already happening—universities are being threatened, former high-ranking officials are being indicted, and the arrests have started with non-citizens. It's only a matter of time. 

In my opinion the defining characteristic of dictatorship in Trump's second term is the fact that he is unilaterally making decisions that are either should be decided jointly with Congress, or are Congress's sole purview. This is entirely separate from the issue of whether what he is doing is beneficial or is harmful for the country, but goes to the question of whether he has the authority to do what he does on his own. This blog post of mine outlines in detail why I think we are now under a dictatorship. But whether you call him a dictator, an authoritarian, a fascist, a Nazi, or a king, the bottom line is that he is acting illegally and extra-constitutionally. He is making unilateral decisions and claiming that, as president, he "can do whatever he wants". This is not how a representative democracy works, not how a constitutional republic works. 

The defenses of Trump have fallen into two main camps. One type of Trumper is fully on board with his policies and is willing to accept anything that puts those policies in effect. A Trumper friend the other day rationalized the blowing up of boats alleged to be smuggling drugs to the United States by stating how reprehensible drug dealing was. I don't disagree with his assessment of drug dealers, but there are several illegal things happening with these attacks. We are using the military in what is essentially a law enforcement capacity. Trump has declared the drug cartels, not just a criminal conspiracy, but a terrorist group supported by the Venezuelan government. We have not be shown any evidence that these boats are running drugs, or in any way connected with drug cartels—we are summarily executing people from a country with whom we are not at war and have not been accused of, let alone convicted of, a crime. We also already have a method to stop drugs coming in by boat: the Coast Guard stops and searches them, and if carrying drugs, subjects them to the legal system. Yet my friend believes the end justifies the means. The other camp believes that the actions that Trump has taken are legal, and believe his assertion that he can do whatever he wants. These people truly believe that the president has the authority to take whatever action he deems fit. They don't understand, and don't want to understand the constitutional nuances. 

So yes, if we are speaking figuratively, we have a monarch wannabe. We have a president who craves the unrestricted power that the absolute monarchs, exercising the divine right of kings, had once upon a time. That's why we march.

What Do We Focus On?

A good friend of mine often (accurately) points out how the latest Trump social media blow up is a distraction. I agree to a point. Trump does do and say things with the express purpose of getting us to forget about the last unethical, illegal, unconstitutional thing that he did. He says things just to piss off his opponents that he has no intention of following through on. There are insignificant blips on the political radar which are unworthy of our attention. However, there are so many unethical, illegal, unconstitutional things going on, all at the same time, it seems like everything is a distraction from everything else. 

Steve Bannon articulated the "flooding the zone" strategy. Throw so many outrages at people, all at once, and keep on doing it, so that no one can focus on all of them. And if there is any strategy coming out of the White House, this is it. What do you want to rage against? What do you want to protest? ICE? The War against Iran? DOGE? Tariffs? Corruption and self-dealing? Epstein Files? Bypassing Congress? Ignoring court orders? Attacking press freedoms and free speech? Retribution against political opponents? Destroying part of the White House? Do we ration some of our anger for his recurring claim that he actually won the 2020 election or that he is thinking about running again in 2028?

The other side of the coin is the short attention span and lack of intellectual depth of the typical voter. So many people would rather mock Trump's spray tan, his weird hairdo, his clumsy dance moves, his cheap suit, his weight, his gifts of ill-fitting shoes, his mispronouncing words, or his stupid insults than any of the dangerous actions he and his administration are taking.  And so many of us who oppose Trump hardly comprehend the danger he poses to the Constitutional order, to democracy (or to the Republic, if you prefer) and to the nation itself and see him as nothing more than a bumbling clown who simply says offensive things. 

He is a bumbling clown who says offensive things, but a bumbling clown who has a cadre of loyalists who will make his rambling retribution fantasies and destruction of democracy a reality. 

Follow The Money (Or the meme coin)

If you believe that Trump cares about anything other than enriching himself, you have not been paying attention. This attribute goes back to way before he even thought about running for president. 

It's not exactly new information that he bankrupted several casinos, lost money on several big real estate ventures, and started up numerous businesses (Trump Steaks, Trump Vodka, Trump Mortgage, Trump University, Trump Magazine...) that failed. 

He's infamous for refusing to pay contractors what they were owed on many of these catastrophes. In fact, despite running what should have been successful businesses into the ground, he always managed to make sure he got paid. Without getting overly technical, Trump did this by hiring accountants who knew the tax code inside and out. It was extremely rare that Trump was investing his own money in these endeavors. Set up an LLC, take out a loan, list himself as a consultant or advisor with a guaranteed fee, and even if the business goes under, he still received his check. The loss and loan default is against the LLC, not Trump personally, and as a bonus, the loss flows through to its owners, including Trump, reducing his tax liability. None of this is illegal. I saw similar shenanigans on a smaller scale when I worked in Tax Incentives, but it illustrates that Trump wasn't a good businessman, i.e. someone who grows a business, providing jobs for a community while providing a return on investment to shareholders, but someone who was extremely adept at self dealing. 

Why would we believe that this basic fact of his personality would somehow disappear when he became president?

Trump's financial disclosure report for 2025, his first year back as president, was made public recently. It showed income of over $2 billion, triple what he reported for the previous year. (Who knows how accurate his reporting even is?) About half of that was from cryptocurrency. Here is a quote from an NPR interview with Eric Lipton of the New York Times:

"The two biggest chunks come from his meme coin, which he launched three days before his inauguration. It was a kind of a collectible that surged in value initially, and the people who quickly invested made a boatload of money, but then it crashed, and hundreds of thousands of people then lost money.

Trump made hundreds of millions of dollars from that gamble that he asked people to follow on him on. And many of his followers ended up as losers. The second big chunk of revenue comes from World Liberty Financial, a company that he and his sons started in October of 2024.

That company is now one of the biggest issuers of what's called stablecoins in the world, and it was bought secretly and — half of it — by the United Arab Emirates in January of 2025, just as he was being sworn in to be president.

And the UAE separately has invested $2 billion into its stablecoin, making it one of the biggest stablecoin issuers in the world. So, I mean, the it is really intensely tied up with a foreign government. And the president is profiting from that foreign government's investment in his own business at the same time as he is acting as commander in chief and working with that foreign government to negotiate a war in the Middle East."

I admit that there's a lot about cryptocurrency, starting with Bitcoin and including every scam by some guy with a laptop, that I don't understand. But this sounds a lot like a pump and dump — like was portrayed in the movie Boiler Room — convince people that worthless stock is a great investment. Trump made a ridiculous amount of money selling...nothing. The meme coin, if it ever had any value, certainly doesn't now. All it accomplished was providing a cash pipeline to Trump from credulous investors.  Or maybe they weren't all that credulous. Doesn't it seem like a stable coin without any real value would be the perfect conduit for bribes? What value are the "investors" receiving if not the access any large donor would expect? The opportunities for money laundering aren't insignificant either. 

"......there are new real estate deals in the Middle East, in Vietnam, in Romania, in the Maldives. He's struck a bunch of deals that include some deals that are actually with foreign governments, like the government of Saudi Arabia and in Qatar as well.

And then there are, as you mentioned, settlements from lawsuits and that are being paid to him from media companies. And there's also money in there from Melania, from Jeff Bezos and Amazon for the documentary. I mean, there's just — it's quite a crazy array of sources of revenue going to a sitting president.

...there's nothing like this in American history."

I'm not sure if Trump is donating his presidential salary as he did during his first term, but his $450,000 salary is peanuts compared to what he's raking in from what amounts to influence peddling. A lot of hot air has been exchanged about insider trading, and how stock trades by Congress should be banned. All of that pales in comparison to what is being done by Trump. 

"...the big question here is, if Mr. Trump was not president, could he or would he have made the same amount of money that he did?

It's hard to imagine that if he were not president that there would — that his meme coin or — it would be as profitable as it has been, or that there would have been the scale of investment in World Liberty Financial and the stablecoin.

It is — it seems as if his status as president is intimately intertwined with the success of those companies. And, I mean, the fact that he launched the meme coin as they were gathering in an auditorium in D.C. three days before his inauguration for what was called the Crypto Ball — it was a bunch of crypto executives and administration — soon-to-be administration officials there to celebrate his inauguration.

And that's the night he launched it. And it was like, follow me as I lead the world. These things are so intertwined, I think it's hard to imagine he would have made as much money. He's never made this much money in his entire life as he's made in this one year. So I think that's part of your answer right there.

The pay-to-pardon scheme that Trump has going has also become a lucrative income stream. Anyone with a few million lying around can get a Get-Out-Of-Jail-Not-So-Free card from Trump. 

Let's not forget all his shady stock trades. From Democracy Now:

"...he purchased as much as $5 million in SpaceX bonds shortly before he signed a new space policy that could benefit Elon Musk and his company. In total, Trump bought up to $250 million in stocks in August, including an investment of up to $25 million in Meta, the parent company of Facebook. Such stock trading by a sitting president is unprecedented. ABC recently reported Trump made 21,000 securities trades during his first year back in office. By contrast, Joe Biden made a total of 13 trades during his entire term. In related news, on Thursday, Trump honored SpaceX founder Elon Musk and other tech executives at a White House science summit."

From The New York Times:

I"t is hardly the only issue to arise from having a businessman serve as president. The president’s family business, the Trump Organization, has also capitalized on Mr. Trump’s popularity in certain parts of the world, licensing the Trump name to properties in countries that are crucial to U.S. foreign policy interests, including Saudi Arabia and Qatar. Those two deals alone generated more than $14 million for Mr. Trump last year, the filing shows."

With Trump, if you want to know the answer to why anything is being done, just follow the money.