“Because our country is making so much money that only I can make this promise to you,” President Donald Trump told the Republican midterm convention last week. “If the Republicans win the House of Representatives and the United States Senate, both of them … I will issue a dividend to every adult citizen in the United States of America for $5,000.”
“… if the Republicans win, you win with us and you get $5,000,” he continued. “It will be called the Trump dividend. Congratulations. Now all we have to do … is win.”
This wasn’t Trump’s usual riffing. He reaffirmed the offer afterward.
Trump calls it a dividend, comparing America to a successful company distributing profits to its shareholders. But corporations don’t condition dividends on shareholders voting to retain management.
Nor does a company losing $2 trillion annually spend another $1.2 trillion to celebrate its financial brilliance.
It’s a simple proposed transaction: Vote Republican. If enough of you do, you get $5,000.
This may not meet the criminal definition of bribery because nobody must prove how they voted to get the payoff “dividend.” But as a campaign promise, it’s right on the edge: Keep my people in power and my government will pay you big money. In truth, it feels “mob-ish.”
“Only I can make this promise.”
Keep my organization in control. Name the payment after me. Get $5,000 if the gig works.
But as dark as that is, the offer is cleverer than it first appears and contains another implied transaction, one Trump never stated aloud:
Voters can refuse Trump’s offer. But Republican candidates cannot prevent him from making it on their behalf.
By promising $5,000 if Republicans retain both chambers, Trump attached his offer to every Republican campaign in America. Any Republican who wins narrowly can later be told that Trump supplied the decisive votes. Most candidates never requested the assistance and never agreed to its terms. Trump can, and likely will, present the bill afterward.
I can already imagine the telephone call before an important congressional vote:
“So, you won by 2,000 votes. I promised your voters $5,000 and they took the offer. I put you in Congress. Nice little district you have there. It would be a shame if somebody primaried you.”
Trump has placed every Republican candidate inside a political debt structure few likely requested.
This matters right here in the Santa Clarita Valley. We live in one of America’s closely contested congressional districts. Republican Jason Gibbs, our able local leader, is challenging Democratic incumbent George Whitesides, himself an accomplished leader.
We have two credible candidates and had a fair contest. Now, we also have Trump and his uninvited offer hanging over our local race.
I personally asked Jason to disavow Trump’s election-conditioned payment and commit to voting against it. His answer was well thought out and well parsed:
Jason’s reply was, “No politician, Republican or Democrat, should make suggestive quid pro quo commentary that your vote means money being given to you. But I am a candidate who supports returning federal dollars to the people into local governments where it is most accountable.”
I had hoped for an unequivocal rejection of Trump’s offer. Instead, I received adroit political parsing that rejects the concept yet leaves the door open, should he receive that call.
That does not make me think less of Jason as he must walk the political tightrope required of him. It makes me recognize the trap Trump has laid for him and all other Republican candidates.
Jason never asked Trump to promise our district’s voters $5,000. He can reject it, of course. But Trump has made rejection expensive: Reject the payment outright and you disappoint voters attracted by it. Denounce Trump by name and risk Trump’s voters and Trump’s attacks. Accept some revised version and Trump can claim that the debt has been acknowledged.
This unholy mess functions like an unsolicited political protection racket.
The spoken transaction to you and me was simple: Keep Republicans in power and receive $5,000.
The unspoken transaction to candidates is darker: If my promise helped elect you, you owe me.
The checks may never arrive, but Republican candidates have already received the bill.
And if this succeeds, whom will Trump have purchased: the voters or the people they elected?
Or, cleverly, both.
Gary Horton is chairman of the College of the Canyons Foundation board. His “Full Speed to Port!” has appeared in The Signal since 2006. The opinions expressed in his column do not necessarily reflect the opinions of The Signal or its editorial board.
