The $2,000 “dividend” plan may be the boldest attempt yet to turn democracy into a cash-for-votes transaction…

 

Before I get into today’s story, [the other] night was an absolute effing disaster. Eight Democratic-caucus senators sold us out by voting with the Republicans: Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), Maggie Hassan (D-NH), Angus King (I-ME), Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV), John Fetterman (D-PA), Dick Durbin (D-IL), Jacky Rosen (D-NV), Tim Kaine (D-VA).

And you know none of this could’ve happened without Chuck Schumer agreeing to it. The Vice-Chairman of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, Congressman Ro Khanna (a regular on my program) was blunt, saying Schumer “is no longer effective and should be replaced.”

I agree. None of the eight are up for reelection next year (two are retiring), so Schumer and they figure over the course of the next several years we’ll forget what they did to us last night.

I, for one, have no intention of forgetting. Trump will say that now “even the Democrats agree” with him and he was “right all along.” Over a month of brutal pain was inflicted on the American people, and now he’ll claim it was “all the Democrats’ fault” and “they finally came to their senses.”

They’re already crowing across rightwing media. Look at the damage those heartless Democrats did to our food, healthcare premiums, and air travel! Remember this next November: if they regain the House or Senate, they’ll stick it to the American people again just like they did over the past month! See how dangerous it is to vote for Democrats? They just can’t be trusted.

If you want to call any of these fools and cowards, the number for the Senate switchboard is 202-224-3121. Bernie Sanders, who called this “a policy and political disaster,” added: "Tonight was a very bad night."

And Senator Chris Murphy wrote: “There’s no way to sugarcoat what happened tonight. And my fear is that Trump gets stronger, not weaker, because of this acquiescence. I’m angry - like you. But I choose to keep fighting. “

California governor Newsome called it “pathetic”; Illinois governor JB Pritzker said: “This is not a deal — it’s an empty promise.”

I don’t know who is paid off (Fetterman?) or simply wimped out (Durbin/Schumer?), but this is right up there with Sinema and Manchin stabbing America in the back three years ago on the legislation to kill Citizens United and pass the John Lewis Voting Right Act to make voting a right rather than a privilege. Both pieces of good legislation died because two corrupt on-the-take Democrats joined the Republicans. And here we are again.

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Meanwhile, is Donald Trump also trying to buy the 2026 or the 2028 elections with a $2,000 check?

He’s extremely pissed off that voters (and the media and even the Federal Reserve) noticed that his tariffs are driving up inflation. He’s also raging that the Democrats are getting credit for fighting for the little guy by wanting to extend/renew the Affordable Care Act (ACA/Obamacare) subsidies in exchange for voting with Republicans to reopen the government, although it looks like he might’ve just won that one.

This weekend, after his second debauchery party in the ballroom where he’d stored national security secrets for Russian and Chinese spies to rummage through, he posted to his Nazi-infested social media site: “People that are against Tariffs are FOOLS! … A dividend of at least $2000 a person (not including high income people!) will be paid to everyone.”

Forget the inflation, the serially bankrupt conman says it’s a “con job” when Democrats talk about “affordability”: “What the Democrats do is, they lie. We are the ones that have done great on affordability. They’ve done horribly on affordability. We just lost an election, they said, based on affordability. It’s a con job by the Democrats.”

Please ignore, in other words, that his tariffs are openly unconstitutional (the Founders explicitly wrote that only Congress can impose tariffs). And, they’re driving inflation sky-high.

And don’t even mention that Trump’s been using them to strong-arm foreign governments and their leaders into giving his sons billions for their crypto businesses and putting up Trump-branded hotels and golf courses where he risks nothing whatsoever but takes a continuous slice of the revenues as “licensing fees.” Not to mention how they’re throwing the nation into recession at the same time they’re driving up the cost of everything, a pain that’s going to get really visible as we hit the holiday gift-buying season.

And forget about the fact that your health insurance premiums are exploding in your face, as he also ranted: “I am recommending to Senate Republicans that the Hundreds of Billions of Dollars currently being sent to money sucking Insurance Companies in order to save the bad Healthcare provided by Obamacare, BE SENT DIRECTLY TO THE PEOPLE SO THAT THEY CAN PURCHASE THEIR OWN, MUCH BETTER, HEALTHCARE, and have money left over.”

In other words, let’s also get rid of the protections of the ACA — for example, the requirement that they must cover payment for chronic or preexisting conditions — and force every American to buy insurance (if they can afford it) from those same insurance companies he’s pretending to rage against. It’ll be a huge boon for the companies and their morbidly rich executives.

In exchange for screwing Americans on tariff-caused inflation and healthcare, he wants to send us a check just like he did with the Covid stimulus checks back in 2020, thinking putting his signature on them would help him win the upcoming election.

His promise of a “dividend” to every citizen isn’t economic policy, it’s a proposed payoff. After five corrupt Republicans on the Supreme Court legalized the practice of billionaires buying politicians and judges, Trump’s now cutting out the middlemen and proposing to buy the voters himself.

The tariffs (and his assaults on democracy) were hurting him with the voters enough to affect the election this month, driving a Democratic sweep across the nation. And now he’s also freaked out because his Big Beautiful Billionaire’s Bill gutted the ACA subsidies that made health insurance affordable for at least 24 million Americans and Democrats dared (until last night) stand up against it.

Trump voters are experiencing buyer’s remorse and Americans more generally are furious that he and his billionaire buddies are screwing us while they live the Great Gatsby life. Thus, he’s now waving cash in our faces, believing we’re stupid enough to trade our democracy, economy, and healthcare for a quick hit of cash.

But this isn’t generosity; it’s corruption in broad daylight, a desperate, cynical attempt to turn the American vote into a cash transaction. The only question left is: how many Americans will take the bait?

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-Thom Hartmann