Why Donald Trump Donating His Presidential Salary Means Less Than Nothing

If your definition of “work” is “rage-tweeting while watching FOX” then yes, Trump did in fact work every day of his presidency.

There are many flattering lies that Republicans tell themselves about Donald Trump that aren’t just wildly inaccurate but downright antithetical to the truth. The biggest and most ridiculous lie, of course, is that there’s a secret war between an evil cabal of powerful, wealthy pedophiles and the forces of good and the guy who introduced “grab em by the pussy” and “I moved on her like a bitch” into the national lexicon and famously bragged about how he and his good buddy Jeffrey Epstein love the ladies, and they love them on the young side, is on the side of right. 

As I’ve written about in this blog, Conservatives also labor under the adorable delusion that because he’s slept with Playmates and porn stars and has lots of money Trump is “cool” when he’s actually so desperately uncool that just being photographed with him made Kanye West and Lil Wayne considerably less cool. 

Republicans also like to posit Trump as the last honest man, a fierce foe of political correctness forever dropping truth bombs and saying what people feel but are too scared to say out loud despite Trump being, by seemingly every objective criteria, one of the most flagrant liars ever to hold public office.

Most germane to this blog post, Trump’s cultists like to brag about how Trump donated the salary he received as president so instead of making money by getting involved in national politics, he was actually losing money and working for free for the American people instead of getting paid hundreds of millions of dollars to work for NBC hosting The Apprentice and The Celebrity Apprentice. 

According to this reasoning, Trump had a perfect life of leisure and could have happily spent his golden years making sweet, passionate love to Melania multiple times a day, having deep, meaningful conversations with Donald Jr., Ivanka and Eric, and generally enjoying the spoils of his extraordinary wealth and fame. 

Instead this selfless man, this Christ-like martyr, decided to give up his incredible life of leisure, one he worked so very hard to earn, so that he could serve the American people as their tireless servant, knowing damn well that doing go would make him the most hated, criticized and scrutinized man in the world. 

There are a number of problems with this line of thinking, needless to say. If Trump is anywhere near as wealthy as he loudly, repeatedly and obnoxiously professes to be, then a 400,000 dollar yearly salary simply isn’t that much to him. 

If I was a millionaire many times over, let alone a billionaire, I similarly wouldn’t have a hard time donating the thirty thousand dollars I make from this website every year to charity. 

Secondly Trump is a showman who knows that his worshippers are desperate to believe the best about him and his motives so he realizes that he can buy tens of millions of dollars worth of good publicity as the President so rich and righteous he refuses to collect a salary for the hardest, most important job in the world for a mere four hundred thousand dollars a year. 

If Trump wanted to give back to a country from which he has taken so, so much he could donate tens of millions of dollars to charity. Hell he could donate his ENTIRE FORTUNE to charity. He could devote half his fortune to charity. Hell, Trump could pay his fair share of taxes to ensure that the police, the precious, precious police, and the military have everything they need, murder weapon-wise. 

Instead Trump brags about not paying a penny more in taxes than he absolutely has to because he’s “smart.” 

Whatever Trump lost from donating his salary he more than made up in income from foreign dignitaries who made a point of staying in Trump hotels because it never hurts to suck up to the MOST POWERFUL MAN IN THE WORLD. 

In conclusion, Trump giving away his salary is less an act of genuine generosity than ONE WEIRD TRICK to cynically convince the public that you’re their humble servant when you’re actually the very personification of selfishness.

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