Last Sunday, I was at a bar off a lonely rural road half-watching my favorite NFL team when a Donald Trump campaign ad flashed onscreen. I’d previously heard of these taxpayer-funded propaganda spots airing on Fox News and Newsmax, but this was the first time I became aware that such garbage now permeated even real TV channels.
There it was, at the end: “Paid for by the U.S. government.”
I looked to my left. I looked to my right. It wasn’t so long ago, in the grand scheme of things, when Americans dumped a boatload of tea into Boston Harbor because they were infuriated about their tax dollars being wasted in ways they were given no say in.
Alas, my fellow bargoers were not so inflamed with the spirit of 1776. As far as I could tell, nobody else seemed to notice or care about the Trump ad they’d helped pay for.
The White House denied wrongdoing in paying for these ads with government funds, in the same way that a blood-soaked person standing over a corpse clutching a still-dripping butcher knife might deny wrongdoing. To anyone with even a passable knowledge of the law, however, there is no question that running these ads — this propaganda — on taxpayers’ dime is illegal. Yet, Trump has gotten away with doing so many illegal things, even getting out of serving any sentence whatsoever for the 34 felony counts that he was convicted of, that I certainly didn’t expect the mere fact of its illegality to ruffle more feathers than have already been ruffled.
But the sheer, brazen shamelessness of it shocked me. Ten years into Trump being a presidential candidate, president, ex-president, or some combination thereof, it’s not that easy for something he does to shock me.
Since paying for these political advertisements with tax dollars is so obviously, facially illegal, at first I was confused as to why Trump bothered to adhere to the part of the law that requires someone to disclose who paid for a campaign ad within the ad itself. I could only conclude that not telling everyone up front that he was seemingly stealing tax money would inevitably result in a future exposé, and the disclosure was in keeping with this administration’s philosophy that voters don’t care about a crime, they only care about the coverup.
For Trump’s base of rural support, I’m starting to wonder whether they care about coverups or anything else. There is no doubt that Trump’s economic policies have disproportionately impacted rural areas. Diesel fuel is more commonly used in rural America, and diesel prices sit at record highs thanks to the unnecessary war Trump launched in the Middle East. His healthcare and food assistance cuts primarily hurt rural communities. The Trump tariffs have been more of a detriment to lower-income households, which are more common in rural counties. Trump is trying to force small communities to welcome data centers their residents don’t want.
Still, knowing about all that requires just a slight detour outside of a rightwing media bubble, and the tiniest amount of critical thought. Also, all such things could be dismissed as, perhaps, the results of bad, though not ill-intentioned, policy. On the other hand, in these new ads, Trump is almost bragging: “Hey, FYI, I stole from all of you to pay for this.”
About half of rural voters still approve of Trump’s job performance — this is much higher than his approval among U.S. adults overall. More rural Americans are starting to voice frustrations about Trump’s handling of the economy, but, for the most part, those who voted for him are not frustrated enough to consider something as dramatic as voting for a Democrat.
I am from rural America. I still spend a lot of time in rural America (in the country, people in rural America would actually say). It really does break my heart to see Trump and the Republican Party he has now fully commandeered repeatedly pummel rural America in the kidneys, only to witness each time a nearly unified collective response of, “Please, sir, we’d like another.”
Well, I guess the Trump ads are at least misusing both country and city tax dollars alike. Not much more to be done about it before the midterms, I suppose, other than sit back, sip my beer, and keep watching.
Jonathan Wolf is a civil litigator and author of Your Debt-Free JD (affiliate link). He has taught legal writing, written for a wide variety of publications, and made it both his business and his pleasure to be financially and scientifically literate. Any views he expresses are probably pure gold, but are nonetheless solely his own and should not be attributed to any organization with which he is affiliated. He wouldn’t want to share the credit anyway. He can be reached at [email protected].
