TRUMPCON - Tax Fraud?

"Donald Trump Has Never Explained a Mysterious $50 Million Loan.  Is It Evidence of Tax Fraud?" by Russ Choma, Mother Jones 9/05/2019

A Mother Jones investigation has uncovered new information about a puzzling Trump deal.

Donald Trump’s massive debts—he owes hundreds of millions of dollars—are the subject of continuous congressional and journalistic scrutiny.  But for years, one Trump loan has been particularly mystifying: a debt of more than $50 million that Trump claims he owes to one of his own companies.  According to tax and financial experts, the loan, which Trump has never fully explained, might be part of a controversial tax avoidance scheme known as debt parking.  Yet a Mother Jones investigation has uncovered information that raises questions about the very existence of this loan, presenting the possibility that this debt was concocted as a ploy to evade income taxes—a move that could constitute tax fraud.

Here’s what is publicly known about this mystery debt:  On the personal financial disclosure forms that Trump must file each year as President, he has divulged that he owes “over $50 million” to a company called Chicago Unit Acquisition LLC.  The forms note that this entity is fully owned by Trump.  In other words, Trump owes a large chunk of money to a company he controls.

The disclosures state that this loan is connected to Trump’s hotel and tower in Chicago, and the forms reveal puzzling details about Chicago Unit Acquisition:  It earns no revenue—suggesting that Trump was not paying interest or principal on the loan—and Trump assigns virtually no value to Chicago Unit Acquisition.  Something doesn’t add up.  Under basic accounting principles, a firm that is owed money and has no outstanding debt should be worth at least as much as it is owed.  The loan has another odd feature:  It is identified as a “springing” loan, a type of loan made to borrowers who are viewed as credit risks.  Known sometimes as “bad boy” loans, these agreements allow the lender to impose harsh repayment terms if certain criteria aren’t met.  These are not the type of loan terms that someone is likely to impose on himself.

The Trump Organization has consistently refused to answer questions about Chicago Unit Acquisition, a limited liability company it formed in Delaware in 2005, as construction began on the Trump International Hotel and Tower in downtown Chicago.  But Trump did tell the New York Times in a 2016 interview that this debt represents a loan he repurchased from a group of lenders.  “We don’t assess any value to it because we don’t care,” Trump said.  “I have the mortgage.  That is all there is.  Very simple.  I am the bank.”  Jason Greenblatt, who was then the Trump Organization’s top lawyer, declined to explain to the Times the reason for the Chicago Unit Acquisition deal.  “It’s really personal corporate trade secrets, if you will,” he said.  “Neither newsworthy or frankly anybody’s business.”

Trump has not publicly identified the creditors from whom he bought this loan.  But a 2008 lawsuit Trump filed in connection with the Chicago project—a case that produced voluminous records detailing the financing of this venture—suggests two possibilities.  The majority of the hotel and tower project was bankrolled by Trump’s lender of choice, Deutsche Bank, which gave him a $640 million loan.  Fortress Investment Group, a New York City-based hedge fund, provided Trump an additional $130 million in financing.  (Two other firms, Cerberus Capital Management and Dune Capital Management, partnered with Fortress on this loan.)  According to court records, these were the only loans associated with the construction and development of Trump International Hotel and Tower Chicago.

Trump’s Chicago project quickly became a financial debacle—hence the lawsuit.  The 2008 financial crisis struck as the project neared completion, and Trump, saddled with nearly $800 million in debt, was in jeopardy of defaulting on a $330 million payment he owed to Deutsche Bank in November that year.

To fend off his biggest creditor, Trump attempted a brazen legal gambit.  He sued Deutsche Bank, accusing the firm of causing the housing crisis and economic meltdown that was supposedly inhibiting his ability to sell units in the Chicago project and repay his debts.  Eventually, Trump settled his financial differences with Deutsche by repaying some of the money he owed the bank and refinancing the rest through the bank’s private banking arm, according to records filed with the Cook County Recorder of Deeds.  That is, Trump took out a new loan through Deutsche’s private bank to cover his debt to the firm’s commercial lending side.  This transaction apparently did not involve purchasing any debt, suggesting the debt that Trump claims to have bought could not be from the Deutsche Bank loan.  That leaves the Fortress debt.

In March 2012, as Trump resolved his dispute with Deutsche Bank, he finalized a separate deal with Fortress and its partners to clear his debt with them.  According to a source with direct knowledge of the deal who spoke to Mother Jones, Fortress ultimately agreed to accept 50 cents on the dollar—or about $48 million—for the outstanding debt (which by that time amounted to just under $100 million).  This was a steep loss for the hedge fund and its partners.  The question is whether the deal was what’s known as a “discounted payoff”—in which the debt was considered repaid and the loan was canceled by the lender—or whether Trump purchased what remained of the loan.  That distinction has enormous implications.

When a lender forgives a portion of a loan, the IRS considers the unpaid portion taxable income.  For instance, if a lender accepts $50 million in repayment of a $100 million debt, the borrower, in the eyes of federal tax authorities, has earned $50 million and owes tax on that.  The tax could be as high as 39 percent.  But big-time borrowers have devised a tactic to forestall paying taxes in cases in which they’re able to buy back their debt at a discount.  They purchase the debt through a corporation, parking the loan within this entity to temporarily avoid realizing income.  Debt parking falls into a legal gray area.  “Maybe there are respectable ways that it could work, but I would call it kind of a scam to pretend you haven’t gotten rid of the debt,” says Daniel Shaviro, a professor of tax law at New York University.

Debt parking can be permissible as long as the borrower intends to repay the loan.  Parking debt indefinitely with no intention to repay it, however, violates federal tax law, according to tax experts.

For that reason, Trump’s comment to the Times that “we don’t care” about the loan raised a red flag for several tax experts consulted by Mother Jones.  They wondered whether this was an admission that he has no intention of repaying the loan—an implication reinforced by Trump’s disclosures showing Chicago Unit Acquisition generates no revenue and has practically no value.  And debt parking that essentially places a loan into suspended animation indefinitely would not be considered legal, according to these tax experts.

But the story of Trump’s mystery loan gets even more complicated.  According to two sources with direct knowledge of the disposition of the Fortress loan, Fortress did not sell Trump this loan.  Instead, according to these sources, Fortress canceled the debt after Trump paid about half of it.  “The transaction that Donald Trump did with the lender was a discounted payoff and not a purchase of the loan—I know that for sure,” a person involved with the deal tells Mother Jones.  That means there may have been no loan to buy, no debt to park; Trump might have invented a loan—and then parked it.

Fortress declined to comment on the Trump loan.  Representatives of Cerberus Capital Management and Dune Real Estate Partners (which took over the business once run by Dune Capital Management) did not respond to requests for comment.

To recap: Trump claims he bought a debt related to his Chicago venture, but neither of the two loans associated with this property appear to have been purchased.  The Deutsche Bank loan was refinanced.  The Fortress debt, according to sources with knowledge of the transaction, was canceled.  And this raises a question:  Did Trump create a bogus loan to evade a whopping tax bill on about $48 million of income?

Several legal and real estate finance experts say it’s possible to fabricate a loan.  Doing so would be as easy as creating some paperwork and declaring the debt on your tax returns, though such a scheme would also violate federal tax law.

“When you see it, if you lay all this out, it’s pretty brazen,” says Adam Levitin, a law professor specializing in commercial real estate finance at Georgetown University.  “If he didn’t actually buy the loan, this is just garden-variety fraud.”

Most loans are documented in public records, but Mother Jones could locate no documentation of a loan owned by Chicago Unit Acquisition.  The Cook County Recorder of Deeds has records concerning the original Deutsche Bank loan for the Chicago project; the Deutsche Bank loan that replaced it; and the Fortress loan.  But the Recorder of Deeds has no filings related to Chicago Unit Acquisition.

Not all loans are tied to property and require registration with local authorities.  In those cases, a filing called a Uniform Commercial Code financing statement is typically made.  This is a publicly available legal form in which a creditor states its interest in the event of a loan default.  The $130 million Fortress loan had a UCC statement filed in Delaware in 2005.  Fortress filed a notice that this loan agreement was terminated—it does not specify how—in March 2012.  A search of records in New York (where the Trump Organization is based), Illinois (where the hotel is located), and Delaware (where Chicago Unit Acquisition is registered) found no UCC records related to Chicago Unit Acquisition.

Levitin and Steven Schwarcz, a law and business professor at Duke University, say it’s not totally unheard of for a company to skip filing a UCC statement in cases where one branch of a firm is loaning money to another.  But Levitin says that submitting a UCC statement is standard practice in most scenarios where there is a large amount of collateral at stake. 

Could the Chicago Unit Acquisition loan be legitimate?  The tax and real estate experts interviewed by Mother Jones had a difficult time explaining what this transaction could be.  And the Trump Organization offered no explanations of its own.  The company did not respond to a detailed list of questions from Mother Jones regarding Chicago Unit Acquisition and this loan.  Nor did the White House.

Trump has a track record of pushing the envelope when it comes to paying—or not paying—taxes.  In a Pulitzer Prize–winning investigation examining the origins of the President’s fortune, the New York Times reported in 2018 that “President Trump participated in dubious tax schemes during the 1990s, including instances of outright fraud, that greatly increased the fortune he received from his parents.”

Breaking with a four-decade precedent for Presidents, Trump has refused to release his tax returns, which would shed light on the tax strategies he has employed over the years.  But the release of Trump’s returns alone would probably not solve the Chicago Unit Acquisition mystery.  Nor would a standard IRS audit.

“It would take a forensic audit,” says Martin Lobel, a prominent tax lawyer based in Washington, DC.  “It is very labor intensive, and it takes someone who has years of experience to spot the problem areas.” This type of audit would entail combing methodically through every shred of paperwork underpinning Trump’s financial claims.  And Lobel and other tax experts Mother Jones interviewed are dubious that the IRS would mount this type of audit on a sitting President.  “The IRS is not going to look too closely at Trump’s tax returns,” Lobel says.

But congressional Democrats, if they have their way, intend to do just that.  In May, the House Ways and Means Committee subpoenaed the IRS to hand over six years of Trump’s tax returns as part of an investigation into the agency’s presidential audit program.  By law, the IRS must annually audit the returns of a serving President and Vice President, but, as the panel’s chair, Richard Neal (D-Mass.), wrote in a recent Washington Post op-ed, it’s not clear how much scrutiny these reviews entail.  “Neither Congress nor the public knows anything about the scope of those audits and whether the President can exert undue influence on the IRS to affect his or her tax treatment,” Neal wrote.  “If, for example, the President is already under audit at the time he or she takes office, what happens to that audit?  We don’t know.  My committee will consider legislation regarding the mandatory audit program to ensure these audits are conducted fairly and without undue influence from the commander in chief.  And, as part of our deliberations, we must review his tax information to better understand the audit program and propose any needed changes.”

Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-Texas), a senior Democratic member of the committee, says the tax returns could reveal how Trump does business, including if he and his company have employed dubious tax strategies.  “Lying and tax avoidance appear to be a way of life for Trump,” he notes.  “His tax returns could indicate the role tax-dodging plays in Trump’s overall business strategy.  Perhaps this is another reason why Trump and his Republican enablers are so intent on defying the law to keep them hidden.”

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, who oversees the IRS, has so far rebuffed the Ways and Means Committee’s efforts to obtain Trump’s returns.  In July, the panel sued the Treasury Department and the IRS to force them to comply.  In a recent court filing, the committee revealed a tantalizing bit of information about its inquiry:  A whistleblower had come forward with “credible allegations of ‘evidence of possible misconduct’—specifically, potential ‘inappropriate efforts to influence’ the mandatory audit program.”

Trump’s finances are currently the subject of multiple inquiries in his home state of New York.  Following the New York Times investigation of the questionable tax schemes employed by Trump and his family, a spokesperson for the New York Department of Taxation and Finance said the agency was “vigorously pursuing all appropriate avenues of investigation.”  New York Attorney General Letitia James has also been scrutinizing the financing of several Trump projects.  This investigation was sparked by Michael Cohen, Trump’s former lawyer and fixer, who told Congress earlier this year that Trump had inflated his assets on financial statements used to secure loans.  In March, James subpoenaed records from Deutsche Bank concerning multiple Trump ventures, including the Trump Chicago project.  Her office declined to comment on whether it had subpoenaed Fortress or planned to do so in the future, but James tells Mother Jones in a statement:  “My office takes any allegations of significant tax fraud seriously.  No one is above the law—not even the President of the United States.”

TRUMP - The Grinch That is Stealing America's Soul

"Donald Trump’s Holiday Gift to America: A Fundamental Crisis" by David Corn, Mother Jones 12/20/2017

In a commencement speech years ago, author David Foster Wallace told this story: Two young fish are swimming along, and they pass an older fish swimming the other way.  The older fish says, “Morning, boys, how’s the water?”  The two young fish swim on for a while.  Then one looks at the other and says, “What the hell is water?”  Wallace noted the point of the story was that “the most obvious, ubiquitous, important realities are often the ones that are the hardest to see and talk about."  And that may describe American politics at the moment.  President Donald Trump has brought about a profound crisis that is undermining the nation’s democratic system, and it is so pervasive and encompassing that it is not being fully acknowledged.  It is the water. 

The crisis is not rooted in Trump’s advocacy of conservative policies—the Muslim ban, tax breaks for the wealthy, hollowing out the State Department, killing climate change action.  Nor is it triggered by his rude and classless behavior, as he spends long hours watching cable news, consuming Diet Coke, and rushing to Twitter to attend to petty grievances, instead of working diligently to advance the interests of the citizenry.  The country can survive bad policies and an immature and erratic commander in chief (unless, of course, his recklessness leads to nuclear war).  What the United States faces this holiday season is an unparalleled, widespread, Trump-inspired assault on the principles, norms, and purpose of democratic governance.

Creeping authoritarianism, creeping autocracy, creeping kleptocracy—call it what you want.  But the creep has turned into a sprint.  The offenses to good government and fundamental values are happening each day, often several times a day—and in such a fusillade that there is often not enough time to ponder the horrendous implications of each one.  And not enough space to consider the fundamental deterioration under way.  Another aquatic metaphor: We are too busy being slammed by what’s coming out of the fire hose to see the water damage that is being done.

In recent days—like any set of recent days—the outrages have been many.  During a phone call with Vladimir Putin, Trump, according to a White House “readout,” thanked the Russian leader “for acknowledging America’s strong economic performance in his annual press conference.”  And they discussed working together to “resolve the very dangerous situation in North Korea.”  Apparently they spoke not a word about Russia’s attack on the United States during the 2016 campaign.  Which seems to be the pattern.  Since Trump took office, there has not been a single sign he has pressed Putin regarding Moscow’s operation to subvert American democracy.  And as a much-noticed Washington Post piece pointed out, Trump has throughout the last year adamantly refused to accept the intelligence community’s assessment that Russia engaged in information warfare to help him win the Presidency—and has taken no measures to prevent a rerun.  So here we have an American President abdicating—out of pique—his most fundamental obligation: to protect the nation from foreign attack.  And his party colleagues barely bat an eye at Trump’s negligence.

If a dogcatcher refused to catch dogs, he would be deemed unfit for the position.  But Trump has abdicated the top responsibility of the commander in chief, and this does not scandalize the congressional majority.  The Constitution awards power to the President so he can safeguard the nation.  Trump uses this power to safeguard his own power.

Trump’s reckless disregard for norms and rules has been embraced by his champions and foot soldiers.  Claiming to be a law-and-order sort of guy, he has viciously attacked law enforcement that might affect him and his cronies.  Angered by the ongoing FBI investigation of the Trump-Russia scandal, he claimed the bureau is “in tatters."  And Fox News, a for-profit state news organ, dutifully puts on air a conservative activist who compares the current FBI to the KGB and essentially calls for the entire bureau to be shut down.  (About a year ago, Trump equated the US intelligence community with Nazi Germany.)  Others, on and off Fox, cheer for Trump to become a strongman leader who readily dispatches his perceived enemies.  Though Michael Flynn has pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI, Trump’s minions still rally to the cry of “Lock Her Up” and demonstrate their belief that extremism in the name of defending Trump is no vice.  It’s not just party over country; it’s Trump over party over country.

Trump and his comrades regularly assault the institutions of government that can impose a check on a President.  Trump dismissed FBI chief James Comey in an attempt to protect himself.  And Trump’s congressional allies in the past weeks have intensified their criticisms of special counsel Robert Mueller, devoting far more vitriol to his investigation than to Putin’s secret war on a US election.  The same folks who were fine with over a dozen Benghazi inquiries now look to undermine a duly authorized probe—led by a Republican!—that threatens to reveal truths inconvenient for the President.  And they are eager to shutter or distract the congressional investigations that are supposed to deliver to the public the truth about the 2016 campaign.  These GOPers are joining Trump in embracing political power instead of principle and, like the President, making it easier for a foreign foe to assault the United States and then escape consequences.  This is a violation of their oath of office, and they don’t care.

Meanwhile, special interests run amok on Capitol Hill, writing a tax bill that is jammed through Congress without true and serious deliberation.  There is a recklessness driving this process that is encouraged by Trump.  Debate, discourse, expertise—none of it matters.  All that counts is raw power.  There is no respect for orderly and thoughtful consideration.  Citizen participation is of no significance.  The rich win in this huge, bottom-to-top wealth transfer, as corporate lobbyists wield more influence than economic experts and members of the minority party.  The tax bill will directly reward legislators pushing for it—and Trump and his family.  (A reminder: Trump still has not followed a decades-old practice of Presidential candidates and Presidents releasing their tax returns.)  And Ivanka Trump complains that the Democrats just don’t have the guts to join in the pillaging.  This is absolute and raw class warfare.  And as tax breaks are awarded to the well-heeled, the Children’s Health Insurance Program withers and millions of young Americans lose access to medical care.  Arrogance is in the air.  The driving message: We can do this…because we can.

There is much else going on that tears at the fabric of decent and honest government.  Ethics guidelines are routinely and casually flouted by Trump officials (and relatives).  The message is clear: rules are for others.  Inexperienced people are placed in important jobs (and judgeships), and entire departments are hollowed out.  Agencies are instructed to ignore science and facts—meaning, reality.  The goal is obvious: diminish the reputation of government and its ability to serve the public.  The swamp has grown deeper and wider.

The Christmas lights are shining, but these are dark days.  Trump’s list of legislative accomplishments is short.  His coattails are also short at the moment.  But his malicious soul has spread through the executive branch he commands, infected the judicial branch he fills, and captured the party that controls the legislative branch.  And this soul does not recognize the fundamental values that are supposed to guide the government: accountability and public interest.  His basic view is evident: l’état, c’est Trump.  And too many people in his party have accepted this and enabled him. 

If Trump tries to fire Mueller or orders a reckless attack on North Korea, it will be obvious that a crisis is at hand.  But a (relatively) quiet crisis has taken hold: Trump and his comrades are seeking to empower themselves and supplanting national priorities with self-serving and self-enriching ones, while delegitimizing those components of government they cannot use for their own ends or that would check their own prerogatives.  This corrosion is happening bit by bit every day—as the flashpoint outrages (that is, Trump’s tweets) come and go at hyper-speed and suck up our collective attention.  David Foster Wallace’s fish may not be able to tell they are swimming within water.  But if that water becomes polluted and depleted of oxygen, at some point they damn well will notice.  Trump has poisoned the civic sphere of America, and this crisis will continue to deepen until his contagion is widely viewed as what it is: a threat to the nation.

TRUMP ADMINISTRATION - Not Answering Basic Question

"Look at All the Ways Trump's Staff Is Avoiding Answering This Basic Question" by Nathalie Baptiste, Mother Jones 6/2/2017

Excerpt

They are endorsing a "don't ask, don't tell" policy toward climate denial.

Nobody at the White House seems to have asked President Donald Trump about his position on climate change.  For years, Trump has been calling global warming a hoax, sometimes alleging that it was invented by China.

So why not just confirm that this is still his opinion?  Especially when, after withdrawing the United States from the most important climate deal in history, aides might want to use the opportunity to show that the President understands the basic science.

Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt, and White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer, had several opportunities to share the President's current thinking on the issue.  At Friday's press briefing, four different reporters asked Pruitt four variations on this basic question from ABC's Mary Bruce: "Yes or no, does the President believe that climate change is real and a threat to the United States?"

And four different times, Pruitt basically gave this response: "All the discussions we had over the last several weeks was focused on one singular issue; Is Paris good or not for this country?"

But Pruitt isn't alone.  Over the last several days, many of his closest advisers have revealed they spend no time discussing global warming with the President. 

At Tuesday's press briefing, when a reporter asked if Trump believes that human activity contributes to global warming, Spicer replied, "Honestly, I haven't asked him.  I can get back to you." When he appeared at the podium again on Friday, Spicer still didn't have an answer.

On Thursday, after the Paris decision was announced, CNN asked Gary Cohn, Trump's top economic adviser, whether or not the President believes climate change is real.  "You are going to have to ask him," Cohn responded.

During a press briefing following the Paris announcement, a reporter asked about Trump's beliefs on climate change.  "I have not talked to the President about his personal views on climate change," a White House official said.

Earlier on Friday, Trump's adviser Kellyanne Conway also refused to answer if Trump thinks global warming is a hoax.  When pressed by news anchor George Stephanopolous on 'Good Morning America,' she assured him "The President believes in clean environment, clean air, clean water."

Many of his advisers may not broach climate change with Trump, but recently, K.T. McFarland, his Deputy National Security Adviser, slipped him two Time cover magazine stories about global warming to get the President riled up.

The only problem?  One of the stories turned out to be an internet hoax.

IMHO:  It is very obvious Trump does NOT understand the basic science.  And, worst, he does not care.  He wallows in his ignorance.  This is purely political gamesmanship, 'keeping his campaign promise.'

TRUMP AGENDA - Being Unconstitutional

"Trump Wants To Blame Judges For Terror Attacks" by Ben Dreyfuss, Mother Jones 2/5/2017

On Friday, a federal judge in Seattle put the brakes on Donald Trump's widely-reviled "Muslim Ban." The next day, Trump attacked the judge personally on Twitter.  Later Saturday night, an appellate court rejected the government's request to lift the earlier judge's stay.  So, as of Sunday, Trump's executive order is not being enforced because multiple judges have found it not to pass legal muster.

In response, the president took to Twitter with what may be some of his more ominous statements yet (Tweets):

• Donald J. Trump ? @realDonaldTrump
  The judge opens up our country to potential terrorists and others that do not have our best interests at heart.  Bad people are very happy!
  4:48 PM - 4 Feb 2017
  25,479 25,479 Retweets 112,775 112,775 likes

• Donald J. Trump ? @realDonaldTrump
  Just cannot believe a judge would put our country in such peril.  If something happens blame him and court system.  People pouring in.  Bad!
  12:39 PM - 5 Feb 2017
  18,525 18,525 Retweets 79,676 79,676 likes

• Donald J. Trump ? @realDonaldTrump
  I have instructed Homeland Security to check people coming into our country VERY CAREFULLY.  The courts are making the job very difficult!
  12:42 PM - 5 Feb 2017
  17,509 17,509 Retweets 83,901 83,901 likes

Needless to say, people are not "pouring in."  Only travelers who already had been vetted and issued visas are coming.  (It's really hard to get a visa!)  But if America suffers a terror attack, Trump will blame the judicial branch—which, with Congress largely standing pat, happens to be the one real check on his power, just as the founders intended.  He's telling us this in advance. 

As former Obama aide Jon Lovett put it (Tweet):

• Jon Lovett ? @jonlovett
  Trump signaling his intent to blame checks on his power for terrorist attacks is his most explicit threat against our democratic system yet.
  
  https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/828342202174668800 …
  12:56 PM - 5 Feb 2017
  7,002 7,002 Retweets 9,583 9,583 likes

Trump does NOT comprehend that the Judiciary is a separate, independent, branch of our constitutional government whose function is to tell EVERYONE when they have stepped over constitutional bounds, INCLUDING the President of the United States!  It's the Rule of law!

Mr Trump, you are NOT a king nor a dictator 😡

THE RESISTANCE - Sending In the Wrecking Ball

"Peter's Choice" by Rick Perlstein, Mother Jones Jan/Feb 2017 Issue

I asked my student why he voted for Trump.  The answer was thoughtful, smart, and terrifying.

This past October, I taught a weeklong seminar on the history of conservatism to honors students from around the state of Oklahoma.  In five long days, my nine very engaged students and I got to know each other fairly well.  Six were African American women.  Then there was a middle-aged white single mother, a white kid who looked like any other corn-fed Oklahoma boy and identified himself as "queer," and the one straight white male.  I'll call him Peter.

Peter is 21 and comes from a town of about 3,000 souls.  It's 85 percent white, according to the 2010 census, and 1.2 percent African American—which would make for about 34 black folks.  "Most people live around the poverty line," Peter told the class, and hunting is as much a sport as a way to put food on the table.

Peter was one of the brightest students in the class, and certainly the sweetest.  He liked to wear overalls to school—and on the last day, in a gentle tweak of the instructor, a red "Make America Great Again" baseball cap.  A devout evangelical, he'd preferred former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee at the start of the primary season, but was now behind Donald Trump.

One day the students spent three hours drafting essays about the themes we'd talked about in class.  I invited them to continue writing that night so the next morning we could discuss one of their pieces in detail.  I picked Peter's because it was extraordinary.  In only eight hours he'd churned out eight pages, eloquent and sharp.

When I asked him if I could discuss his essay in this article, he replied, "That sounds fine with me.  If any of my work can be used to help the country with its political turmoil, I say go for it!"  Then he sent me a new version with typos corrected and a postelection postscript: "My wishful hope is that my compatriots will have their tempers settled by Trump's election, and that maybe both sides can learn from the Obama and Trump administrations in order to understand how both sides feel.  Then maybe we can start electing more moderate people, like John Kasich and Jim Webb, who can find reasonable commonality on both sides and make government work." Did I mention he was sweet?

When he read the piece aloud in class that afternoon in October, the class was riveted.  Several of the black women said it was the first time they'd heard a Trump supporter clearly set forth what he believed and why.  (Though, defying stereotypes, one of these women—an aspiring cop—was also planning to vote for Trump.)

Peter's essay took off from the main class reading, Corey Robin's The Reactionary Mind: Conservatism From Edmund Burke to Sarah Palin.  Its central argument is that conservative movements across history are united in their devotion to the maintenance of received social hierarchy.  Peter, whose essay was titled "Plight of the Redneck," had a hard time seeing how that applied to the people he knew.

"We all live out in the wilderness, either in the middle of a forest or on a farm," he wrote.  "Some people cannot leave their homes during times of unfortunate weather.  Many still dry clothes by hanging them on wires with clothespins outside.  These people are nowhere near the top, or even the middle, of any hierarchy.  These people are scraping the bottom of the barrel, and they, seemingly, have nothing to benefit from maintaining the system of order that keeps them at the bottom."  His county ended up going about 70 percent for Trump.

Concerning race, Peter wrote, "In Oklahoma, besides Native Americans, there have traditionally been very few minorities.  Few blacks have ever lived near the town that I am from...Even in my generation, despite there being a little more diversity, there was no racism, nor was there a reason for racism to exist."  His town's 34 or so black people might beg to differ, of course; white people's blindness to racism in their midst is an American tradition.  As one of the African American students in the class—I'll call her Karen—put it, whites in her town see "racism as nonexistent unless they witness it firsthand.  And then it almost has to be over the top—undeniable acts of violence like hate crimes or cross burnings on front lawns—before they would acknowledge it as such."  But it's relevant to the story I'm telling that I'm certain Peter isn't individually, deliberately racist, and that Karen agrees.

Still, Peter's thinking might help us frame a central debate on the left about what to make of Trump's victory.  Is it, in the main, a recrudescence of bigotry on American soil—a reactionary scream against a nation less white by the year?  Or is it more properly understood as an economically grounded response to the privations that neoliberalism has wracked upon the heartland?

Peter knows where he stands.  He remembers multiple factories and small businesses "shutting down or laying off.  Next thing you know, half of downtown" in the bigger city eight miles away "became vacant storefronts."  Given that experience, he has concluded, "for those people who have no political voice and come from states that do not matter, the best thing they can do is try to send in a wrecking ball to disrupt the system."

When Peter finished with that last line, there was a slight gasp from someone in the class—then silence, then applause.  They felt like they got it.

I was also riveted by Peter's account, convinced it might be useful as a counterbalance to glib liberal dismissals of the role of economic decline in building Trumpland.  Then I did some research.

According to the 2010 census, the median household income in Peter's county is a little more than $45,000.  By comparison, Detroit's is about $27,000 and Chicago's (with a higher cost of living) is just under $49,000.  The poverty rate is 17.5 percent in the county and 7.6 percent in Peter's little town, compared with Chicago's 22.7 percent.  The unemployment rate has hovered around 4 percent.

The town isn't rich, to be sure.  But it's also not on the "bottom." Oklahoma on the whole has been rather dynamic economically: Real GDP growth was 2.8 percent in 2014—down from 4.3 percent in 2013, but well above the 2.2 percent nationally.  The same was true of other Trump bastions like Texas (5.2 percent growth) and West Virginia (5.1 percent).

Peter, though, perceives the region's economic history as a simple tale of desolation and disappointment.  "Everyone around was poor, including the churches," he wrote, "and charities were nowhere near (this wasn't a city, after all), so more people had to use some sort of government assistance.  Taxes went up [as] the help became more widespread."

He was just calling it like he saw it.  But it's striking how much a bright, inquisitive, public-spirited guy can take for granted that just is not so.  Oklahoma's top marginal income tax rate was cut by a quarter point to 5 percent in 2016, the same year lawmakers hurt the working poor by slashing the earned-income tax credit.  On the "tax burden" index used by the website WalletHub, Oklahoma's is the 45th lowest, with rock-bottom property taxes and a mere 4.5 percent sales tax.  (On Election Day, Oklahomans voted down a 1-point sales tax increase meant to raise teacher pay, which is 49th in the nation.).

As for government assistance, Oklahoma spends less than 10 percent of its welfare budget on cash assistance.  The most a single-parent family of three can get is $292 a month—that's 18 percent of the federal poverty line.  Only 2,469 of the more than 370,000 Oklahomans aged 18 to 64 who live in poverty get this aid.  And the state's Medicaid eligibility is one of the stingiest in the nation, covering only adults with dependent children and incomes below 42 percent of the poverty level—around $8,500 for a family of three.

But while Peter's analysis is at odds with much of the data, his overall story does fit a national pattern.  Trump voters report experiencing greater-than-average levels of economic anxiety, even though they tend have better-than-average incomes.  And they are inclined to blame economic instability on the federal government—even, sometimes, when it flows from private corporations.  Peter wrote about the sense of salvation his neighbors felt when a Walmart came to town: "Now there were enough jobs, even part-time jobs...  But Walmart constantly got attacked by unions nationally and with federal regulations; someone lost their job, or their job became part-time."

It's worth noting that if the largest retail corporation in the world has been conspicuously harmed by unions and regulations of late, it doesn't show in its profits, which were $121 billion in 2016.  And of course, Walmart historically has had a far greater role in shuttering small-town Main Streets than in revitalizing them.  But Peter's neighbors see no reason to resent it for that.  He writes, "The majority of the people do not blame the company for their loss because they realize that businesses [are about] making money, and that if they had a business of their own, they would do the same thing."

It's not fair to beat up on a sweet 21-year-old for getting facts wrong—especially if, as is likely, these were the only facts he was told.  Indeed, teaching the class, I was amazed how even the most liberal students took for granted certain dubious narratives in which they (and much of the rest of the country) were marinated all year long, like the notion that Hillary Clinton was extravagantly corrupt.

Feelings can't be fact-checked, and in the end, feelings were what Peter's eloquent essay came down to ­— what it feels like to belong, and what it feels like to be culturally dispossessed.  "After continually losing on the economic side," he wrote, "one of the few things that you can retain is your identity.  What it means, to you, to be an American, your somewhat self-sufficient and isolated way of life, and your Christian faith and values.  Your identity and heritage is the very last thing you can cling to...Abortion laws and gay marriage are the two most recent upsets.  The vast majority of the state of Oklahoma has opposed both of the issues, and social values cannot be forced by the government."

On these facts he is correct: In a 2015 poll, 68 percent of Oklahomans called themselves "pro-life," and only 30 percent supported marriage equality.  Until 2016 there were only a handful of abortion providers in the entire state, and the first new clinic to open in 40 years guards its entrance with a metal detector.

Peter thinks he's not a reactionary.  Since that sounds like an insult, I'd like to think so, too.  But in writing this piece, I did notice a line in his essay that I had glided over during my first two readings, maybe because I liked him too much to want to be scared by him.  "One need only look to the Civil War and the lasting legacies of Reconstruction through to today's current racism and race issues to see what happens when the federal government forces its morals on dissenting parts of the country."

The last time I read that, I shuddered.  So I emailed Peter.  "I say the intrusions were worth it to end slavery and turn blacks into full citizens," I wrote.  "A lot of liberals, even those most disposed to having an open mind to understanding the grievances of people like you and yours, will have a hard time with [your words]."

Peter's answer was striking.  He first objected (politely!) to what he saw as the damning implication behind my observation.  Slavery and Reconstruction?  "I was using it as an example of government intrusion and how violent and negative the results can be when the government tries to tell people how to think.  I take it you saw it in terms of race in politics.  The way we look at the same thing shows how big the difference is between our two groups."

To him, focusing on race was "an attention-grabbing tool that politicians use to their advantage," one that "really just annoys and angers conservatives more than anything, because it is usually a straw man attack."  He compared it to what "has happened with this election: everyone who votes for Trump must be racist and sexist, and there's no possible way that anyone could oppose Hillary unless it's because they're sexist.  Accusing racism or sexism eliminates the possibility of an honest discussion about politics."

He asked me to imagine "being one of those rednecks under the poverty line, living in a camper trailer on your grandpa's land, eating about one full meal a day, yet being accused by Black Lives Matter that you are benefiting from white privilege and your life is somehow much better than theirs."

And that's when I wanted to meet him halfway: Maybe we could talk about the people in Chicago working for poverty wages and being told by Trump supporters that they were lazy.  Or the guy with the tamale cart in front of my grocery store—always in front of my grocery store, morning, noon, and night—who with so much as a traffic violation might find himself among the millions whom Trump intends to immediately deport.

I wanted to meet him halfway, until he started talking about history.

"The reason I used the Civil War and Reconstruction is because it isn't a secret that Reconstruction failed," Peter wrote.  "It failed and left the South in an extreme poverty that it still hasn't recovered from."  And besides, "slavery was expensive and the Industrial Revolution was about to happen.  Maybe if there had been no war, slavery would have faded peacefully."

As a historian, I found this remarkable, since it was precisely what all American schoolchildren learned about slavery and Reconstruction for much of the 20th century.  Or rather, they did until the civil rights era, when serious scholarship dismantled this narrative, piece by piece.  But not, apparently, in Peter's world.  "Until urban liberals move to the rural South and live there for probably a decade or more," he concluded, "there's no way to fully appreciate the view."

This was where he left me plumb at a loss.  Liberals must listen to and understand Trump supporters.  But what you end up understanding from even the sweetest among them still might chill you to the bone.

LANGUAGE - What Science Says About Grammar

"Science Says You Can Split Infinitives and Use the Passive Voice" by Chris Mooney, Mother Jones 10/3/2014

Excerpt

Steven Pinker explains why you don't have to follow bogus grammar rules.

Leave it to a scientist to finally explain how to kill off bad writing.

In his new book, The Sense of Style: The Thinking Person's Guide to Writing in the 21st Century., Steven Pinker basically outdoes Strunk and White.  The celebrated Harvard cognitive scientist and psycholinguist explains how to write in clear, "classic" prose that shares valuable information with clarity but never condescension.  And he tells us why so many of the tut-tutting grammar "rules" that we all think we're supposed to follow—don't split infinitives, don't use the passive voice, don't end a sentence with a preposition—are just nonsense.

"There are so many bogus rules in circulation that kind of serve as a tactic for one-upmanship," explains Pinker on the latest episode of the Inquiring Minds podcast.  "They're a way in which one person can prove that they're more sophisticated or literate than someone else, and so they brandish these pseudo-rules."

Unlike past sages of style, Pinker approaches grammar from a scientific perspective, as a linguist.  And that's what leads him to the unavoidable conclusion that language is never set in stone; rather, it is a tool that is constantly evolving and changing, continually adding new words and undoing old rules and assumptions.  "When it comes to correct English, there's no one in charge; the lunatics are running the asylum," writes Pinker in The Sense of Style.

Indeed, Pinker notes with amusement in the book that in every era, there is always somebody complaining about how all the uncouth speakers of the day are wrecking the Queen's English.  It's basically the linguistic equivalent of telling the kids to get off your lawn.  Why does this happen?  "As a language changes from beneath our feet, we feel the sands shifting and always think that it's a deterioration," explains Pinker on the podcast.  "Whereas, everything that's in the language was an innovation at some point in the history of English.  If you're living through the transition, it feels like a deterioration even though it's just a change."

Thus, Pinker notes that in their classic book, The Elements of Style, published in the mid-20th century, Strunk and White instructed writers not to use the verb "to contact."  Look how that turned out for them.

The same framework allows Pinker to explain why so many grammatical "rules" that we all think we have to follow are, in fact, bogus.  His outlook is refreshingly anti-authoritarian:  You don't have to follow supposed grammar rules, he says, unless there is actually a good reason for following them.

Here, then, is a brief but highly liberating list of glorious rule-breaking activities that Pinker says you should feel free to engage in:

Do split infinitives.  For Pinker, the idea that you cannot split infinitives—for example, the classic complaint that Star Trek was wrong to describe the Starship Enterprise's mission as "to boldly go where no man has gone before"; it should have been "to go boldly" or "boldly to go"—is "the quintessential bogus rule."

"No good writer in English has ever followed it consistently, if you do follow it it makes your prose much worse," Pinker explained on Inquiring Minds.

Indeed, according to Pinker, this is a rather striking case in which the alleged prohibition seems to be mostly perpetuated by urban legend or word of mouth.  It doesn't even seem to be seriously asserted as a rule by any supposed style experts.  "This rule kind of levitates in mid-air, there's actually no support even from the style manuals," adds Pinker.