Why Trump's tax revelations shouldn't change anything
While Republicans and Democrats stick to their respective positions, not sure the New York Times revelations are enough to change the game.
New twist in the American countryside. In a long article published Sunday evening, The New York Times looked at the financial health of Donald Trump's real estate empire. This investigation shows that the Trump Organization has suffered record losses in recent years, and increased tax optimization maneuvers.
The New York daily also reveals that Donald Trump paid only $ 750 in federal taxes in the year of his election in 2016, then the same amount in 2017. The billionaire also paid no taxes for 10 of the previous 15 years "largely because he reported more money losses than gains," writes The New York Times.
To lower the bill, Donald Trump did not hesitate to apply deductions for his residences, his private plane and even for his hairdressing costs before his television appearances. "Donald Trump has had a lot more success playing a business mogul than being one in real life," concludes the New York Times, referring to the businessman he played on the reality TV show The Apprentice .
Irremovable popularity among its supporters
If the blow is hard for the American president who had erected his personal success in campaign argument, not sure at this stage that these revelations do not really upset the electoral battle. "Since the start of Donald Trump's presidency, the impact of the various scandals that have affected him has always been negligible because his base of voters has always remained loyal to him against all odds," analysis for the Lauric Express Henneton, lecturer at the University of Versailles Saint-Quentin, and author of the book The American dream put to the test of Donald Trump (Ed. Vendemiaire).
It is true that despite the bad times that have followed each other for several months, Donald Trump's popularity curve has shown astonishing stability. According to the Gallup Institute, 42% of Americans still approve of the policy pursued by the US president, according to the latest measurement in mid-September. This rate has even risen slightly since the start of the school year, when they were 41% at the end of July and even 39% at the beginning of June.
Yet at the same time, the bad news followed at a rather maddening pace for the tenant of the White House, between the devastating impact of Covid-19 in the United States, Bob Woodward's book on his hazardous management of the pandemic, the riots in several cities against police violence, the book provided by his ex-advisor John Bolton, that of his niece ...
In any case, his Democratic opponents did not fail to seize this new affair on the fly. Joe Biden's team thus recalled in a tweet the average amounts of federal tax paid by various professions: $ 7,239 for a teacher, $ 5,283 for a firefighter, $ 10,216 for a nurse ... House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi has also gone on the offensive. "The New York Times report shows how President Trump has deployed a wealth of ingenuity to play around with the Tax Code and avoid paying his fair share, while Americans are working hard," she accused in a press release.
Teachers paid $7,239
— Team Joe (Text JOE to 30330) (@TeamJoe) September 28, 2020
Firefighters paid $5,283
Nurses paid $10,216
Donald Trump paid $750 pic.twitter.com/5YE1cbYsBN
But for Lauric Henneton, these revelations may not go beyond the stage of stabbing in the water. "Partisan identifications are incredibly consolidated, and each camp is in a mechanism of confirming its own beliefs. So among the Democrats, these revelations will confirm the negative view they already had of Donald Trump. And conversely the Republicans will resume the Trumpist rhetoric according to which it is only false information intended to cause harm to their candidate ", he judges.
Donald Trump strikes back
And on this last point, Donald Trump has just resumed his classic line of defense. "This is bogus information, totally invented", he swept during a press conference Sunday at the White House. "I paid a lot, and I paid a lot of income taxes at the state level as well," he then added without elaborating further.
"There is a real distrust of the mainstream press in Donald Trump's electorate and he has capitalized on it since his 2016 campaign. So the more the establishment hits him, the more it comforts his voters in their view of the world that these are hostile machinations against their president ", decrypts Lauric Henneton.
The billionaire has also given a layer on Monday during his usual morning tweets session. “The fake news media, like in the 2016 election, talks about my taxes and all kinds of nonsense with information obtained illegally and only with bad intentions. I paid several million dollars in taxes but I 'was entitled, like everyone else, to depreciation and tax credits, "he defended himself before claiming to be" extremely under-indebted ".
Riddled with debt or not, it remains to be seen what impact these revelations will have on the undecided. But it is clear that they are not very numerous. According to a national NewYorkTimes / Siena poll released on Sunday, only 7% of voters say they do not know who they will vote for or even if they will vote. A much lower percentage than those usually recorded at this stage of the election.
