Donald Trump and the Republican Party know they’re in trouble.
The president’s approval is underwater amid an intractable war against Iran and the resulting affordability crisis. The GOP has all but entirely sold itself out to MAGA, which means its prospects for midterm success are not looking good. In a move reeking of desperation, the party put together a high-profile, first-of-its-kind convention, held this week in Dallas, but many of the Republican candidates in competitive races skipped out on the event, given that it was surely to turn into a party celebrating the albatross around their necks: Trump.
Trump addressed the convention Wednesday night, and in a move even more desperate than the event itself, promised to give every American adult a $5,000 “dividend” — but only if Republicans retain control of the House and Senate in November. In other words, he feels the only way Americans will vote for candidates who support his unpopular agenda is to bribe them.
“We’re making a fortune,” he said, referring to tariffs. “If the Republicans win, you win with us and you get $5,000. It will be called the Trump dividend. Congratulations.”
Is this a bribe? Well, Republicans currently control both the House and the Senate, so if they were really concerned with helping Americans weather the affordability crisis, you would think they would simply pass this now. Of course, they are not concerned with the affordability crisis (something Trump has called a hoax) beyond how it may impact them staying in power, so they’re only going to help you if you help them first
Also: They’re not actually going to help you.
Sending a $5,000 check to every American adult would cost well over a trillion dollars, many times the total tariff “revenue” the nation has amassed while raising costs for consumers. Don’t tell JD Vance, though.
“[Tariffs] have generated a lot of revenue. They’ve helped us pay down debt,” the vice president told Bret Baier of Fox News when asked about the improbability of the promise. “What the president is saying is if you keep us in power and allow us to continue to do these things, you’re going to share in some of the benefits of this incredible wealth we’re creating.”
This isn’t the first time Trump has tried to curry favor by promising Americans a cash payout. He promised $2,000 tariff dividends last year, but they never materialized. Nor did his proposed DOGE dividends, which were supposed to have been drawn from all of the money Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency saved by cutting foreign aid programs and hollowing out the rest of the federal government. Republicans were also highly critical of Covid-era stimulus payments as a major contributor to the inflationary spike experienced during President Joe Biden’s years in office.
There was never any money to finance these payments, though, just like there isn’t any money to finance giving every American thousands of dollars if they vote Republican. The national deficit Republicans say they’re so concerned with has soared since Trump retook office, in part because of the war against Iran and in part because Republicans only actually care about the deficit when Democrats are in power. If the nation was overflowing with spare cash to distribute, Trump and Republicans would just do it now instead of dangling a phantom carrot in front of voters in a cheap, transparent ploy to stay in power.
