Trump Tax Revelations Target the Hearts of Voters Who Led Him to the White House

While waiting for what the last month of a campaign full of unusual shocks may still bring, the surprise of October of the 2020 elections has fallen in September and in the form of a journalistic exclusive.

Disclosures by

about the tax returns of Trump, who did not pay income tax in 10 of the last 15 years and who only spent $ 750 the year he began his presidential career, point to the waterline of Trumpism and have the potential to become one of those events that burst into the final stretch of the campaign and can influence its outcome.

From the information, which the

began to publish this Sunday, it is clear that the personal and professional history that the president sells to citizens differs greatly from that reported to the tax authorities.

The coveted documents obtained by the

which has decided not to share them to protect its sources, offer according to the newspaper the portrait of a businessman haunted by debt, whose financial situation has improved substantially in the five years since he began his presidential career, thanks to the increase in activity in some of the hotels and golf clubs that are part of a business emporium from which he refused to disassociate himself upon reaching the White House, generating potential conflicts of interest.

Trump's behavior, always according to the

has been that of a businessman who makes millions of dollars every year, but accumulates chronic losses that he uses, through aggressive fiscal techniques, to avoid paying taxes.

The revelations have the potential to deepen the gap between the Republican president and the working-class electorate, especially in states with an industrial fabric battered by globalization, which will be key in the November 3 elections.

Those voters who felt abandoned by the

political

after the Great Recession and heard the message of Trump four years ago, who wanted to identify with them in that rejection of the elites and promised to fight for their jobs based on protectionism.

The image of a president who for decades tried to present himself as a hugely successful businessman, but who actually suffered to keep his businesses afloat, employed aggressive fiscal engineering to avoid contributing to the public finances and may have taken advantage of the political power that They gave him those voters to clean up their finances, it will resonate with workers who already see that, despite the promises, four years of Trump have not improved, but in many cases worsened, their economic situation.

In particular, the $ 750 figure, the amount of federal income taxes that Trump paid in 2016 and 2017, offers Democrats a powerful and simple stamp that they will try to impress on the minds of voters.

The figure will screech those workers whose lifestyles are far from the glitz and luxury associated with President Trump, yet pay more than he does in federal taxes.

This was highlighted in a tweet by popular congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who claims to have paid thousands of dollars in federal taxes in those same years, while working as a waitress.

"She has done less to fund our communities than waiters and undocumented immigrants," said the Trump congresswoman.

The campaign of Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden soon released a video showing the usual income taxes paid by elementary school teachers, firefighters and nurses, which amount to thousands of dollars annually.

Neither does revelations such as that he deducted $ 70,000 in hairstyling expenses for his television show

from his taxes

That image of a president so far removed from the concerns of the working class he claims to rule over constitutes valuable ammunition for Biden, who this Tuesday faces Trump face to face in the first of three presidential debates.

The debate will take place precisely in Ohio, one of those states with strong industrial weight that Trump took four years ago and in which Biden now has a slight advantage in the polls.

In the first of the thematic blocks, dedicated to the personal trajectory of both candidates, Biden now has new artillery to find the contrast between the figure of the unscrupulous businessman from New York and his own working-middle-class origins in a State of the same industrial belt like Pennsylvania.

Trump does much better on offense than on defense.

For this reason, the president's team has gone on the attack this Monday.

Alan Garten, a lawyer for the Trump Organization, published a statement in which he assures that the information is "full of gross inaccuracies", and frames the publication of the story in "a smear campaign prior to the elections."

White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany accused Democrats of reinterpreting "the same script that they tested in 2016, and that the American people rejected and will reject again."

The president himself has described the information as "false news" and has attacked in a thread of tweets against the newspaper, which he accuses of proceeding "with information obtained illegally and only malicious intentions."

He assures that he paid "many millions of dollars" in taxes but "was entitled, like everyone else, to depreciation and deductions."

For the undecided vote

Trump has politically survived other equally devastating revelations, such as recordings in which he bragged about touching women's genitals without their permission.

That tape was released in October 2016, also two days before Trump faced his then-Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton, in a debate.

The difference is that, on this occasion, the information bomb comes at a particularly bad time for the president's expectations of re-election, who has been behind his rival in polls for months, both at the national level and in some of the decisive states .

The pandemic has robbed Trump of the main argument he had for reelection, the vigor of the economy, and his campaign is failing to counter criticism of his management of the health crisis.

The extreme political polarization that the country is experiencing does not contribute to the proliferation of undecided voters and has turned the Trumpist rank and file, which have remained remarkably loyal in these four years, into a bloc that seems impregnable.

But this October surprise, coming in late September, points to the very heart of those workers from Midwestern industrial states who four years ago brought Trump to the White House.

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