Trump’s candidacy marks death of the party of personal responsibility

Donald Trump thinks I’m stupid.

There are probably a lot of reasons he thinks I’m stupid, but right now I’m going to focus on just one.

{mosads}In an almost unbelievable exchange during Monday night’s first presidential debates, Hillary Clinton suggested, based on the only two years of tax returns anyone has seen, that Donald Trump has refused to release his taxes because he doesn’t pay income tax. Trump’s jaw-dropping, four-word response (which came in the form of yet another interruption) was probably the quote of the night, and doubtlessly sent attack ad writer’s hearts into palpitations.

“That makes me smart.”

Well, Donald. What does that make me? Because for the last eight years, I’ve run my own small business as an independent contractor. First as an insurance agent and marketer, later as a published novelist, and most recently as a stand-up comic and political columnist.

During most of that time, I’ve made a comfortable middle-class income. Working as an independent, I’ve paid federal income taxes, state taxes, Medicare and SSDI, and the dreaded self-employment tax.

Last year, I paid an effective income tax rate of 38 percent. Do I think that’s excessive?

Honestly, yes, I do. I think the quickest way to spur small business incubation would be to simply get rid of the self-employment tax, which seems to be nothing more than a tax penalty for striking out on your own.

But I have not complained, and while I’ve gotten very good at tracking expenses to write of, I’ve paid everything I owe. Because of the uneven spacing of my income, I’ve not always made my quarterly payment exactly on time, but I’ve paid the late fees without complaint as well.

In Donald Trump’s mind, I’m a real sucker. Paying the taxes that keep our government and society functioning is for dumb losers. Mere minutes after complaining about our nation’s crumbling roads, bridges, airports, and military, and demanding something be done, a billionaire running for President actually boasted about sticking the rest of us with the repair bill.

But of course as we’ve learned, that’s Trump’s modus operandi. In testimony after testimony, we’ve heard from Trump’s contractors, engineers, caterers, painters, piano shops, that Trump has simply refused to pay them the money they are rightfully owed and abused the court system into forcing them to accept less. Small businesses operating on narrow margins trapped between the equally unappealing prospects of not getting paid what they deserve, or spending years and untold thousands tied up in civil litigation against one of the most powerful men in the country.

What happened to the concept of personal responsibility within the ranks of conservative Republicans that this man has become their standard bearer?

Personal responsibility used to be the buzzwords right alongside individual liberty that formed the cornerstones of the conservative movement. It was understood that you couldn’t have one without the other. People are expected to keep their word, and yes, that included paying their bills. During the housing crash (which Donald also gloated about as good for business) did conservatives blame the investment banks for lending out tens of billions in subprime loans and Adjustable Rate Mortgages to people they knew were enormously risky, only to repackage the debt to hide its true risk in order to slap an ‘A’ rating on it before reselling the toxic bonds to unwary institutional investors? No, the blame lay at the feet of the poor folk who were targeted by the banks and tricked into believing they too could finally participate in the American dream of homeownership. It was their fault for falling behind on payments when they got sick, or lost a job, or saw their ARM rate go through the roof. It was their responsibility to pay their debts, after all.

So then what of Trump? How have these same people gotten behind a man who doesn’t just fail to be embarrassed by his tax delinquency, but has actually flipped the script and is pushing the narrative that not paying taxes is a virtuous act? Does the same logic apply to the working poor relying on government benefits for survival who make so little thanks to our absurdly low minimum wage that they don’t pay income taxes either?

Nor are Trump’s failings limited to his refusal to pay his share for the smooth functioning of the society that enabled his vast wealth. Indeed, Donald Trump has never taken personal responsibility for anything. Everything is the fault of someone else. His multiple bankruptcies, which are just another way he’s exploited American taxpayers, weren’t failures of his business vision or leadership, they were clever ways to preserve his wealth and resources using loopholes in the law. Which he gladly used because he’s too smart to pay those debts either.

When pressed on the federal civil rights lawsuit that first put his family’s business interests on the national stage, Donald had the interminable gall to gloat in the fact the case was settled out of court and “There was never any admission of guilt,” as if lifting a line directly from the villain at the end of a John McTiernan movie, right before the hero shoots the gas tank behind him or something.

It is never Trump’s responsibility. Not when he screws over employees, contractors, shareholders, taxpayers, or even wives. Indeed, it’s not even Trump’s responsibility when he screws over Trump. Within an hour, one hour, of uttering the now infamous words “That makes me smart,” he was already claiming to reporters that he never said it. That his mic was malfunctioning. That Lester Holt was biased. Anything to shift responsibility after shooting himself right through the foot with a large-caliber handgun in front of the largest audience he has ever faced.

At this point, to call Donald Trump a farce is to besmirch the good names and talents of satirists, playwrights, directors, authors, and humorists of all stripes. There’s nothing funny anymore about this man. The best case scenario is, in the aftermath, the only institution he leaves a burning wreckage will be the once proud party that set aside all of its core principles in order to lash their yolk to a faux-populist, proto-fascist who lacks even the basic human decency to display embarrassment after getting caught with his arm elbow deep in the nation’s cookie jar.

No, Donald J. Trump, not paying your taxes doesn’t make you smart. It makes you a welfare queen. But don’t worry, you’ll pay up in November.

Tomlinson is an author and comedian. Follow him @stealthygeek.

The views expressed by Contributors are their own and are not the views of The Hill.