Deliver us from America’s huckster-in-chief

“May I be honest; may I be decent; may I be unaffected by the technique of hucksters,” John Steinbeck once wrote in a letter to a friend. “May I for a little while, only for a little while, see with the inflamed eyes of a God.”

With the possibility of a huckster returning to the White House and subordinating public service to personal interests, Steinbeck’s prayer seems urgently relevant.

Evidence of Donald Trump’s grifts — great and grotesque — is difficult to miss.

In February, amidst widespread discussion of Alexei Navalny’s death, a looming government shutdown and battlefield losses by Ukraine while a military assistance package is stalled in the House, Trump hawked sneakers at a convention in Philadelphia.

At a price of $399 a pair, the limited edition of 1,000 “Never Surrender High Top” sneakers feature a large “T” on the side and a U.S. flag on the collar. At least 10 autographed pairs were offered to “go-getters who don’t know the word quit … true Patriots.” The sneakers’ website, which also sells Trump-branded shoes, cologne and perfume, claims that the product has “nothing to do with any political campaign.”

In December 2023, customers who shelled out $4,600 received a small piece of the suit Trump wore for his mugshot in Fulton County, Georgia. Digital trading cards in a “Mugshot Edition,” with pop art depictions of Trump, cost $99 apiece; baseball caps, $50; mugshot-themed wrapping paper, $35; socks, $25 a pair. In just a few days, the Trump campaign raked in $9.4 million in mugshot memorabilia.

The MAGA media echo chamber provided free advertising for these products, often accompanied by offensive racial stereotypes about their appeal. The high tops, declared Fox News contributor Raymond Arroyo, connected the Trump campaign with inner-city Black people, “because they love sneakers.” Many Black men, claimed Real America’s Voice host Grant Stinchfield, find Trump’s arrest and mugshot “endearing,” and Dinesh D’Souza tweeted that mugshots “can be an iconic symbol” in “the urban black community.” On Feb. 23, Trump asserted, “I’m being indicted for you, the Black population.” Black people “embraced” his mugshot, he added, “more than anybody else.”

These grifts are part of a pattern. In 2020, several months into the pandemic, Trump’s daughter Ivanka, then a senior advisor to the president, posted a photo of herself with a can of Goya beans and a caption in English and Spanish, “If it’s Goya it has to be good.” She was criticized for violating a rule prohibiting federal employees from using their positions “to endorse any product, service or enterprise.” The next day Trump, who had recently been praised by Goya CEO Robert Unanue, gave a thumbs up on Instagram to several Goya products set in front of him on the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office.

When he was elected president, Trump refused to divest himself of his corporate assets and properties or place them in a blind trust, as his predecessors had done. After requesting two extensions for reporting foreign trademark agreements, Trump revealed after he left the White House that he and Ivanka had negotiated hundreds of them (before and during his presidency) for rights to initiate businesses in real estate, hotel branding, golf courses, beauty pageants, deodorants, lash extensions, video games and — believe it or not — voting machines. 114 trademark agreements were with China; others involved countries, including Venezuela, Iran, Cuba, and Russia, that had been sanctioned by the U.S. government.

Twenty countries paid a total of $7.8 million to Trump businesses and properties while he was president — a possible violation of the Constitution, which prohibits a president from receiving an “emolument” or profit from any “King, Prince or foreign state” without approval by Congress. The expenditures certainly created conflicts of interest, as Trump himself implied in 2015, when he bragged that Saudis “buy apartments from me. They spend $40 million, $50 million. Am I supposed to dislike them? I like them very much!”

President Trump, it’s worth noting, did not sanction Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman, even though U.S. intelligence agencies concluded with “high confidence” that he had ordered the murder of Saudi dissident Jamal Khashoggi, a columnist for the Washington Post. In 2022, the Saudis invested $2 billion in the private equity firm of Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, and an architect of Trump’s (Saudi-friendly) Middle East policies.

People of good will disagree about whether the $355 million fine imposed by Judge Arthur Engoron in Trump’s civil trial in New York is excessive. But it’s hard to argue with Engoron’s claim that “the frauds leap off the page and shock the conscience.”

Trump, for example, lied about the size of his apartment (30,000 square feet instead of 11,000); the market value of his 40 Wall Street condo ($530 million, instead of half of that); an increase in the value of 12 rent stabilized units in Trump’s Park Avenue condo (from $750,000 in 2010 to $50 million in 2012). Trump’s excuse — that everybody in real estate does it — is the last refuge of a huckster forced to defend the indefensible.

Almost $50 million of campaign funds raised in 2023 went to pay Trump’s legal fees. Using them for this purpose is probably legal, but shouldn’t a candidate who claims he’s a billionaire feel obliged to explain to working and middle-class donors why he’s spending their money, not his own, to pay his lawyers?

Not if that candidate claims to be the voice of Americans who feel “wronged and betrayed,” but is, in fact, looking out for Number One and only Number One — while taking their votes and their money as long as he can get away with it.

Glenn C. Altschuler is the Thomas and Dorothy Litwin Emeritus Professor of American Studies at Cornell University.