Trump’s Biggest Con: Pretending He’s on the Side of Working Men and Women

Donald Trump has always been a con man. As a businessman, he left behind a trail of investors who lost money in failed ventures even as he profited, students who paid thousands for worthless courses, unpaid contractors and more. Even amid his current presidential campaign he has been hawking overpriced gold sneakers and Trump Bibles printed in China.

But Trump’s biggest, potentially most consequential con has been political: portraying himself as a different kind of Republican, an ally of working Americans. This self-portrait has been successful so far, notably in gaining Trump significant support among working-class people of color — although the carnival of racism at his Sunday rally at Madison Square Garden in New York, in which a comedian opened the event by describing Puerto Rico as an “island of garbage” and made a watermelon joke in reference to a Black man, may dent that support in the campaign’s closing days.

The truth is that to the extent that Trump’s policy plans — or, in some cases, concepts of plans — differ from G.O.P. orthodoxy, it’s because they are even more antilabor and pro-plutocrat than his party’s previous norm.

Background: Since the 1970s our two main political parties have diverged sharply on economic ideology. In general, Democrats favor higher taxes on the rich and a stronger social safety net; Republicans favor lower taxes on corporations and the wealthy paid for in part by cutting social programs.

Kamala Harris is, in this sense, a normal Democrat, calling for tax hikes that would primarily affect high-income Americans while expanding tax credits for families with children; she has also proposed expanding Medicare to cover home health care for seniors, which would be a big deal for millions of families.

An aside: I really don’t understand people who claim that Harris hasn’t supplied enough policy detail. All I can think is that they’re looking for something to complain about so they can sound evenhanded.