Campaign damage control: handling the Trump macho hustle

Sam Smith - Part of the appeal of Donald Trump is that he's a clever macho guy who's made a lot of money and had a lot of sex with beautiful women. But if this is the sort of thing that you admire, you may also see yourself as a clever macho guy and one thing that could easily damage your self image would be an easy victim of con jobs.

Therefore the dump Trump crowd might find it useful to emphasize the Trump cons not just because of their intrinsic falseness but because if you are a real man you don't get taken in by things like this.

To those who would find such an argument sexist, I'd point out that elections about reaching people where they are, not where you want them to be. And playing the Trump macho card against him would be a good place to start.

For example, the Daily Beast reported:

Three months ago Donald Trump held a fundraiser for wounded veterans and apparently raised $6 million. But most of that money has yet to be distributed... Back in January Trump skipped an Iowa presidential debate due to a tiff with Fox News, instead holding a fundraiser for veterans charities. According to the campaign, this event raised some $6 million, to be distributed to 22 listed veterans charities.

Questions have lingered about whether that money has actually been dispense to those charities—since the fundraiser, numerous media organizations have investigated whether the charities have received the $6 million. The investigations span the ideological spectrum: the progressive MSNBC and the conservative Weekly Standard have been unable to find all the funds; as have The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, CNN, and The Daily Beast.

The money simply hasn’t been found.
 
In early March, CNN was able to track down $2.9 million, citing the Trump campaign. In early April, The Wall Street Journal traced $2.4 million of the promised funds.

What these investigations have yielded is a solid conclusion that, thus far, Donald Trump and his nonprofit have dispensed, at maximum, about half of the $6 million to the listed beneficiaries. Nearly three months—85 days—have passed since the fundraiser.

This may not seem a big issue to feminists or other draft-free upscale liberals, but to a lot of American males to whom Trump looks appealing, real men don't con veterans.