OPINION:
President Donald Trump has turned political attention in recent days to tax reform, promising via Twitter to make the “so badly needed” cuts and changes that Americans want.
Well and good. But what of Obamacare?
What of tough border crackdowns?
These are the issues that powered up the Trump Train. Tax reform? Yawn.
That’s a political in-fight best left to the pocket-protector people. Put another way: Americans just aren’t going to leap from their seats in excitement over changes to the tax code.
But an Obamacare repeal bill — a few photographs here, a couple of cleverly shot videos there, of a group of construction workers busily building a border wall? Now there’s a Trump crowd pleaser.
Politics is people-oriented, and nobody — nobody — knows that better than Trump. His celebrity star, his blunt manner of speaking, his “I got your back” message to Americans that was reflected not only in his stage mannerisms but also in his brilliantly simple campaign mantra, Make America Great Again, that spawned an entire hat line — all this plus an angry electorate tired of status quo self-interested politicians, helped push Trump across the finish line.
It’s his ability to resonate with the common man and woman of the country that draws his supporters. It’s his willingness to fight, fight, fight — his vow to drain the swamp — that people want.
Repeal Obamacare — simple, to the point.
Build a wall — once again, easy to understand, to the point.
Now say this one out loud: Reform taxes.
See the difference? Boring. Come back at tax season with the message. Amid a flurry of paperwork and filings, pen-throwing and cursing — when it’s remembered that EZ forms used to take 15 minutes to complete, not 45 or more — maybe then tax code reform might be the words that resonate.
But now? Americans who supported Trump want to see a border wall built — and they want to see just how this president is going to get Mexico to pay for it. They want to see Obamacare fall flat on its face, yanked by its roots — and they want to be able to talk among themselves with glee about the killing of Barack Obama’s signature piece of legislation.
Most of all, Trump supporters want to feel like they won — like all these years of putting up with RINOs in the House and Republican compromisers in the Senate wasn’t for naught, and that in the end, true conservative principles can indeed rise to the top.
Trump represented — and still does — a tenacious, take-no-prisoners fighter for the common American. And tax reform just ain’t tapping that dream.
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