Mark Jackson

MAGA fundraiser David Sacks’ recent open letter explaining his support for Trump over Biden got it wrong on just about every count, awkwardly regurgitating pro-Trump groupthink. David makes four specious main points: (1) Trump’s legal troubles result from Joe Biden’s puppeteering (“lawfare”); (2) America’s economy is struggling due to Biden’s leadership (“the A/B test”); (3) Biden should fear Russia too much to keep supporting Ukraine; (4) Trump had an “orderly process of legal immigration” that Biden disrupted. Let’s compare these claims to some easily knowable and known facts. 1) Biden isn’t the reason Trump is a convicted felon. What’s more likely: That Joe Biden controls the actions of diverse local judges, prosecutors, and jurors – a charge for which there is no evidence? Or that Donald Trump is simply a criminal -- a charge for which the evidence is abundant? Trump became a convicted felon in New York City, where he lived for 73 years. His own lawyers signed off on the 12 jurors, who unanimously agreed Trump committed all 34 felony counts. (As I’ve explained elsewhere (bit.ly/45Qghyh), these are serious crimes that should disqualify him from leadership roles in business or politics.) Meanwhile, in the Hunter investigation, President Biden kept a Trump-appointed prosecutor on the case, before a Trump-appointed federal judge. When a jury convicted Hunter of felonies, the President promised not to pardon him. Joe Biden believes in the rule of law. Courts and juries aren’t perfect, but they are the best system we have for defending the rule of law against powerful criminals. Trump toadies attack America when they attack our courts and juries. 2) America has a successful economy and President. America today has the world’s greatest economy. Of course it’s not perfect. There’s no such thing. But our economy under Joe Biden is the strongest on the planet. David helpfully sets out to compare the economic performances of presidents 45 and 46. He explains that “In tech, we call this an A/B test.” Great! I know how this one works. We just look at the data. When Biden & Obama took office in 2009, they inherited an economy deep in crisis. We called it the Great Recession. When they peacefully stepped down in 2017, the US was in a 6th straight year of economic expansion. Unemployment below 5%. Stock markets up >150%. That’s what Donald Trump inherited; then he left office four years later as the first President since Hoover to oversee a net loss of jobs. Under Trump, crime was up. The national debt skyrocketed. Even before the pandemic, Trump had grown the federal deficit nearly 50%, to $1 trillion. Joe Biden promised to bring America back from by bringing us together, and that’s what happened. He worked with both parties to pass critical recovery and infrastructure bills. Crime and unemployment are near 50-year lows. The Dow has hit an all-time high. And a recent IMF report says US economic dominance will keep growing – double any other rich country. To sum up: (a) Biden and Obama grew the economy handily; (b) Trump’s violent, chaotic, one-party approach blew it up and crushed us with debt; and (c) After four more steady Biden years, America has the world’s strongest economy again. Looks like David is reading his A/B test results backwards. In tech, we call this "being wrong." And now Trump 2024 is seriously and literally promising tariff trade wars and deficit expansions that risk hyperinflation. The macroeconomic case for Biden vs. Trump is embarrassingly one-sided. But David wants to go back to Casino Bankruptcy Don? Hard pass. 3) Trump’s 2nd term would be disastrous for world peace. If you hate war, today is the best time ever to have lived. Thank Pax Americana, the international system we built after defeating the Nazis. In that system, nations that invade their neighbors pay consequences. That’s been true from FDR, to NATO, to JFK, to Reagan, to Bush 41, and now Joe Biden. And Americans have benefited enormously. Russian arch-criminal Vladimir Putin hates Pax Americana because he wants to break international law without consequence, and bring America down. In 1994, Ukraine agreed to give up the Soviet nuclear weapons on its soil in exchange for a treaty with Russia and America promising to protect its borders. Today, Putin’s unprovoked invasion has killed, injured, raped, and displaced millions of innocents. We already know how obediently Trump echoes Putin’s propaganda. Now David joins him. They say Putin’s invasion of Ukraine was somehow America’s fault – because in their minds apparently anything other than a flaccid US somehow forces Russia to invade other countries. Appeasement doesn’t work with autocrats like Putin. Trump may not know this, but David ought to. 4) Trump 2024 would make border chaos worse. Without irony, David describes Trump’s 2017-2020 border policy as “an orderly process” that elevated “the principles of American leadership.” We here in the boring old fact-based community remember it as chaotic, bad for business, and un-American. Trump cut legal immigration, including green cards and visas we in business needed. Remember his call for a “total and complete” ban on all Muslims? Remember him separating toddlers from their migrant parents? Some haven’t been reunited even now. But he was sure great at talking about building a wall. (Not so much at actually building one.) Trump 2024 has promised even crazier: military deployments in US cities, mass concentration camps, mass deportations. Volatile, impractical, unethical, illegal: the four horsemen of the Trumpocalpyse. Joe Biden works differently. Backing a tough new law to bring order to the border, he got congressional Democrats to work with deep-red Sen. Jim Lankford (R-OK). They came to bipartisan agreement, and struck a deal. You know – what a functioning, pro-business government is supposed to do. And then, Trump sabotaged it. Literally, he ordered Republicans to block Lankford’s deal from even getting a vote. Border security isn’t a political toy. If wealthy donors like David want order at the border, they should back leaders who can work together to deliver.