Trumps Very Ordinary Indifference to the Common Good – The Atlantic

Read: What are the Panama Papers?

Trumps name came up more than 3,500 times in the documents; although he was not implicated in any wrongdoing, many of his customers, business partners, and other associates were. The Panama Papers, still the largest data leak in history, sketched a picture of elites in revolt: a growing refusal of obligation to the societies that had allowed them to become wealthy and powerful. That point was underscored 19 months later by the Paradise Papers, another offshore leak involving prominent figures as varied as Queen Elizabeth II and Trumps secretary of commerce, Wilbur Ross. Both leaks showed that the offshore economy had produced something dangerous to the rest of us: a noblesse without the oblige. They also showed that the phenomenon was global.

As part of my research, I interviewed 65 wealth managers in 18 tax havens. Their clients used offshore tools to facilitate a way of life not only luxurious but libertineone that exempted them from what most average people would regard as basic obligations to society, and gave them the freedom to do what might get other people in trouble. In other words, they aspire to the same lifestyle Trump has exemplified for decades, including his tax dodging and the gold-plated bathroom fixtures on his private jet. Although he is undeniably different from his recent predecessors in the Oval Officeparticularly in his swaggering defiance of laws he swore to uphold and protect on Inauguration DayTrump is the ideal representative of the elite insurgency. His offhand remark while filming Access Hollywood 15 years ago could serve as the unofficial motto for the whole offshore world: When youre a star, they let you do it. You can do anything.

David A. Graham: Trump is flaunting his impunity

A similar ethos was expressed more eloquently by a Geneva-based wealth manager I interviewed; she spoke of her clients as people above nationality and laws. Another in the Cayman Islands described his offshore clientele as a pretty global bunch, with a lot more in common with each other than with the people of their own countries. To study the offshore world, I needed to enter it fully, so I spent two years training to become a wealth manager myself. The job, I learned, consists of law avoidancehelping clients dodge creditors and legal judgments, along with the claims of ex-spouses and disgruntled heirs, is as much a part of the wealth managers role as facilitating tax evasion. The result was, as I wrote in The Atlantic in 2015, a libertarian fantasy made real.

Since entering politics, Trump has followed the elite-insurgency playbook, not just refusing accountability, but flaunting his impunity. In 2016, he bragged that paying little in taxes made him smart. The novelty of his defiance lay in its openness. Only four years previously, the GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney had sounded defensive when conceding that he had legally reduced his income-tax rate to 14 percent. I pay all the taxes that are legally required and not a dollar more, he said in a debate. Then came Trump. Far from explaining or apologizing where his taxes were concerned, he simply scoffed at the idea of anyone holding him accountable.