No, Nobody Really Cares About Trump’s Taxes.

Didja hear the big story about how Trump only paid $750 in taxes? Or maybe it was $1 million. Or $1,000,750. It was definitely one of those, probably. If it even matters.

Does it matter? If so, why?

I would argue, Dear Reader, that it does not matter.

The goal of stories like the NYT’s latest “bombshell,” among our moral, ethical, and intellectual betters in the media, isn’t to convince anyone of anything. And it certainly isn’t to inform anyone. No, the goal is to reinforce the existing beliefs of their audience. People who hate Trump read this earth-shattering story and say, “See? We told you!”

But unfortunately for them, there’s a flip side to that coin: People who love Trump say, “So? We don’t care!”

Nothing is proven and nobody is swayed. And within weeks or even days, it’ll be forgotten. Remember the bombshell revelation about Trump insulting the military? I barely do, and it was three weeks ago. (I had to Google it just now to make sure I didn’t just dream it.) Hell, Trump was impeached this year, and it mattered so little that it wasn’t mentioned once at the Democratic National Convention.

Literally 0% of this stuff is news. Nobody’s confused about who and what Trump is. The media reported on his tax avoidance in 2016. Hell, he bragged about it during a debate. If it didn’t matter last time, it’s not going to matter now. Nobody’s going to vote for the other guy because of this. Either Joe Biden runs a better campaign than Hillary Clinton did, or he doesn’t.

Trump and Biden have both been participants in American public life since the ’70s. The main difference: Trump is exactly the same guy he was when he was elected in 2016, and Biden is a faint shadow of the man he was when he dropped out of the presidential race in 1988.

If Trump is too old to be president, how is anybody supposed to get excited about a guy who’s even older?