It doesn't matter, none of it matters. Treason, fraud, sexual assault, ... He is immune from any repercussions because of partisan brand identity. The political brain-washing of the masses began a long time ago to consolidate the interests of the ones who are already in power and already possess the wealth. They learned that we're all susceptible to confirmation bias and they used it to bifurcate us into two distinct groups, around a pile of arbitrary "issues". The current criminal in office is arbitrary, the branding is all that matters. God fearing, gun supporting, working class, racists would never vote against their "C"onservative brand and so they will always vehemently support the representative of that brand.

It's concerning that the all pretenses and facades have been torn down because the president is an unsophisticated buffoon who lacks the intellectual capacity for subtlety. But what was revealed behind the facade is not surprising. Just the same power hungry, wealth elite manipulating the uneducated to vote against their own interests...same as it ever was.

Reality is scarier than any book, TV, or movie.

And no one stands up or does anything about it!
All due respect, but the US has become the biggest cesspool of abuse and slavery in the world. The Government uses the people and controls them. The leaders treat everyone as tools to suck wealth out of and then dispose of them when they see fit.

I'm saddened by this incredible system of control, human right's abuses, and degradation of an entire society, for the profits of the 1% -- and no one in the US will stand up for themselves - in fact, people are so brain washed, that they stand up and defend the systems of abuse that keep them confines and abused.

All these except nuclear war are happening now, and effecting first world countries too.
Food shortages, check.
Super bugs, check.
Climate change, check checkity check.
Massive migrations due to effects of climate change, double check.
Water shortages, check....ask a Californian.
Wealth inequality causing civil unrest, check.

Because we aren't living in Bartertown yet is no excuse to ignore reality. These things are currently happening around the globe, in third AND first world nations.
Here's one small example getting very little airtime....
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/may/10/five-pacific-islands-lost-rising-seas-climate-change

1. Even though I definitively know the world is beyond fucked at this point, I still think the scientists are not doing themselves any favours by making these "probably" scenarios rather than almost definite ones. As said, even though in some ways I'm looking forward to when the shit starts hitting the fan, I've lost faith in knowing when it'll actually start happening. It seems like every other week I'm told that "soon it'll really start to go all to shit". And it never really does, especially for 1st world countries.

2. Great Filter, Humanity. Humanity, Great Filter. Nice to meet you.

3. I'm beginning to want to start a pot of which terrible thing will happen first to 1st world countries (sadly, the beginning will be poor countries getting fucked and 1st world countries complaining that it now costs $30 for a single banana). Super bugs and catastrophic pandemics (maybe measles!)? Climate change? Nuclear war? Massive migrations of refugees who can't live where they are due to climate change or war? Water shortages? Wealth inequality that will implode on itself? There are so many terrible things on the precipice of happening that I don't even know what I'd bet on, honestly.

Nuclear energy is the only way we can do it, we can run the planet forever and do things cleanly and more densely to leave more of our planet for wildlife.

The trouble is almost everything we hold as common wisdom about it is completely wrong, using breeder reactors have enough uranium to run the planet forever leaving almost no waste and removing the possibility of big accidents which actually aren't as harmful as commonly believed anyway.

We have thorium too, and many designs of each that can do the job. In fact we have a wealth of of options, but also a decades old and highly effective PR campaign from the fossil fuel industry to convince us otherwise.

Never forget that these are the people that you believe will shower opportunity down on the lower economic classes if you give them more wealth.

1) Because they didn't succeed in a vacuum, they benefit from civilization, so are obligated to support it to at least the same extent if not more because they are able while others aren't.

2) swap dumb with rich and Trump is the bazillionaire he claims to be. You can't just swap dissimilar unrelated concepts and say "see, proved it" without looking like a braying moron.

3) Yes it should without question, our best and brightest don't come from the privileged class as a higher percentage. Actually the opposite because they don't have to do their best to survive, poorer people do, and drive matters immensely. If we want to compete internationally, we must educate the uneducated and undereducated, even those who can't afford $500000 to fake a crew history or SAT score. That education needs to be better than the countries we compete with, and it is all too often simply not.
That is a conservative stance, not a liberal one.

4) equating wealth to gpa, like this moronic video does, means Trump, like everyone else, should start at 0 and not get a bonus from daddy. If that happened, he would be zero. He is not self made, he did not only get a small $14 million unrepaid interest free loan. He did squander the money, failing at venture after venture until only Russian gangsters will loan him money, loans he needs because he squandered the money....then he repeatedly lied about it immorally squandering billions from hundreds of duped investors too...THAT is evil, yes.

5) We make $30000 for two people and don't take a dime, even overpaid my taxes...not everyone has my opportunities, privileges, and abilities. You are just spouting nonsense straw man arguments. In a perfect world, we could all be self sustaining with equal opportunity to succeed, we don't live in that communist/socialist utopia.....no one ever has.
I believe we are better off when the least privileged don't have to resort to violent or immoral crime to survive. I believe we are better off as a nation when our best people have the opportunities to succeed that our worst but most privileged are afforded. I believe we are better off being protected from the irresponsibility of purely profit driven commerce that, by design, must walk the razors edge of acceptability to maximize profit and minimize obligations by any means necessary, usually leaving them for socialist programs to clean up/repair. I believe we do more good ensuring the starving among us are fed food humans would willingly eat before ensuring some unrepentant apocalyptic bankers get their multi million dollar bonuses and a free pass on their crimes, and before those making multi millions a year get to hoard more and pay even less of their share.

6) What you are spouting is bat shit insane, not even AOC advocates pure socialism....not even Russia had pure socialism. Your ilk, however, calls any government program that doesn't directly benefit them or their Trumpian masters "socialist"....education, infrastructure, all regulatory agencies, social security, even the fbi have been labeled socialist by Trumpists in the zeal to discredit the report they assumed would expose criminal conspiracy to defraud the United States (ps, it found exactly that dozens of times over), while military welfare programs for equipment we don't want and won't use, bailouts for banks and agribusiness, public funds for private ventures like golf courses and troll roads, (edit:Freudian slip?) and don't forget the unmentioned elephant, the military itself...all that socialism is fine, you think it's not even socialism. *facepalm

I'll say it again.

Asinine.

This is the kind of wealth that should be punished.

*sigh....passive aggressiveness from someone who keeps changing the argument is tiresome, ask your friends.

Your original statement ....""American wealth inequality is staggering. "
???? Stated as if that is a bad thing......."

Clearly indicating staggering wealth inequality isn't a bad thing.

Now..."I totally agree that EXCESSIVE wealth inequality is a bad thing",
so unless you misspoke, you must be parsing the difference between staggering (acceptable) and excessive (unacceptable)....but staggering >= excessive.

Wealth/income inequality are tied....and now who's being pedantic?

Well, I'm glad you aren't running the economy then, sadly the one most in control thinks the same, that one person making (not earning) >10000 times what another makes for < 1/10000 the work isn't inequitable, and neither is one person owning more than 10,000,000 average fully employed countrymen thanks to an accident of birth and/or criminal/dishonest business practices.

You might have missed my original statement where the entire tax code was abolished. Income taxes go away. There are no loopholes, breaks, tax credits or deductions, etc. Rich people/businesses purchase more goods and services than poorer so they would pay more taxes proportionally (in sum not percent). I am not looking for wealth equality I am looking for taxation equality. Look at Amazon's taxes again this year.

"The veracity of the statement has no bearing on the fact that you dismissed/questioned it first"

<Sigh> Pedantry is tiresome. Tell your friends.

My original statement had to do with my belief that wealth inequality is not a bad thing. It had little to do with OP's assertion that he foolishly sees current wealth inequality as "staggering".

"Forgive us if we take the words of economists, historians, reality, and our own senses over a random person's opinion. "

You are free to heed whoever pleases you. If you crave my
forgiveness, consider yourself forgiven.

"If that's not excessive, I have to wonder what could be in your opinion. "

I too have to wonder what "excessive" wealth inequality actually looks like. I don't think I have ever seen a large scale example. So, I'll just pull a number out of the air: under most distribution models, I would say that I consider a Gini coefficient of, say, .9 to be "excessive".

"My wife, head of her department for 10 years, working 45-50 hour weeks, makes $30k a year working like a dog....Warren Buffet makes >10000 times that much doing absolutely nothing...not excessive?!"

I thought we were talking about wealth distribution, not income distribution. Anyhow, to answer your question, the answer is "No", I do not consider that to be "excessive".

I think I just explained how that does nothing to address wealth inequality and leaves the poor paying the maximum percentage of income in taxes while letting the rich only pay a tiny portion, only the set sales tax percentage (on what they legally buy in the U.S. and report).
Your plan would probably have to set sales tax at near 50% (it's already over 10% with all the other tax revenues), meaning the poor, who spend all they make, pay >50% in taxes (and over 90% of all taxes with around 10% of all income), and the rich, who would spend <1% of their income taxably (I know that's not a real word) pay about 1/2%. Sounds like a great solution to wealth inequality, doesn't it?

In my scenario people/businesses are all taxed the same, regardless of their wealth, but only when purchasing something. Gov't adjusts the "sales tax" % as needed.

What about the money already invested?
"Conservatives", allergic to paying their share for government, will simply keep their money growing where it is, avoiding taxes, and take (tax free) loans out on their stationary wealth, allowing them to spend without selling, again avoiding taxes. They do that now.
Give conservatives a way out of paying their share, they'll take it every time and brag about it. Guaranteed.

The veracity of the statement has no bearing on the fact that you dismissed/questioned it first, and now agree. Your position changed....and so has your argument now from 'staggering wealth inequality isn't a bad thing" to ' wealth inequality isn't staggering'.
Forgive us if we take the words of economists, historians, reality, and our own senses over a random person's opinion.

Wiki- in 2014 the top wealthiest 1% possess 40% of the nation's wealth; the bottom 80% own 7%; similarly, but later, the media reported, the "richest 1 percent in the United States now own more additional income than the bottom 90 percent".[8] The gap between the top 10% and the middle class is over 1,000%; that increases another 1,000% for the top 1%. The average employee "needs to work more than a month to earn what the CEO earns in one hour"
If that's not excessive, I have to wonder what could be in your opinion. My wife, head of her department for 10 years, working 45-50 hour weeks, makes $30k a year working like a dog (at a job that is life and death for her customers, platelet donation, her department keeps our only local blood bank open as the only money making department, she doesn't make fries.)...Warren Buffet makes >10000 times that much doing absolutely nothing...not excessive?! Also, because he only pays taxes on what he spends, he pays less in taxes than we do.
Thpp!....Ack!