Donald Trump Offers the Most Expensive Bribe in Human History

It kind of sounds like election interference…

By: Austin Abbring

September 11, 2026

The Republican Party held its first-ever midterm convention in Dallas this week. This only indicates how well things are going for the GOP right now. Dubbed “Trump-a-palooza”, it was meant to spark some energy among Republican voters. Which simply means spreading propaganda, misinformation, xenophobia, transphobia, and perpetuating lies about elections, Democrats, and immigrants. The typical white nationalism one would expect at what was essentially a glorified Trump rally. I could dedicate multiple blog pieces just to covering this rally, but I will not torture you that way. We are all well aware and, unfortunately, accustomed (desensitized) to all of the insanely racist, nationalistic, fascistic, and dangerous rhetoric of the modern Republican Party. There are two points I want to specifically address in Trump’s remarks from his speech at this rally. These are, of course, the Iran War remarks and the $1.2 trillion bribe offered by the Trump administration. 

Let us start with the Iran War part. I briefly want to acknowledge Trump’s claim that the Iran War will end after the midterms. Yeah, no kidding! I sure hope it does. The illegal war of choice should never have been launched in the first place. Over half of the country disapproves of this war. Quite frankly, it should be significantly more than that, but I digress. If Trump and Republicans did not want to face the prospect of losing both chambers of Congress, they should never have engaged in it. The GOP was already struggling to tread water with how damaging the tariffs have been to the working class, how disastrous the Big Big Bill is, and how ICE has been invading our cities as a paramilitary force. Donald Trump, being the only President to fall for Netanyahu’s plea to go to war with Iran, has killed this party. 

Trump already walked back his initial claims that the war would be over shortly after the midterms and that gas and oil prices would come down rapidly. The Houthis have taken full control of a key island in the Bab el-Mandeb Strait; Iranian forces struck a U.S. base in Jordan this week in addition to striking more oil tankers in the Strait of Hormuz; oil is back over $100 a barrel, and diesel prices in the U.S. have surpassed $6 a gallon for the first time in history. This entire war - because that is what it is, no matter how much Republicans say it is not - will go down as quite possibly the biggest foreign policy blunder in our country’s history. Leave it to the senile old man profiting off of his position in the White House like never before, with a cabinet full of incompetent yes-people to utterly mismanage every aspect of our daily lives every waking day. 

Now for the meat and potatoes: the absolutely insane bribe. Donald Trump and J.D. Vance have offered every American a $5,000 dividend if they vote to keep Republicans in control of the House and the Senate. I just want to repeat that. The president and vice president of the United States just offered a $5,000 bribe to go to the polls and vote a certain way. Never mind that earlier in this rally, Donald Trump literally forced the audience to repeat after him, “that I will go out with my family, my friends, I’ll do it anyway, I don’t care if I’m registered or not, I’m gonna try and cheat like hell as they do…I’m going to go out, get my friends and my family, and we are going to vote on November 3rd, or we are going to vote before that.” Not only is President Trump pushing for people to commit potential voter fraud and for them to vote by mail, which I thought Republicans all hated, but he is going to bribe them along with it. A bribe that, if paid, would cost around $1.2-1.3 trillion. Remember those COVID checks that Republicans freaked out about for being inflationary (despite them starting under Trump)? This would be unprecedented and obviously unnecessary, all while driving up inflation that is already rising and worse under the Trump administration. In fact, we are slowly approaching the possibility of stagflation. The party of fiscal responsibility, everybody. 

Now, try for a moment to put yourself in the perspective of a MAGA voter. I know it is painful; I am only asking you to spend a brief moment in their shoes. Would you not be incredibly insulted by this? You were promised at least a $2,000 tariff rebate check and a $5,000 DOGE check just last year! Not a single human being in this country received one. Obviously, this was never going to happen, as neither the tariffs nor DOGE functioned anywhere near what was promised by Trump and Republicans. Anybody with at minimum a half-functioning brain could have told you it was going to be a net failure. Now Trump and the GOP are asking you to fall for it for a third time. If I were a MAGA voter, I would be angry, confused, and humiliated. 

I am sorry; the nightmare is not over yet: I want you to remain in the mind of a MAGA voter for just a couple more paragraphs. Forget about the bribe for just a second. Let’s assume you are not a total racist, xenophobic, Islamophobic MAGA individual - to the extent that any of these people exist, I have not seen one. Let’s pretend you are somewhat reasonable and pragmatic. Maybe you are a traditional Republican stuck in this weird MAGA movement, but can’t go against it. What has this Republican administration done to deserve your vote to keep them in control of the bicameral legislature? I mean, I can't even remotely begin to rationalize anything from this administration as productive, successful, or beneficial to the common working American. That common working American, incidentally, happens to be like 85% of us. 

All MAGA has accomplished is a massive tax cut for the wealthy - it will be the largest transfer of wealth from the bottom to the top in our country’s history- ICE raids and overall alarming, illegal, dystopian, dictatorial-style ICE policing, which is woefully inefficient, isolation from our closest allies with trade wars, and trans individuals banned from serving in our armed forces. I am not sure how you define progress, but for me, this is not even remotely close. 

Donald Trump and the GOP can host a dozen more rallies before the midterms, but it will not matter. They are going to lose the House for sure, and possibly the Senate. If they lose the Senate, I estimate that it will be by a large margin as well, not just one seat. Sorry, Republicans, Israeli Senator John Fetterman can't save you.  I just need MAGA voters to understand two things: these prices are not coming back down, and the Republican Party is completely bankrupt of any ideas. Oil and gas prices will remain at basically all-time highs for the next couple of years. Even if we end the war with Iran tomorrow. Prices on other goods are staying up as well. These prices have certain elasticity, which is part of why the blanket tariff regime is such a disaster. For any product or industry where American companies exist and compete against other nations, these tariffs justify American companies raising prices by up to the tariff percentage. I mean, around 40% of COVID inflation was driven by price gouging from corporate America, and those prices have not fallen whatsoever. Same here with the tariffs and the impacts of the war with Iran. This time it is a complete own goal. I suppose long gone are the days of the president not bribing the American people - who are desperate and struggling - to vote for an administration to remain in power as it actively screws them and leaves them desperate and struggling.