During the president’s Thursday-morning bathroom time, in which he forces all of his assistants to talk to him through the door, the president did his usual random morning toilet tweeting, this time railing against Amazon.com.
So let’s examine this tweet fully.
First off, there is no racist dog whistle in this tweet, since Donald Trump didn’t use all caps. Not once. Normally, when the president uses all caps, it’s to rally his base around something really racist, and there is none of that here, which is a good thing.
Second, I know for a fact that Trump sent this tweet out himself. This is a Trump tweet and not a “Trump-approved tweet.” I can say that unequivocally and without doubt. A layman would look only for misspellings as proof that the president of the United States tweeted said message, but that’s a rookie move. Let’s break this down further. There are no big words for the president to misspell here. The proof that this is an official Trump tweet comes from the random capitalization. Trump loves to randomly capitalize words; it’s his thing.
Now that I’ve proved that this is a The Root-guaranteed Trump tweet, let’s talk about the actual contents of said tweet.
Trump claims that Amazon pays “little or no taxes to state and local governments.” This isn’t true.
Here’s how CNN explains Amazon.com’s tax setup:
Amazon collects and pays sales tax in every state that charges one, and that’s virtually every state.
Years ago, when Amazon had few warehouses, it was able to get a competitive advantage by not charging sales tax. When retailers ship goods to states where they don’t have a physical presence, they do not have to charge sales tax.
But Amazon has been adding to its national network of distribution centers, and last year it announced it would start charging sales tax in every state, whether it has a physical presence there or not.
Amazon also pays local property taxes on its distribution centers as well as on the Whole Foods stores it purchased last year.
So Trump’s tweet about Amazon’s taxes isn’t true, and I’m sure people on Trump’s staff tried to explain this to him, but have you seen how thick those presidential bathroom doors are? Do you know how fucking loud you’d have to yell to get this dumbass to hear you? Those doors are made of solid oak. Oak! (I have no idea what the bathroom doors at the White House are made out of, but oak sounds like a strong, noise-canceling wood.)
Also, Trump claimed that Amazon treats the U.S. Postal Service as its personal delivery boy—and no offense to the USPS, but it is Amazon’s personal delivery boy. In fact, it is everyone in America’s personal delivery boy because that’s what it does! It delivers shit. It is paid to deliver shit; it’s kind of how the Postal Service works. The post office isn’t offering Amazon a lower rate because it’s Amazon; it’s offering the company the same rate it would to any retailer that ships a massive number of items, which is also how business works.
Trump notes that Amazon is causing tremendous loss to the Postal Service because of this—which, you guessed it, is also not true. According to CNN, the real culprit behind the Postal Service’s massive loss is the fact that it owes “billions in retirement obligations to its workers that it can’t afford.”
And finally, Trump claims that Amazon.com is pushing small retailers out of business, which may be true, but one could argue that all online retail giants, including those like Walmart and Target, have played a part in this.
Which leads me to a theory on why Trump tweeted about Amazon: I think it’s because he hates Amazon owner Jeff Bezos. Bezos is not only a self-made billionaire but also the owner of the Washington Post, a newspaper that Trump repeatedly calls “fake news.” And if you don’t think that Trump’s tactics are working, in one day Amazon lost $53 billion in market value because of the power that Trump wields to make business for the retail giant difficult.
Investors don’t want to stick around for a billionaire dick-measuring contest, which this surely is becoming. Also add to the mix that Trump’s favorite magazine to be spanked with just named Bezos the top billionaire. Never underestimate the depth of Trump’s petty. This entire Twitter tirade regarding Amazon is nothing more than a jealous president flexing his presidential muscle.