My mother told me of an experience when in her 70s she was at some store paying her phone or energy bill. She always kept her money in the bank envelope, perhaps thinking that it somehow guarded against prying eyes. With shoppers milling about while she waited her turn standing in line, she would count and recount her money in that envelope. With all of her handling of the cash, she eventually realized she was missing $20 she’d earlier counted and scanned the floor around her.  Still confounded by the missing bill, she looked at a young couple behind her in line and asked in her broken English if they’d seen her drop any bills. The young wife (“She knew,” my mother confidently told me later.) looked askance at her husband as he denied seeing anything, his awkwardly placed foot apparently covering something on the floor. “Are you shure, maybe you step on by accidents,” she asked, but he continued his denial, and she let it go.

It’s sad when someone takes advantage of innocent people for his own gain. I couldn’t vote for someone like that for student council president, forget president of the United States, but that’s the kind of guy many of my friends helped put in the Oval Office.

When watching one of the Clinton-Trump debates in 2016, I was noted with interest that Secretary Clinton pointed out Trump’s history of underpaying firms he’d contracted for his hotel projects. She referred to a man whose firm did exemplary work at one of his hotels, but when it came time to pay, Trump balked. I had already learned in the press about his penchant for offering less money than promised to contractors who’d completed their jobs. One needs only to read a USA Today article from June of 2016 (“Hundreds Allege Trump Doesn’t Pay His Bills”) to get details of some of his most notorious schemes at denying the little guy what he promised. For those who believe that anything negative about Trump is “fake news,” know that Fox News also ran this story.

His lame response to Clinton’s accusation at the debate was to say, “Maybe he didn’t do a good job.” I refer to this response as lame because video evidence from that hotel showed Trump offering effusive compliments to hotel visitors about that same work the contractor performed. But as always, Trump does not allow the truth to impede his attempts to maximize his profits. Even the juvenile phrase he used to justify his avarice and bullying illustrates his insecurity about what people might think of his unethical practice. Maybe he didn’t do a good job? Either he did a good job or he didn’t. Either you had a reason to deny him his money or you didn’t. What’s with the maybe? Like an immature kid he thinks that planting the idea of some other possibility is enough to take the stain of his behavior away. Perhaps he should have thought of that the dozens of other times he’d underpaid those under contract to work for him.

Even adolescents know better than to use such an excuse. “Why don’t you have your homework today, Donald?” – “Well, maybe I had to spend the night at the hospital.”

What compels a businessman like Trump to withhold the wages he agreed to pay, especially when the work was properly done? I think the answer is that he knows he can get away with it. Trump realizes that the contractor will incur court costs that eclipse the reward for winning the case causing most of those who are swindled to take whatever percentage Trump offers. Trump would rarely build in the same city again, so these contractors represented irrelevant pawns to him that allowed him to pick up some extra pocket change of a few thousand dollars here and there. Kind of like standing in line with your foot on the $20 bill the old woman in front of you just dropped. And when you’re caught, it’s okay to lie or be ambivalent in your answers.

I won’t argue with those who say Trump has “balls.” It does take “balls” for someone to very purposely cheat another out of his contracted salary. It takes “balls” for someone to accept the animosity of others who see your pure greed and lack of morality. It takes “balls” to step on a $20 bill dropped by an old woman while in public. Though I don’t think this will help make America great again,.

I was taught that just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should. Morals need to be considered when taking an action because life isn’t only a risk-reward, winner-loser experience. What compelled so many hard-working, middle class Americans to vote for such a person? What compelled the religious right to support such an immoral, unethical individual? I guess I don’t understand how America comes out looking like a winner having an individual with this mindset in the Oval Office.

I offer one hypothetical to these voters: If you’d been denied your agreed-upon wages by some hot shot real estate developer in your community, would you have cast a vote for this him if he were running for mayor or county legislator? What if you simply knew your mayoral candidate had this reputation? I know I wouldn’t cast a vote for him. There’s just too much self-interest in such a person for him to avoid promoting self-serving legislation and policies.

How does a person get like that – willing to hurt others just to get ahead? Probably a family’s impact is paramount in shaping a principled state of mind along with notable experiences we have as individuals early in life. When I was 10 or 11 I learned that a someone a few blocks away wanted his backyard cleared of overgrowth and debris. Motivated by the satisfaction of doing yard work – something I kind of liked at home – and my tiny allowance of fifty cents, I steeled myself to do a cold call one Saturday morning. The door opened, presenting me with a gentleman holding an open newspaper and peering over his glasses. I explained the reason for my being there, and he said simply, “It’s a big job. How much would you want?”

“Is ten dollars okay?” The prospect of receiving in one day what it would take four months of allowances to accomplish blinded me to the fact that I hadn’t yet looked at the task awaiting me. The manicured part of the property ended at the base of a bank of earth sloping upward to an ancient railroad bed. In many places along the track even the rails were not visible. The bank was the width of the entire property and stretched upward for about fifteen feet. About 50-60 feet wide, my charge was to clear nearly 900 square feet of thick foliage.

With Mr. _____’s tools in hand – a hoe, pitchfork, two rakes, and more – I attacked the brown, yellow, and green brush and vines with gusto. Soon the black and gray roots, shoots, and stumps felt a tearing hatchet hoisted by two skinny arms, and the undergrowth felt the scratch of my rakes. I generated piles of rubbish as I labored on through the morning. But who knew that flora can fight back?

My war wounds included scrapes from nettles, gashes from thorns, and welts from things unknown,and I faced friendly fire in the form of cuts from extraordinarily sharp clippers. Burdocks girdled and annoyed me as I worked on. By the second hour, I was heartened by my progress. I had exposed a small patch of earth on the embankment. Confident of success, I thought that by lunch I would be well on my way to completing the project. Its grave-like shape foreshadowed something less optimistic.

By mid-afternoon I increased the size of my clearing to nearly twenty feet wide at the base, and perhaps ten feet wide at the top as I worked across the embankment at an angle from that point to the top of the bank at the property’s edge. Two hours later, I had less than a third of the job finished, but I was spent. A good job but I didn’t get it done. Beaten by some pretty tough plants and a weakening attitude, I knew that I didn’t have the drive to return the following day to finish what I had begun.

Slowly, I stacked the tools near the house and returned to the entrance, softly knocking on the door. “Uh, I couldn’t finish the job, Mr. _____.”

He smiled, “I told you it was a big job. You’ll get it tomorrow.”

“No, sir, I don’t think I can. I’m sorry.”

“Are you sure?” he asked. After I acknowledged that I wouldn’t be coming the next day, he reached around for his wallet and said, “Well, let me give you something for what you did today.”

I stepped back from him and waved the money away, “ No sir. I didn’t finish the job. I can’t take anything from you.”

Mr. _____ insisted and held out a bill toward me, but I said, “I wouldn’t feel right about taking your money, sir. Thanks all the same,” I added.

He opened the door further and stepped out onto the landing. “Listen, you worked all day, and I’m not letting you leave without something for your efforts. Take it.” And with that he put the five dollar bill in my hand, nodded once, and returned inside.

The walk home gave me a little time to think about matters and forget about the burdocks cleverly hiding from my searching fingers. I thought about the importance of being fair to oneself; I wasn’t going to underbid jobs anymore, and I’d do a better job of determining the amount of work something entailed. But I also thought about how this gentleman did not accept my initial reasoning, that somehow I deserved nothing for my work because I couldn’t finish it on time or left it incomplete. He made the extra effort to ensure that he paid me something.

I can think of one person who wouldn’t have done that.

My experience reminds me that there are children with better ethics than he. That in the moment when a job is done poorly or left incomplete, those with principles of morality will be fair to themselves and to the employee. But to penalize an employee for doing a good job? And to do this dozens if not hundreds of times? With attorneys on retainer he can with impunity waste the time of the courts and wait until his former employees simply give up the idea of getting satisfaction from a judge. After all, eventually they realize that even if they gain a favorable judgment, they will have lost more money in legal fees. And for having fought Trump in court, they become blacklisted as contractors in the community, receiving fewer jobs on which to bid. The irony is astounding. Shouldn’t it be Trump who should be blacklisted by the contractors in the area? It is the contractors who have told such stories to the press. This is not “fake news.”

Many of my friends work or have worked in the construction trades. I’ve worked as a painter and a roofer; I’ve built decks and remodeled basements. These co-workers – my friends – speak their minds when in conversation. They don’t put up fools for very long, and yet many of them voted for Donald Trump. They voted for him even though he’s shown himself to be the kind of man for whom they would never choose to work. I can’t imagine these friends of mine ever sharing a beer with someone like Trump. They’d be unwilling to handle the bragging and the exaggerations. If they looked closer, they’d see he’s not their kind of guy. Always talking and only about himself. And when they find out he doesn’t pay his contractors in full, I expect sparks would fly

I just don’t get it.