Trump and his taxes

Trump haters and New York Times readers — not much mutual exclusivity there — were delivered a sweet autumn treat on the morning of Oct. 1: an exposé demonstrating that the Republican candidate for president of the United States lost nearly $1 billion in a single year, 1995, and postulating that the devastating hit has enabled him to live in this country without paying taxes for the next 20 years.

But like most news about the orangutan, it served only to enrage those who were already enraged at the man and force his supporters to find new and creative ways to justify their adulation of him.

The groundswell that’s lifted Trump has gone well beyond mere political support — they seem to look at the man in the same way Rush Limbaugh once described Obama supporters, referring to him as the “Chosen One”: a kind of messianic hero worship.

Of course, no one ever referred to the first black president as the “Chosen One” except for the mocking voices from Limbaugh and his ilk, save for the rapper Nas in a 2010 MTV spot.

But many, many Trump supporters — and even the man himself — seem to believe that once he ascends to the presidency he will acquire almost superhuman powers that will transcend the delicate military and economic balance keeping our country — and the world — in check.

Behind his string of broken microphones, he’s floated ideas like renegotiating our country’s debt without affecting its credit rating, establishing a “punishment” for women who terminate pregnancies, neutralizing the press, nuking North Korea and looking into the do-ability of cyber.

There’s audacity here, to be sure, and also hope, in that Trumpers seem to believe that, in the Donald’s world, all of these things would be possible.

So small matters like a billion-dollar business loss and manipulation of the tax code do nothing to besmirch the reputation of the man among the faithful.

And their blind trust in the Trump fantasy — in which rich people who game the system are brilliant — is equaled only by their disdain for reality-based mechanisms like the New York Times.