Thread by @JYSexton

So.

We all know Donald Trump is a total failure and fraud. We need to talk about how the mythology of Trump was constructed and used by the Republican Party and the wealthy to further their interests

Here's what I learned writing AMERICAN RULE.

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penguinrandomhouse.com/books/611439/a…

The New York Times coverage of Trump's failures and manipulation of his wealth and taxes was spectacular and showed just how fake the story of Trump's success is.

Unfortunately, people have used that story to their own ends over and over again, putting us all in danger.

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How Donald Trump, a total charlatan and fraud, came to take over the Republican Party and push us to the edge of fascism is a story we must learn, understand, and counteract.

Reality as we know it, particularly the Trumpian reality, is a weapon used against us.

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Trump has been embraced by Republicans and the wealthy, even though they know he is a dangerous fraud, because he is a means to an end, a way to bully through changes to this country and establish a hypercapitalistic, authoritarian power base.

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Before we begin, here's something we have to understand:

Trump is a weapon.

He has been wielded by the Right to reach their disparate, dangerous goals, and their usage of that weapon has put us in incredible danger, pushed us closer to fascism, and all but destroyed reality

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Trump is uniquely suited for this political moment. In depositions and testimonies, he has spoken at length about how reality is malleable based on his feelings.

He can inflate or deflate his wealth at a moment's notice to however it suits him.

This malleability is key.

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The true story of Donald Trump is that he was gifted his wealth by his family. He did literally nothing to earn it, provided no services, showed no talent, and destroyed literally everything he ever touched.

That's the biography that resides in true reality.

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Trump's family constantly used their wealth and the loopholes of the tax code, constructed to help the wealthy and powerful grow their wealth and power, to conceal assets, shift them to Donald, and escape the duty of taxes.

This was theft and hurts society.

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The pilfered wealth handed down to Trump was used to create his "empire," to buy property, to run casinos.

The Right will tell you that wealth should be given to the wealthy, that they are the most talented and responsible.

We know this is a total lie.

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Trump has failed at literally everything he's ever tried. He wasted his parents' money while ruining lives everywhere he went.

The meritocracy is a myth. The wealthy aren't exceptionally talented. The system helps them, protects them.

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Trump was so exceptionally untalented that for a decade he lost more money than anyone else.

People in business and real estate understood Trump was a joke, but the myth of Trump, the public perception, created an alternate persona.

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What Trump created was a fake avatar, a gold-covered caricature of a rich person. He sold to the American people a fake story that he was a wild success, one of the most successful people in the country.

His empire was a show, a fake front, a total and utter illusion.

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To sell himself as a success, Trump used the media, desperate to lionize conspicuous consumption in the Reagan/post-Reagan Era, to launder his image, creating a persona that lived in the minds of Americas that had nothing to do with the reality of his embarrassing failures.

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Trump cultivated a persona that was helped by television. He was brought onto programs, lauded as a success even as he failed, and asked his opinion.

It was all to help the myth of meritocracy, the idea that the wealthy are special and elite.

He became a star.

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Trump didn't sell real estate.

He sold an illusion.

The buildings and properties and products were all secondary to the main product: Donald Trump, himself.

He understood perception mattered more than reality, particularly in America.

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Everything in Trump's world is a thin veneer. A cheap knockoff that barely exists enough to be seen, and just under the surface lies rot.

It is a haphazard enterprise and relies on the believers not to investigate much further than the artifice.

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Trump was so successful at portraying himself as a success that his debtors realized it was in their favor to allow him to pretend to be wealthy.

He was turned into a walking, talking mascot, a TV-age Monopoly Man who pretended to be wealthy while having nothing.

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Of course, the turning point was The Apprentice, a show that took the myth of the meritocracy and gamified it, brought it to life.

Trump was the perfect choice as an avatar of a game that was rigged and totally divorced from reality. Again, he was a mascot. A fraud.

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When The Apprentice crews arrived to film him as a successful businessman, they were shocked to find his empire crumbling.

He was living in virtual squalor. They had to spruce up Trump Tower for the cameras while editing the shows to disguise Trump's incompetence.

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What The Apprentice did, with its editing and angles and revitalization of the crumbling Trump Empire, was give Trump the illusion of success and authority.

Suddenly, as a "successful businessman," he was booked to give his opinion on politics on news programs.

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The political angle was just another scam.

Trump saw an opportunity to use the moment to his advantage, jumping in on the "Birtherism" movement, hoping to make a buck and raise his profile.

But he spoke perfect cable news and personified the Right's racist paranoia.

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The rise of the Trump Movement happened because he was unbound by traditional political restraints and just spoke pure, unfiltered racial paranoia and conspiracy theories.

He was the embodiment of what the Right had created in recent years, and so he caught fire.

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Trump conquered the Republican Party because the GOP had nowhere else to go. Over the years they had decided on a white identity, paranoid path, and Trump was the natural evolution of that.

It was a merger between a fraud and an increasingly fascistic party.

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Trump became president because he was the perfect mascot for the Republican Party.

A bully. A conspiracy theorists. An unapologetic white supremacists Someone unencumbered by precedents, laws, good taste, or duty.

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Trump was aided by a media who profited off his dysfunction.

What they had become dependent on was crisis, fear, and the constant uncertainty of a madman with a daily pulpit.

They profited. Subscriptions and clicks skyrocketed. Trump was gifted billions in free advertising

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Also helping Trump were big tech moguls who didn't care one way or another for America's fate.

They allowed foreign misinformation, profited off partisan propaganda and out and out lies. They didn't necessarily support Trump politically, but depended on him financially.

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But we need to discuss the Republican Party and the conflagration of interests that have aided Trump while using him as a political weapon to achieve their goals.

We need to understand why this charlatan has received undying, unyielding support.

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For the wealthy, like Betsy DeVos, Trump is an avenue by which they can achieve their dreams of privatizing the United States and all but effectively taking over the day-to-day activity of the country while destroying any impediment to increasing their wealth.

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Of course, with people like DeVos, we have to mention the Right's project of re-instituting segregation through privatization and the shrinking of government overview.

It's been a white supremacist pursuit for decades now.

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In these pursuits, groups like the Evangelical Right has often partnered with figureheads.

Ronald Reagan was a proto-Trump, a non-religious dope who the Right embraced because he was able to gift them their favorite projects while providing a smiling face for the public.

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In exchange for evangelical support, Trump has given them preferential treatment and continued to stock the Supreme Court with Right Wing ideologues who will pursue their projects and give them one victory after another.

It's a partnership, an exchange.

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Men like Bill Barr use Trump to forward an agenda that will twist the law of the United States into a weapon that prioritizes religious retribution.

For them, Trump is an avenue, a path that can get them what they have always wanted.

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And Trump is more than happy to play his part.

Holding up a Bible and declaring himself a Christian savior is no different for him than eating Pizza Hut for the cameras or hawking McDonald's.

Whatever keeps the money and power flowing, he's more than willing.

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Like Reagan, who sold the American public on a drastic economic change he didn't understand, Trump is a salesman.

He lacks Reagan's talent, but he's still trotted out in front of the public to talk about stuff he doesn't understand or really care about.

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It's a show.

Another Apprentice.

Another manufactured illusion.

Trump is a failure and is in way over his head, but is being used by one group after another to forward their agenda while he makes a buck however he can.

In this case, it's dismantling America for parts.

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The ugly truth is that Trump has, and has always been, a con artist.

It's a flimsy disguise that anyone outside of his cult can recognize, but in the interest of power and wealth, a cult of personality has been constructed based on the illusions he perfected in the past.

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You must understand, none of what Trump sells is real.

The Wall was never meant to be built. It was a metaphor, a front for money laundering and power brokering.

Every product Trump hawks is just a cover for the main product: Trump himself.

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Unfortunately, we've been made victims of this fraud, this president who has no idea what he's doing besides surviving to the next fraud, the next theft.

Our very lives have been put at risk because people around Trump want more power and more wealth.

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These tax returns show us the truth: that Trump is a charlatan and a fraud.

But the story doesn't end there. A charlatan and fraud can't do this without help, without a supporting cast who clean up his messes like the producers of The Apprentice.

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Trump isn't the disease. He's a symptom.

The Right has been rotted through with white supremacy and fascism for years, it just so happens Trump is the perfect embodiment and mascot for it all.

We stand on the precipice of something. It's time we sorted truth from fiction

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