Most of Donald Trump’s businesses throughout his life have been to the real, productive economy what competitive eating contests are to sports. Golf courses, beauty pageants, & condos for rich people — also a bunch of others that failed. In the big picture, what do they matter?
The United States is a wealthy country — by most measures the richest in the history of the world. Someone starting off with a massive inheritance and able (legally or not) to evade most taxes can do pretty well for himself. Again, though, so what?
I suppose a more precise and perhaps more useful question is, what does Trump’s business career tell us about how he sees his supporters? — his customers, if we can use that analogy.
Rich people can be overcharged for services, but generally don’t pay something for nothing. Trump hotels are high-end establishments; his golf courses are well regarded in the industry. Customers without leverage, like those of Trump University, get treated differently.
For political supporters with leverage, like big campaign donors, Trump can deliver. At the very least he exerts himself. He got a big tax cut for nearly every large donor the Republican Party has (admittedly in a tax bill that cut his own taxes as well).
The Saudis invested in Trump’s businesses, & have gotten blank-check US support in return. Russia worked for his election; Trump has pushed back on US Gov’t. efforts to restrain Russia. Trump cares about & does his best to improve ratings for Fox News, his propaganda network.
Trump supporters without leverage — which means most voters, including the much-analyzed white men without college degrees — get the Trump University treatment. They get sold dreams, as Trump U clients did: in this case, dreams of winning & national pride.
Trump’s political supporters get flattered; their every ignorant prejudice is catered to, their every petty grievance validated. They also get lied to, a lot. Trump University didn’t (and probably couldn’t) offer a pathway to riches in real estate.
Trump’s administration can’t deliver on trade, or improving on Obamacare, or restoring the coal industry to what it was decades ago, or even basic public tasks like disaster relief. What is possible to do, Trump doesn’t know how to; what is impossible, he promises anyway.
When Trump can’t sell dreams, he sells threats, especially threats that amplify prejudices and grievance. Penniless Honduran migrants become an invading army; the MS-13 gang that preys mostly on Central American immigrants becomes an occupying force in Long Island towns.
America’s allies in Canada, Europe and Japan are cheating us, so Trump attacks them with tariffs; the Iranian regime is...still there, and threatens us in some unspecified way, so Trump attacks it with sanctions. Black athletes who kneel to protest police violence —...
...to which, incidentally, Trump has little objection — get attacked verbally, as do political opponents, racial minorities, women, insufficiently subservient Republicans, reporters, and a somewhat lengthy list of other people. Trump invites his supporters to cheer.
His supporters mostly do. Like Trump University customers, they’re getting cheated. The economic growth Trump demands praise for is a straight line continuation of growth that began as the Great Recession ended in Barack Obama’s first term.
The various quarrels Trump has picked with everyone from Angela Merkel to The New York Times don’t give his supporters any material benefit at all. And he’s not building anything that will benefit them in the future, either, or protect them from real threats.
Trump spends most of his time on leisure activities: watching TV, playing golf, basking in applause for his stand-up routine at campaign rallies. He gets a lot more out of his relationship w/his supporters — with most of them, that is, the ones without leverage — than they do.
Trump University crashed and burned, amidst allegations of consumer fraud that Trump eventually settled in civil court. Some of the customers he cheated got some of their money back. What did he think of them?
Trump’s business customers were an asset to him as long as he could take their money. They became his enemies once they sued him for cheating them. Once he settled, from his point of view it was as if they had never been there.
That’s the lesson for Trump’s political supporters, I think, including and perhaps especially the ones cheering him as he takes time off from being President to goof off at campaign rallies. Trump probably shares some of his supporters’ beliefs;...
...his evident dislike of black people is most likely quite sincere, for example, and if some of his supporters don’t want to hear about climate change or the expanding federal debt, well, he doesn’t either. But Trump will be for his supporters only as long as they cheer him.
If they ever cross him, they’ll become his enemies, not citizens with whom he disagrees. And in his sight, Trump’s supporters will disappear as soon as he has no further need of them.
People are who they are, past a certain age. Eisenhower didn’t stop being a soldier when he became President. Reagan remained a performer all his life. Obama was always the black Chicago liberal trying to find a path up in the mostly white Illinois political world.
Donald Trump was — is — a dishonest businessman. To be precise, he was crooked when he could get away with it, and in America today rich people can get away with a lot. He won’t ever change. His political supporters, some of whom turned to him out of disillusionment,...
...or partisan tribal feeling, or merely a desire to be entertained, are no doubt getting some kind of psychic return on their investment of enthusiasm for Trump. But they are running up a bill, for themselves and for the country, that is bigger than they understand.
Bills come due, always. If they are paid late, they must be paid with interest, over which the customer has no control; there is no court that can grant restitution for political “customers” who allow themselves to be cheated.
Trump’s supporters must be told this, even if they will not listen. As long as they back him, & vote for his Republican enablers in Congresss & state governments, they as much as he are responsible for the damage his inept administration is imposing on the country & the world.
.@threadreaderapp Please unroll.
