02-24-2019, 05:43 PM
The 6 essential cons that define Trump’s success (more at the source, the Washington Post)
Con No. 1: To borrow billions, Trump lies to inflate his net worth.
As Trump’s power has grown, his lies have become bolder and more apparent. Early in his career, however, when Trump first conned me into putting him on the Forbes 400 list and then deceived financial institutions to loan him billions of dollars based upon a vastly exaggerated net worth, his deceptions were more elaborate and difficult to track. As recounted in The Washington Post last year, Trump fed me carefully crafted false information for years. This included two long phone interviews in which Trump pretended to be a nonexistent assistant named John Barron, as well as his having his notorious fixer Roy Cohn call me at Forbes in 1982 and 1983 to lie on his behalf.
Con No. 2: To avoid taxes, Trump lies to deflate his net worth.
The only people Trump ever wanted to convince that he had less money than he did were those who worked for the Internal Revenue Service. And somehow, despite his inflated public claims of income and valuations, he managed to do just that. Last year, the New York Times published the results of a painstakingly researched investigation into Trump’s tax dodges. The article stated: “President Trump participated in dubious tax schemes during the 1990s, including instances of outright fraud, that greatly increased the fortune he received from his parents … He and his siblings set up a sham corporation to disguise millions of dollars in gifts from their parents … He also helped formulate a strategy to undervalue his parents’ real estate holdings by hundreds of millions of dollars on tax returns, sharply reducing the tax bill when those properties were transferred to him and his siblings. … The president’s parents, Fred and Mary Trump, transferred well over $1 billion in wealth to their children, which could have produced a tax bill of at least $550 million under the 55 percent tax rate then imposed on gifts and inheritances.” Instead, the Times reported, “the Trumps paid a total of $52.2 million, or about 5 percent.”
Con No. 3: To be a winner, Trump makes losers of those he does business with.
To make every business deal with him sound sweeter than it was, Trump marketed his name as synonymous with gold-plated luxury. But few of his deals had happy endings. His narcissistic need to be a winner every time meant that there were losers every time. This included just about anyone who made the mistake of signing a contract to lend or partner or supply goods or services to him. After stiffing his partners and lenders in Atlantic City in 1991 by declaring bankruptcy and forcing them to write down billions of dollars in losses, Trump soon retook control of the properties by creating a public casino company in 1995 and selling the stock to suckers attracted to his name. According to a MarketWatch columnist, “Donald Trump was a stock market disaster,” with Trump Hotels and Casino Resorts racking up more than $1 billion in losses during his 13 years as chairman, while its stock fell from a high of $35 to just 17 cents. But despite making losers of the poor saps who invested with him, Trump emerged a winner, soaking the bankrupted public company for what Fortune magazine estimated was $82 million in compensation.
Con No. 4: To win in politics, Trump makes voters believe that his presidency benefits them.
One of the great mysteries of Trump’s ascension to power is his support among working-class Americans. He is far from being a person who mingles with the masses. Trump’s social and professional activities have been limited to those who are superwealthy, famous or influential. To the extent that he has interacted with common Americans, it has been as a commercial icon: He sells them chances to lose money at his casinos’ slot machines; he grants them admission to real estate society through the scam that was Trump University; he offers them armchair viewing of crass demonstrations of cruel power in “The Apprentice.”
Con No. 5: To avoid accountability, Trump makes the media, and truth, the “enemy of the people.”
Truth is the greatest threat to Donald Trump. He despises the transparency and accountability that flows from a free press. He continually attacks the media as “the enemy of the people,” despite increasing violence against journalists by some of his supporters, repeating the phrase in a Wednesday tweet in reference to the Times. Gabriel Sherman, national affairs editor at New York magazine, described Trump’s use of this term as “full-on dictator speak.” For opponents of Joseph Stalin, being branded an enemy of the people was a death sentence. In Nazi Germany, Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels also favored the term, arguing in 1941 that “each Jew is a sworn enemy of the German people.”
Trump regularly insults or threatens to sue journalists who refuse to act as stenographers for his lies. “It’s frankly disgusting the way the press is able to write whatever they want to write. And people should look into it,” he said, referring to NBC News on Oct. 11, 2017. “Network news,” he tweeted that day, “has become so partisan, distorted and fake that licenses must be challenged and, if appropriate, revoked.” This prompted Sen. John McCain to note that the comment was “how dictators get started.”
Con No. 6: To stoke fear, Trump recasts perpetrators as victims.
As president, Trump’s primary governance strategy relies on the same deceptive manipulation of human fear that brought him victory as a candidate. He has proved himself masterful at playing the white Christian male grievance card. Whether it is the foreigners streaming across the border to take American jobs, the dark-skinned urbanites coming for rural Americans’ guns or empowered women upending patriarchal traditions, Trump and his Fox News echo chamber let white Christians know that they are being victimized and that far worse will follow if they do not fight for their right to oppress others.
(my comment) There you have it -- lies to get financial leverage that would be bank fraud for you and me, lies to avoid taxes. making himself into a 'winner' by making 'losers' of others in business: in politics, misrepresenting the good that he can do for people, rejecting objective truth when the truth is inconvenient, and casting the bad people who do his bidding as innocent victims.
Con No. 1: To borrow billions, Trump lies to inflate his net worth.
As Trump’s power has grown, his lies have become bolder and more apparent. Early in his career, however, when Trump first conned me into putting him on the Forbes 400 list and then deceived financial institutions to loan him billions of dollars based upon a vastly exaggerated net worth, his deceptions were more elaborate and difficult to track. As recounted in The Washington Post last year, Trump fed me carefully crafted false information for years. This included two long phone interviews in which Trump pretended to be a nonexistent assistant named John Barron, as well as his having his notorious fixer Roy Cohn call me at Forbes in 1982 and 1983 to lie on his behalf.
Con No. 2: To avoid taxes, Trump lies to deflate his net worth.
The only people Trump ever wanted to convince that he had less money than he did were those who worked for the Internal Revenue Service. And somehow, despite his inflated public claims of income and valuations, he managed to do just that. Last year, the New York Times published the results of a painstakingly researched investigation into Trump’s tax dodges. The article stated: “President Trump participated in dubious tax schemes during the 1990s, including instances of outright fraud, that greatly increased the fortune he received from his parents … He and his siblings set up a sham corporation to disguise millions of dollars in gifts from their parents … He also helped formulate a strategy to undervalue his parents’ real estate holdings by hundreds of millions of dollars on tax returns, sharply reducing the tax bill when those properties were transferred to him and his siblings. … The president’s parents, Fred and Mary Trump, transferred well over $1 billion in wealth to their children, which could have produced a tax bill of at least $550 million under the 55 percent tax rate then imposed on gifts and inheritances.” Instead, the Times reported, “the Trumps paid a total of $52.2 million, or about 5 percent.”
Con No. 3: To be a winner, Trump makes losers of those he does business with.
To make every business deal with him sound sweeter than it was, Trump marketed his name as synonymous with gold-plated luxury. But few of his deals had happy endings. His narcissistic need to be a winner every time meant that there were losers every time. This included just about anyone who made the mistake of signing a contract to lend or partner or supply goods or services to him. After stiffing his partners and lenders in Atlantic City in 1991 by declaring bankruptcy and forcing them to write down billions of dollars in losses, Trump soon retook control of the properties by creating a public casino company in 1995 and selling the stock to suckers attracted to his name. According to a MarketWatch columnist, “Donald Trump was a stock market disaster,” with Trump Hotels and Casino Resorts racking up more than $1 billion in losses during his 13 years as chairman, while its stock fell from a high of $35 to just 17 cents. But despite making losers of the poor saps who invested with him, Trump emerged a winner, soaking the bankrupted public company for what Fortune magazine estimated was $82 million in compensation.
Con No. 4: To win in politics, Trump makes voters believe that his presidency benefits them.
One of the great mysteries of Trump’s ascension to power is his support among working-class Americans. He is far from being a person who mingles with the masses. Trump’s social and professional activities have been limited to those who are superwealthy, famous or influential. To the extent that he has interacted with common Americans, it has been as a commercial icon: He sells them chances to lose money at his casinos’ slot machines; he grants them admission to real estate society through the scam that was Trump University; he offers them armchair viewing of crass demonstrations of cruel power in “The Apprentice.”
Con No. 5: To avoid accountability, Trump makes the media, and truth, the “enemy of the people.”
Truth is the greatest threat to Donald Trump. He despises the transparency and accountability that flows from a free press. He continually attacks the media as “the enemy of the people,” despite increasing violence against journalists by some of his supporters, repeating the phrase in a Wednesday tweet in reference to the Times. Gabriel Sherman, national affairs editor at New York magazine, described Trump’s use of this term as “full-on dictator speak.” For opponents of Joseph Stalin, being branded an enemy of the people was a death sentence. In Nazi Germany, Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels also favored the term, arguing in 1941 that “each Jew is a sworn enemy of the German people.”
Trump regularly insults or threatens to sue journalists who refuse to act as stenographers for his lies. “It’s frankly disgusting the way the press is able to write whatever they want to write. And people should look into it,” he said, referring to NBC News on Oct. 11, 2017. “Network news,” he tweeted that day, “has become so partisan, distorted and fake that licenses must be challenged and, if appropriate, revoked.” This prompted Sen. John McCain to note that the comment was “how dictators get started.”
Con No. 6: To stoke fear, Trump recasts perpetrators as victims.
As president, Trump’s primary governance strategy relies on the same deceptive manipulation of human fear that brought him victory as a candidate. He has proved himself masterful at playing the white Christian male grievance card. Whether it is the foreigners streaming across the border to take American jobs, the dark-skinned urbanites coming for rural Americans’ guns or empowered women upending patriarchal traditions, Trump and his Fox News echo chamber let white Christians know that they are being victimized and that far worse will follow if they do not fight for their right to oppress others.
(my comment) There you have it -- lies to get financial leverage that would be bank fraud for you and me, lies to avoid taxes. making himself into a 'winner' by making 'losers' of others in business: in politics, misrepresenting the good that he can do for people, rejecting objective truth when the truth is inconvenient, and casting the bad people who do his bidding as innocent victims.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.