This, from the gang at the New York Times, is simply beautiful:
From the back seat of a stretch limousine heading to meet the first contestants for his new TV show “The Apprentice,” Donald J. Trump bragged that he was a billionaire who had overcome financial hardship.
“I used my brain, I used my negotiating skills and I worked it all out,” he told viewers. “Now, my company is bigger than it ever was and stronger than it ever was.”
It was all a hoax.
I love how they throw the president’s favorite word right back in his face by calling his entire persona a frickin’ “hoax,”
Trump wasn’t a billionaire. In fact, he was broke as fuck, having just filed an individual tax return showing “$89.9 million in net losses from his core businesses for the prior year.” The Apprentice actually saved his ass. It got great ratings and had a nice run on television, earning him hundreds of millions of dollars in income and allowing him to build up his brand and prevent the total collapse of his business empire.
This isn’t some kind of revelation to me. I figured out in 2015 that something along these lines had occurred. Over the last five years, more and more pieces were revealed that helped fill in the puzzle.
What’s almost funny is that I vaguely remember my reaction when I first saw The Apprentice. I was a bit confused because I hadn’t thought about Trump much since his Atlantic City casinos went belly-up in the early 1990’s. The last thing I remembered reading about him was about how he owed the banks so much money that they couldn’t let him go completely broke or they’d never get repaid. Growing up in the New York media market, I’d learned to really dislike the man, and I resented that he’d been bailed out and allowed to continue living the high lifestyle when ordinary people would be living in a truck under a bridge down by the river.
And, yet, a little more than ten years later, here he was presenting himself as some business genius. I wondered what I had missed.
But, truth be told, I didn’t care enough to look into it until after he declared himself a candidate for president and started doing well in the polls. Even before that, I’d learned a bit more about the basics from people who were angry about his whole Obama birth certificate schtick. For example, I knew Trump University had been a giant scam well before it ran into legal trouble.
When I started to look into his businesses myself, it quickly became obvious that he’d reimagined his business model so that instead of building things, he simply got paid for the use of his name. This worked out a lot better for him than trying to run a profitable operation because he didn’t have to do any work beyond the licensing agreements. But it was a weird deal, because people were associating his name with wealth and luxury, and paying for it. But he never actually made money doing anything except pretending to make a lot of money.
I almost admired the way he pulled this scam off, except that he’d revealed himself to be a racist crank and he didn’t just use his name to sell condos. He also used it to bilk people out of their money by, for example, paying tuition to his fake university to learn real estate tips from a guy who lost several fortunes in real estate.
I know they are some people who love Trump and will always love him, but it’s nice to see the truth about him revealed, and revealed in actual tax documents. I consider it a small victory every time someone sees this information and for the first time understands that Trump is a scam artist.
His whole life and image has been a giant hoax, and those who have eyes to see can now see.
Old news.
See the books by Wayne Barrett (Greatest Show on Earth) and Seth Hettena.
BTW new nickname for DJT: Brokeahontas. 🙂
This is, of course, all true. In the short term, I think Democrats need a sticky idea about what the tax retruns reveal. “Fraud” and “hoax” aren’t going to do it because Trump’s shadiness is a part of his appeal.
I think “debt = slavery” might be a better route.
I don’t know if we want to use the word “slavery” but boy would that get under his skin.
How about “debt peon”?
That’s good. I like it. “Trump is a someone’s peon.”
Sleepless in Debt?
This means that Biden can turn up the rhetoric against Trumpolini. He can start openly calling him a conman and tax cheat and tax evader. He can say that the only “hoax” around here is the idea that Trump is a successful biznessman, ala the Times.
Those that adore this political criminal in Sept 2020 have minds that can’t be changed by any facts or data whatsoever. If you’re going to the Nuremberg rallies and proudly Wearing the Red Hat, you’re an ignorant rube, a fascist and a cultist. If you’ve got the sign up in your yard, you’re irreformable as a “citizen”. But you’re in the distinct minority of Americans, possibly even in Red States.
The problem is that this is about 38% of the citizenry nationwide. I base this on the latest poll which indicates that 38% of Americans approve of the “Justice Amy” gambit by Trumpolini and McConnell’s minions. That’s a rock solid indicator of the fascist element in America, circa 2020. Their “democracy quotient” as citizens is zero.
Trump is a proven conman and monumentally failed biznessman. He’s certainly a tax-evading felon. Those are the facts, Joe. Start talking that way. It’s not gonna cost you a single vote: at this point no Trump-approver’s brain can ever function again. And if any “undecided” now elects return this reprehensible scoundrel to the Offal Office, they were a phony and weren’t a gettable vote anyway.
One hopes the Fascist-in-Chief spent a sleepless night, enraged over the “unfairness!” of his fraudulent finances and tax evasion finally being revealed to the people. Trumpolini should be primed to explode tonight and Joe should bait him at every opportunity, if he has the ability. Unfortunately Uncle Joe is not very quick-witted. But he certainly has the ammo.
Even if Biden wins, and Dems win majority in the Senate, how do we move forward as a nation with this 38%? With Faux Noise aiding and abetting their every treasonous dirty deeds, done dirt cheap?
Chip away at about the 3-4% who can be salvaged, and hope the rest die off, peacefully, never again using their political power for evil.
I don’t agree that Uncle Joe isn’t quick-witted. He’s just not a naturally mean person, and isn’t comfortable with bully-boy snark. Unfortunately, that puts him at a rhetorical disadvantage when dealing with the bullies and mean girls on the right-wing.
But Martin, how to we explain this to the rubes? As I recall, you advocated recently that the Democratic Party had to reach out and convert the deplorables who are currently racing around Sandusky (OH) Harbor with their Trump flags screaming to the world that this hoax is their man forever. How do we reach them?
Local news said there were “ thousands” in a car column around the city Sunday. We passed by a few dozen towards the end of their rally. They had flags of all kinds, and most also had a blue Trump flag. All were honking like crazy people. They were said to be here from miles around us. Nice to live in such a conservative place? What a freaking hoax, I’m sure none of them read or believed a word of the NyTimes story. No way to reach them anyway. My daughter in law doesn’t much like them and was screaming at a few. We were trying to keep it quiet.
Pennyhontas?
Scam Man?