#455 Musings Beyond the Bunker (Tuesday September 13)
Good morning,
Good morning,
TRUMP—SUI GENERIS AND DANGEROUS—YET STILL EMBRACED BY MANY
At this point, other than QAnon conspiracy adherents, Proud Boys, Oath Keepers, believers in “replacement theory,” Fox News (and other radio and TV) personalities, his most ardent supporters and many of those who parrot their fealty in order to garner votes, most people know that Donald Trump was and is a threat to democracy, a flawed individual, and a self-interested huckster.
That he attracts such loyalty is remarkable, given how he has kicked to the curb so many of his aides and supporters, has bilked his small donors to fund a non-existent campaign to overturn the last election, and how he has actively worked to endorse (hopefully) unelectable fellow-hucksters, racists and buffoons for public office. He continues to foment violence. He ignores the application of the law and, as evidenced by his unwillingness to surrender government-owned documents, he views the world as all about him and his family’s economic and political interests.
But this didn’t come about overnight. He was the laughingstock of the New York real estate and financial communities. He was distrusted by lenders, who would not lend another nickel after his lies and defaults. He flaunted the law. He stiffed hard-working laborers, demanding lower prices simply because they were desperate for late payment. The list goes on.
TRUMP DERANGEMENT
And I am tired with those who claim that those of us who decry this cancer on the presidency, our country and our civic life as being inflicted with “Trump derangement syndrome.” They have created a narrative that those who focus on Trump are either (a) obsessed, (b) can’t bear to lose (since Trump always wins), (c) don’t have anything else to talk about, or (d) are just incapable about talking about anything else, as if Trump and his ilk no longer pose danger. That, of course, is a convenient, but absurd, notion. Lest we forget, it is Mr. Trump and his minions who refuse to go away and continue to occupy the national stage and debate. It is they who are part of a larger scheme to weaken the rule of law and validity of elections. It is they who created a Republican party platform in 2020 that contained merely the statement that Mr. Trump was doing good—not a single policy statement. They are the ones who have chosen Mr. Trump as their leader.
We are not deranged by Trump. We are concerned that his derangement has generated such havoc, misinformation, threats to our democracy, a diminishment of the importance of data, science, and a free press. He and his acolytes draw our attention away from the important issues of the day, when we instead find ourselves focused on batting down his latest lies. The list of conservatives who see Trump for who he is, people who otherwise would be supportive of a Republican president, is long—David Brooks, Bill Kristol, Max Boot, Mitt Romney, Lynn and Dick Cheney, and a host of others. Sadly, the national Republican party and the local county parties running election deniers for local office and controlling county committees, are unwilling or unable to break from the throes of the Trump derangement.
But this didn’t start when he announced his presidential run. Some of us had earlier encounters.
MY MEETING WITH DONALD TRUMP
I met Mr. Trump in 1998. A colleague and I were there to meet him to discussing financing a couple of his office buildings. Because people ask the proverbial “what was he like?” I’ll provide the short version. And while a single meeting ought not be dispositive, this one certainly was illuminating (largely resulting from the lack of light emanating from Mr. Trump).
I consider one of my abilities is being able to size-up someone fairly quickly. As many of you know, I inherited this skill from my mother. She had the superpower of being able to spot a fraud a mile away. It didn’t take long to size up Mr. Trump.
In a short one-hour meeting, Mr. Trump bounced from topic to topic, incapable of staying focused on any one story and in constant “sales mode.” He wanted us to know how savvy and clever he was (words he later would use in describing Mr. Putin). The office was a shrine to Mr. Trump. Walls were covered with magazine covers that featured his face. Since then, we have learned that he had a habit of displaying fake magazine covers, even though there were ample real examples. As I look back, he was an early example of the “celebrity as a business” perfected by Paris Hilton, the Kardashians and the Internet influencers of today. Much like his followers in the manufactured celebrity business, everything was contrived and choreographed to avoid the facts about his failed business career. It was clear that, as Gertrude Stein said of Oakland, there was “no there there.”
· He pulled out a magazine (I believe it was Paris Vogue) with his daughter, Ivanka, then 14 or 15 years of age on the cover. “Is she hot or what?” was his exclamation. At this point, as the father of a two-year-old daughter at the time, racing through my head were myriad thoughts, like “if I ever utter words like that about my daughter, I should be struck by lightning” and “I sure hope I’m able to raise a strong, independent woman who is not subject to such objectification.”
He bragged about how he sold a plane to an Arab businessman with an option to repurchase, “on terms that will just kill him.”
At the time he was subject to a bankruptcy court order restricting his spending to “only” a few hundred thousand dollars a month. He bragged that he was violating the court order, far exceeding that limit but was confident they would never find out.
When it finally got to the subject matter of the meeting, refinancing a couple of his properties, he indicated they generated two or three million dollars in cash flow. When asked whether it was two or three, he didn’t seem to know, didn’t seem to care, and didn’t seem to understand why it would make a difference.
The guy I met in 1998 was unintelligent, uncurious, unable to focus and, importantly, seemingly unconstrained by the rules that govern business negotiations, personal relationships, or decorum. What stood out after the meeting was that this was “a man in full,” without any sort of guardrails governing his behavior. The perception that there are no guardrails informs every behavior we have seen from this man to date.
MORE GEORGE CARLIN QUESTIONS
As you may know, I appreciate the way in which George Carlin used words and had pithy observations about the English language. Here are a few examples of this:
· Why do “fat chance” and “slim chance” mean the same thing?
· Why do “tug” boats push their barges?
· Why do we sing “Take me out the ball game” when we’re already there?
· Why are they called “stands” when they are made for sitting?
Have a great day,
Glenn
From the archives: