Thomas Low Nichols in a memoir described an incident when Barnum was in desperate need of a blackface entertainer after his white singer quit. All he could find to replace his white singer was a young, talented black boy who danced and sang. It was impossible for Barnum to present the genuine article, given the yearning for illusion and his shameless catering to racial prejudice. Barnum "blacked and wigged" the boy, Harris wrote, so he would pass for a make-believe African-American, "because the New Yorkers, who applauded what they supposed a white boy in a blackened face and wooly wig, would have driven the real negro from the stage and mobbed his exhibitor."
Trump, in a 2005 promotional video for a scam that made him about $40 million, employs the familiar hyperbole of the con artist in declaring: "At Trump University, we teach success. That's what it's all about -- success. It's going to happen to you. We're going to have professors and adjunct professors that are absolutely terrific -- terrific people, terrific brains, successful. We are going to have the best of the best. These are people that are handpicked by me."
Only there was no university.
"The faux university also did not have professors, not even part-time adjunct professors, and the 'faculty' (as they were called) were certainly not 'the best of the best,' " David Cay Johnston writes in "The Making of Donald Trump." "They were commissioned sales people, many with no experience in real estate. One managed a fast food joint " two other instructors were in personal bankruptcy while collecting fees from would-be Trump university graduates eager to learn how to get rich."
"Among [an] investigator's findings was that students who attended a 'next level' seminar 'are taught to prey upon homeowners in financial turmoil and to target foreclosure properties,' " Johnston writes. "They were also instructed, on the first morning of the three-day course, 'to call their credit card companies, banks, and mortgage companies and ask for an increase or extension of credit so that they may finance the 'Gold Elite' package purchase. Defendant Trump U will even ask attendees to call their bank during these one-on-one sessions while the [Trump] representative waits. The primary goal of the 3-day seminar appears to be more high-pressure sales tactics in an attempt to induce them into purchasing Defendant Trump U's 'Gold Elite' package for $35,000."
Trump's get-rich-quick schemes and seminars, including his books, were a con. His casinos were a con. His paid speeches on behalf of self-help gurus such as Tony Robbins were a con. Tales of his sexual prowess, spread by himself masquerading over the phone as a Trump spokesperson, were a con. His building projects were a con. Trump even had, Johnston writes, "imaginary employees." Trump and his kleptocrats and grifters are today triumphant, and neither democratic norms or simply human decency will inhibit their pathological lust for more.
Perhaps it was inevitable that this poison would come to dominate our culture and our politics. It is the triumph of artifice. We live in an age when the fake, the fraudulent, the fabricated and the theatrical supplant reality. Trump's manufactured persona was advertised on a reality television show. He sold this manufactured persona, as his ratings declined and he was in danger of being taken off the air, to become president. There are legions of agents, publicists, consultants, scriptwriters, celebrities, television and movie producers, wardrobe consultants, pollsters and television personalities dedicated to creating the myriad illusions that saturate the airwaves with Barnum-like lies.
We can no longer tell the difference between illusion and reality; indeed when a version of reality is not verified on our electronic screens and by our reality manipulators it does not exist. The skillful creation of illusion and the manipulation of our emotional response, actions that profit the elites to our financial and political detriment, have seeped into religion, education, journalism, politics and culture. They solidify mob rule and magical thinking. Trump's crass vulgarity, greed, unchecked hedonism and amorality, along with his worship of himself, are intrinsic to America, but his ascendancy, and the ascendancy of the character traits he personifies, represents cultural death.
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