Donald Trump wasn't actually a successful businessman at all, not in the normal sense anyway. He was an economic magician (or, in classic American terms, a con man) who regularly ground business after business -- a set of casinos (at a time when other casinos were thriving), hotels, an airline, and a series of other endeavors ranging from Trump Steaks to Trump Vodka to Trump University -- into the dust of bankruptcy or failure. What made him such a magician was that, in case after case, his greatest "business" skill proved to be jumping ship, dollars in hand, leaving those who trusted him, had faith in him, believed in him holding the bag.
He had a history of screwing anyone who relied on him, whether we're talking about the investors in his Atlantic City casinos or a bevy of small business types and others who worked for him -- plumbers, waiters, painters, cabinet makers -- and were later stiffed. In other words, Americans elected a bankruptcy king as their president and character will tell.
There really are no secrets here. In the end, Donald Trump clearly cares about nothing but himself (and perhaps his family as an extension of that self).
So read or listen to that first campaign speech again. Reintroduce yourself to Donald Trump presenting himself with naked honesty -- with that single exception -- and then consider the future for a moment. Whether in his first or second term (should he win again in 2020), if things start to head south economically, count on this: he'll repeat his well-documented history and jump ship, leaving the American people, including that beloved base of his, holding the bag.
Tom Engelhardt is a co-founder of the American Empire Project and the author of a history of the Cold War, The End of Victory Culture. He runs TomDispatch.com and is a fellow of the Type Media Center. His sixth and latest book is A Nation Unmade by War (Dispatch Books).
Follow TomDispatch on Twitter and join us on Facebook. Check out the newest Dispatch Books, John Feffer's new dystopian novel (the second in the Splinterlands series) Frostlands, Beverly Gologorsky's novel Every Body Has a Story, and Tom Engelhardt's A Nation Unmade by War, as well as Alfred McCoy's In the Shadows of the American Century: The Rise and Decline of U.S. Global Power and John Dower's The Violent American Century: War and Terror Since World War II.
Copyright 2019 Tom Engelhardt
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