Donald Trump: Fecal Midas or Greatest Businessman Ever Made?
You probably know where this is going...
Dondald Trump is a very wealthy man, no one is going to argue that. But being a wealthy man does not make one a great, good, average, or even adequate businessman – especially when the source of one’s wealth is a huge inheritance. That’s’ the truth, but, thanks to a very active, long-running public relations campaign, started by his father Fred Trump, built-on with the book The Art of the Deal, and climaxing with the TV reality show The Apprentice, the public image of Donald Trump is so distorted that it is a lie. The lie: Donald Trump is the Greatest Businessman Ever Made. The truth: There is no evidence to support this claim.
Over the coarse of his early life, Donald Trump was given $413 million by his father, much of the money passed on to Trump through tax dodges and other illegal schemes. This well-established fact snuffs the Trump-pushed myth that Donald started out with a mere $10 million and was further assisted by a series of “small loans,” which turned out to be his father’s gifts. More than anything else, Trump used the $413 million to put on a show, the show of a extremely successful business tycoon. He bought and sold property, built and slapped his name on buildings, pimped luxury (hotels, resorts, golf courses), and invested heavily in Atlantic City casinos.
Although Trump’s name was literally affixed to nearly every one of his project/investments, in gold or goldish paint, Donald Trump’s real financial situation was and has always been a mess. Trump’s “success” as real estate developer was built on gold plating, flash purchases, stiffing contactors and lenders, and wasting a lot of money. Some of the waste was overspending, some was constantly changing details, changes that delayed projects and inflated costs. Trump also burned through money in the courts, suing and being sued by people. In desperation, Trump tried to get people to buy Trump Steak, Trump Vodka, Trump Cologne, Trump Wine, and even a Trump education. And, when he hit bottom, he leveraged his property to get loans, which he defaulted on. All stuff only the uber wealthy can get away with.
None of Trump’s activity made him money. In fact, if Trump had dumped all his money in the S&P 500 and did nothing else, he’d be wealthier than he is today. Instead, Trump pursued vanity projects that proved him to be little more than Fecal Midas. I found one list of 26 high profile business ventures Trump crashed. These are the ones we know of, the ones that moved from dumb idea to stupid project. Trump’s failures include the near impossible task of bankrupting casinos, which led to further bankruptcies, failures Trump spins as triumphs.
That Trump has been able to escape his past and convince people that he is the Greatest Businessman Ever Made is also something that has been handed to him. We are ignorant of Fred Trump’s public relations campaign on behalf of him and his son. We chuckle at Trump’s outrageousness when we discovered he used the alias John Barron to promote himself, partially because John Barron made no ripple. We shudder when we hear the name Mark Burnett, the reality TV producer who created “Donald Trump, Greatest Businessman Ever Made” by building a show around Trump, The Apprentice. And we shudder because we know: No Mark Burnett, No Business Icon Donald Trump, No President Donald J. Trump.
Trump’s business history is a real thing. It has been heavily documented. The scandalous details take some work to find, but everything else is there in court documents, SEC filings, tax forms, and other pieces of paper, often provided by Trump and his businesses. That everything else is enough to debunk the Trump myth. The evidence is so clear that Trump is forced to cop to things like his bankruptcies, though with absurd spin.
Trump’s celebrity profile is not based on reality. Donald Trump Businessman has been cobbled together from self-mythologizing, public relations campaigns, entertainment journalism, pliant business press reports, and reality television. Very little of Trump’s celebrity profile survives even shallow examination.
Unfortunately, entertainment is a fantastic toolbox and television is its most powerful tool. Once we “learn” something from TV, it is very difficult to unlearn. For eleven years (fourteen seasons), Americans saw Trump strut through symbols of wealth to the O’Jays’ “For the Love of Money,” a song that is a condemnation of greed and people like Trump. When Trump’s useless children joined the show, they were also portrayed as business bad-asses, though, like their father, they did not have to work for their wealth. The show’s introduction, shown over and over for eleven years, has been enough to remake Trump’s image from lucky loser to business winner. And the meat of the show backed the intro’s play.
Remember that reality television is anything but raw reality. While reality TV can be scripted, semi-scripted or non-scripted, it is always edited. Truckers hauling stuff on ice, comedians competing on stage, yuppies trying to survive on an island, salvagers arguing over abandoned storage lockers, or some conman sitting behind a big desk pretending to be a businessman; what you see on television is a chopped up and reorganized version of what happened “in real life.” And as any professional writer will tell you, everything is in the edit.
The Apprentice is heavily edited. It is also scripted. While Trump did come up with “You’re fired!,” much of what he say on the show was formed by the show-runners. The “contestants” speak freely, though they are coached on what to say, and their words are edited to shape the show’s narrative, create heroes and villains, and to bolster and build on the Trump myth. The show’s contests and challenges come from the production team, not Trump. The producers have input into every one of Trump’s “decisions,” including who wins challenges and who gets “fired.” Even The Apprentice boardroom is a fake, a set created in empty space in Trump’s building, which also got a touch-up job by the show-runners.
The Apprentice is reality television but it is not raw reality or even close to reality. We know that it The Apprentice is only a TV show. The mainstream media knows this. The political press knows this. Trump’s political opponents, going back to the 2016 Republican primary cast, have always known this. And much of the public know this. However, getting everyone who knows that The Apprentice is fiction and that “Donald J. Trump” is as much as a character as Peregrin Took to speak this truth is very difficult work.
No matter the difficulty, the idea that Donald Trump is Greatest Businessman Ever Made (or even an adequate one) must die and this is the reason why: Much of what Trump did economically as president is based on the Trump myth. Trump’s claims of positive economic stuff occurring during, before, and after his presidency are propelled by the myth. All of the economic “plans” that Trump is trying to sell us are being sold on the myth that he is the supreme deal-maker and stable business genius.
That is not good. It is not good because “Trumponomics” is an economic disaster. All of what Trump has done to the America’s economic fundamentals, what policy he enacted as president, and what he proposes to do if elected is very, very bad for all but the uber wealthy (and even they get screwed). The ideology that he sells and the shallow underpinnings of his wispy philosophy is very, very destructive to the country, red, blue, and purple.
Next Soriano’s Circus, I will start in on Trump’s economic plans (or concepts of plans), including tariffs, tax cuts, not taxing overtime pay, deregulation, mass deportation (which has profound economic consequences), public investment, etc. None of it is good. All of it will screw you, worker, office drone, small business person, suit, investor, and even the few Richie Rich’s reading this. Doubt me? Let’s play poker over a dinner of Trump steak. I’ll be happy to own you.