Donald Trump worth a try
Regarding "Trump enters GOP race in style" (Page A-6, June 17):Until now, I've been without much opinion about politics. In the last few administrations, I've realized what Donald Trump is talking about with our country being laughed at and taken advantage of.
If he succeeds at even half of what he's proposing, we'll be much better off economically. He is a businessman, after all. He says he loves the United States, and I believe him. He's a baby boomer like me, and he has seen the downward spiral of morals, the economy and our credibility, at the expense of political extortion, outsourcing, "big brother" policies and "political correctness."
Trump is a showman, but that's his nature. It should not sway Americans from the belief he is serious. He's got nothing to lose and plans to finance his own campaign. He would use his own residence and transportation instead of us footing the bill. This is leadership by example, not "do as I say, not as I do."
I think it's time the country wakes up from its brainwashing and its nap before it's too late. Trump's worth a try. What have we got to lose?
Joe Zangara
Regarding "Donald Trump worth a try" (Your Views, June 19):
The writer shows an abysmal ignorance about how our government, or any capitalist government, works.
In a socialist government, the means of production are owned by the government, and its resources come from the profits generated by those enterprises. In a capitalist system, the means of production are in private hands, and the government gets the resources with which to provide the services that its business enterprises and its consumers need from taxation.
Thus, it would make sense to have a businessman head the government in a socialist society, where the object of government is to maximize profit for itself. But this is not the rule in capitalism. In a democratic capitalist society, the president must be skillful in dealing with Congress and other government entities.
When Trump says, "I am really rich," does that mean we could simply pick the richest man in the United States and make him our president? That would be Bill Gates, but he has the good sense to know that he is not qualified to be president. This cannot be said about the egomaniacal clown Donald Trump.
Emil Scheller
Fort Lee, June 22
The first appeared in the Right Wing magazine, The National Review, that was founded by that reputed intellectual, William F. Buckley, Jr. Its viciousness toward one of its own is quite remarkable.
It is set forth below:
Witless Ape Rides Escalator
Donald Trump is in the race.
Donald Trump may be the man America needs. Having been through four bankruptcies, the ridiculous buffoon with the worst taste since Caligula is uniquely positioned to lead the most indebted organization in the history of the human race.
The Trump conglomerate is the Argentina of limited-liability companies, having been in bankruptcy as recently as 2009. To be sure, a lot of companies went bankrupt around then. The Trump gang went bankrupt in 2004, too, and in 2001. Before that, Trump was in bankruptcy court back in 1991 when his Taj Mahal casino in Atlantic City — the nation’s first casino-cum-strip-club, an aesthetic crime against humanity that is tacky by the standards of Atlantic City — turned out to be such a loser that Trump could not make his debt payments.
The closing of that casino has been announced at least twice — it was supposed to shut its doors in December, but it limps on.
Donald Trump, being Donald Trump, announced his candidacy at Trump Plaza, making a weird grand entrance via escalator — going down, of course, the symbolism of which is lost on that witless ape. But who could witness that scene — the self-made man who started with nothing but a modest portfolio of 27,000 New York City properties acquired by his millionaire slumlord father, barely out of his latest bankruptcy and possibly headed for another one as the casino/jiggle-joint bearing his name sinks into the filthy mire of the one U.S. city that makes Las Vegas look respectable, a reality-television grotesque with his plastic-surgery-disaster wife, grunting like a baboon about our country’s “brand” and his own vast wealth — and not see the peerless sign of our times?
On the substance, Trump is — how to put it gently? Oh, why bother! — an ass.
Not just an ass, but an ass of exceptionally intense asininity. China? “China’s leaders are like Tom Brady, and the U.S. is like a high-school football team,” Trump says. And so, we should do what? “ . . . ” Trump’s is a fill-in-the-blanks agenda: He claims to have a plan for defeating ISIS, but he cannot say what it is for reasons of operational security for the mission that exists only in his mind. He assures us the plan is “foolproof,” but whoever coined that word had never met a fool like Donald Trump. Immigration? Build a wall and force the Mexicans to pay for it.
How to do that?
“ . . . ”
The one thing worse than Trump’s vague horsepucky is his specific horsepucky, i.e., his 1999 plan to impose a one-time tax — everybody knows how good Washington is about “one time” uses of power — on the wealth of all high-net-worth individuals and institutions. A 14.25 percent tax, he calculated, would retire the national debt. And what about institutions that don’t have 14.25 percent of their net worth in ready cash — to take a totally random example, let’s say a poorly run real-estate concern with a lot of illiquid assets and unmanageable debt payments eating up all its ready cash?
“ . . . ”
Trump says that he cannot discuss the details of his agenda because of — his word — “enemies.” Who are these enemies?
“ . . . ”
Perspective? Trump predicted that we may be heading toward a stock-market crash worse than the one in 1929, but: “I remain extremely optimistic about Atlantic City.”
We’ve been to this corner of Crazytown before. If we’re going to have a billionaire dope running for the presidency, I prefer Ross Perot and his cracked tales of Vietnamese hit squads dispatched to take him out while Lee Atwater plotted to crash his daughter’s wedding with phonied-up lesbian sex pictures.
I have a theory about Trump and his delusions, based, I’ll admit, on pure superstition. There’s an ancient belief, one that persists into our own time, that our names exert occult influence on our lives. And Trump’s name, while potentially comical — “Don-John” — doesn’t offer much in the way of scrying. But his father’s middle name was — true fact — Christ. Fred Christ. Obama’s arrival was announced by a man called Emanuel, but The Donald was brought into this world by Christ himself — Fred Christ. How could a man like that not have a messiah complex?
Of course, when Trump sings “How Great Thou Art,” he sings it in a mirror.
The problem with messiah complexes is that there’s no way to know whether you are going to rise on the third day unless somebody crucifies you. Trump has announced, and I say we get started on that. —
Kevin D. Williamson is National Review’s roving correspondent.
In March 2011 Forbes estimated Donald Trump's net worth to be $2.7 billion, with a $60 million salary. Many praise and analyze his “success” as if it were self-made, and they fail to attribute the proper credit to others in society where it is deserved. Despite what Trump may espouse, his success would have been in no way possible without his father, the general public, and the US government. Unfortunately, Trump decided to forget or selectively ignore these truths while forming his political philosophy, a sentiment made particularly clear during his brief bid for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination.
Trump was born in New York City in 1946, the son of real estate tycoon Fred Trump. Fred Trump’s business success not only provided Donald Trump with a posh youth of private schools and economic security but eventually blessed him with an inheritance worth an estimated $40 million to $200 million. It is critical to note, however, that his father’s success, which granted Donald Trump such a great advantage, was enabled and buffered by governmental financing programs. In 1934, while struggling during the Great Depression, financing from the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) allowed Fred Trump to revive his business and begin building a multitude of homes in Brooklyn, selling at $6,000 apiece. Furthermore, throughout World War II, Fred Trump constructed FHA-backed housing for US naval personnel near major shipyards along the East Coast.
In 1974 Donald Trump became president of his father’s organization. During the 15 years following his ascension, he expanded and innovated the corporation, buying and branding buildings, golf courses, hotels, casinos, and other recreational facilities. In 1980 he established The Trump Organization to oversee all of his real estate operations.
Trump eventually found himself in serious financial trouble. In 1990, due to excessive leveraging, The Trump Organization revealed that it was $5 billion in debt ($8.8 billion by some estimates), with $1 billion personally guaranteed by Trump himself. The survival of the company was made possible only by a bailout pact agreed upon in August of that same year by some 70 banks, allowing Trump to defer on nearly $1 billion in debt, as well as to take out second and third mortgages on almost all of his properties. If it were not for the collective effort of all banks and parties involved in that 1990 deal, Trump’s business would have gone bankrupt and failed.
In 1995 Trump took Trump Hotels & Casino Resorts Inc. public and received a substantial financial boost from society and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) regulations that enable the market to function. He initially sold 10 million shares at $14 per share and then in 1996 sold 13.25 million shares at $32.50 a share. This initial public offering granted Trump’s company a stability and legitimacy that would have been impossible without millions of people around the world trusting his organization and investing with the hope of shared success.
Despite the clear societal and governmental assistance described above, Trump continues to be outspoken in his criticism of government. In his book The America We Deserve, Trump explains that “the greatest threat to the American Dream is the idea that dreamers need close government scrutiny and control. Job one for us is to make sure the public sector does a limited job, and no more.” This quote proves to be particularly ironic when considering Trump’s feelings about eminent domain laws. He was quoted as saying, “I happen to agree with it 100 percent” when speaking of the 2005 Supreme Court decision on Kolo v. New London, which affirmed the government’s ability to transfer land from one private owner to another for the purpose of economic development in the area. In fact, Trump attempted to take advantage of eminent domain laws on multiple occasions, once even demanding that an elderly widow give up her home so that he could build a limousine parking lot.
Perhaps more disturbing than his hypocritical condemnation of the government is his failure to acknowledge anyone’s contributions, save his own, in the creation of his success. At the 2011 Conservative Political Action Conference, Trump made clear his feelings on the creation of his wealth: “Over the years I’ve participated in many battles and have really almost come out very, very victorious every single time. I’ve beaten many people and companies, and I’ve won many wars. I have fairly but intelligently earned many billions of dollars, which in a sense was both a scorecard and acknowledgment of my abilities.”
Furthermore, Trump apparently sees no benefit in supporting taxes to maintain institutions such as the Securities and Exchange Commission to regulate the stock market, in which he publicly trades his company, or the court system, which actively protects his property rights: “We are the highest taxed nation—I would tax foreign countries that are ripping off the US and lower taxes for Americans.”
From the moment of his birth, Trump was set up for success. The large inheritance left to him by his father, coupled with the contributions and the protections of society and the US government made his ascension to the Forbes 400 list almost inevitable. Nevertheless, Trump fails to recognize this phenomenon and continues to express his belief that he did it alone.
Copyright © 2012 with permission from Berrett Koehler Publishers.
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