HUMPTY DUMPTY
There he was big, blonde and bronzy, red tie hanging too low, at center stage where he is most comfortable and in his element. The little red TV camera light was pointing at him, he looked us right in the eye and said the truest words he has ever uttered ….
It was the very first Republican Presidential Primary debate. He was surrounded on either side by 16 professional politicians – Senators, Congressmen, Governors – and he said “See these people on stage with me…they don’t care about you…all they care about is themselves and being elected…that’s all that matters to them.”
And with those words he challenged all of them to an immediate duel. NONE OF THEM responded. And he knew at that moment that his decision to run for President was going to be fun.
And today, three and a half years into his Presidency, we see a different man, his panic and dis-ease apparent as the pandemic collapses America’s economy and its healthcare system – a collapse his Administration helped make possible by eliminating the pandemic group within the CD and delaying a commitment to deal with the disease.
His boasting that the economy was the strongest in America’s history because the Stock Market was off the charts, has been blown apart and those camera-averted eyes, slumped shoulders and head-down looks indicate his own fear about reelection.
And so fate and his own behavior has made him the politician he has always denounce… more concerned about his reelection than anything or anyone else. Congratulations Donnie – you have made the club.
UP CLOSE AND PERSONAL
There were two visits to the Tower almost two years apart. Two meetings with the CEO. Approximately 50 minutes in total. And that’s all it took to get the whole picture: the persona, the act, the sell — all of it.
Tall, better looking than his pictures, the infamous hair comb not nearly as noticeable, complexion normal and unlined, a big good-looking guy in full control of his environment, in a skyscraper with his name in gold all over it.
The first meeting was inconsequential but revealed the man at work. We came with our candidate for Mayor Tom Allon who knew him well – seeking a campaign contribution.
It took him a moment or two to turn the request down: “You only put Melania on the cover of your magazine once this year” summed it up. Instead he spent the time telling us of our tremendous talent and incredible brilliance “I know all about you” – and what he had done to help the Liberal Party.
Doing his thing…charming, warm and flattering – he who loves it knows how to do it – to a person he’d never met and ostensibly knew nothing about. It was quite a performance. Personally off-putting as it happened but unforgettable…and he had gotten a notable friend to give a promised donation.
Our second meeting was very different and far more revealing. This time we were making a pitch to get him to rebuild the roof top of a NYCHA building right across from his newly built golf course in the Bronx. Leaking roof tops are the cause of so much of the decay in all those buildings across the city. His effort, which we said would cost him little, would show again that he cared for the city and its people as he had demonstrated when he proudly rebuilt the Wollman Ice Rink as a gift to the city.
He listened attentively until we said NYCHA and then that sour look appeared, the pursed lips that Alec Baldwin loves so much, a look of pure distaste clearly annoyed that we had bothered him with anything for NYCHA. But we pounced, leaning across his desk, finger pointed at him in a display of furious anger, using as much vulgarity as we could, praising him as we assaulted some of the best known builders in NY; telling him he was not like others who didn’t give a damn about the poor..one phone call from him would make a helluva difference. He sat back, cocked his head and said in a classic turnaround “I could make it beeyoutiful…” And we said “Don’t make it beautiful Donald, just make it good.”
And he stood up with a great smile on his face and said “You know I’m going to run for President”…and pointed to something we hadn’t noticed…the room was half full of political materials: signs, balloons and red hats.
THE QUESTION
Run for President?
We were stunned. “Are you serious…President?”
And then he said the words that we would not forget:
“Yes … and when I’m finished you come back and we’ll talk about that building.”
No promises but a pledge to talk about it again after he was through running for President.
The meeting was over. We said “have fun” and left.
Weeks later he would ride down that escalator in Trump Tower to tell a group of actors hired to be his audience that he was going to run for President.
Had we met with a man who had decided he wanted to be President or a man who had made up his mind to run for President?
And that question remained during a Primary Debate campaign in which he simply destroyed his opposition…one week, one TV show at a time. He really was having fun.
And the question remained on Election night when he seemed stunned, realizing he had won. His daughter reported that he sat alone in a hotel room for 45 minutes after his declared victory staring at the TV without saying a word. No one dared enter the room.
And when he appeared later to accept his victory he seemed in shock. His smile was forced; his eyes almost without focus.
The look answered the question: Donald J. Trump never wanted to be President nor did he believe for a moment he would become President. He had no respect for the office; nor for those who had served. It was the very last thing he wanted. He hated government; it forced him to pay taxes, deal with regulations, its institutions got in his way. He belittled the politicians who ran it ”They are all losers”. President? How would he make any money being President?
With his fully ingrained negative beliefs about government, he had no idea how to be President and clearly couldn’t care less. Those advisers closest to him – Stephen Miller, who would put words in his mouth and Steve Bannon who would put ideas in his head – had no trouble convincing him not to follow the usual course and to ignore areas and institutions of government that THEY wanted to change.
He had won but looked lost on Election night. And today as he deals with a health crisis that is killing and impoverishing Americans, he is lost again.
His ferocious desire to reopen the country despite the concerns of scientists and professional health providers with their fears of more disease and death, drive him to proclaim”… we are at war and in war people are often at risk…”
His overwhelming fear is that he will lose in November and end up a one-term President. In his mind that would make him a loser and he will do or say anything not to be a loser.
BUYER BEWARE
Those who love Donald John Trump and those who hate him see a man who has been elected President but has no respect for the office and acts like it. This is a man who ran for President to build his brand; who sells his name to adorn buildings he did not build and does not own; a man seeking new sources of funding when the banks in this country all refused him loans; a man with a true genius for building his brand.
When those who have voted for him question his comments and behavior, his endless tweets, his continued fights with media, they are seeing Donald Trump, the endless Presidential candidate. It is the only time he feels like a President, playing the role with all his might and considerable skill.
We see him doing what he knows best…how to sell, sell, sell: Trump! The promises; building expectations; making you believe whatever he wants you to believe. You got a need, he has what you want. Because that’s what he’s done all his life.
See Donald Trump as a real estate salesman who has hit it big and you’ve got it right.
THE PAY OFF
Men like these appear when America is full of grievances, fears and uncertainties; when many are driven to feel useless and forgotten by evolutionary changes in the ways our economy work. Men like these take advantage of an America in that state of despair, disillusion or disgust. They too made promises they could not keep.
There are those who will say that America’s disinterest and distrust of Hillary Clinton and boredom with Barack Obama who they think overstayed his welcome, combined with an elitist attitude that went with an abandonment of the working class did the Democrats in.
A decent case for that can be made. But a more pertinent one would be that what separated the failures of past poseurs from the success achieved by Trump – essentially on his own – is the emergence is technology and the opportunities for personal communication it has made possible.
Newspapers, radio, television are mass methods of communication. IPhones are something else: personal, insistent, free of scrutiny and endlessly busy targeting and reaching those targets.
Donald Trump used that technology and his own years of involvement with media to win. He knew what to say, what to promise and now he is doing exactly as he likes, getting exactly what he wants from a Senate that follows him everywhere as long as he seems a winner.
And what does he want most: massive tax breaks for corporations like his own;
An end to more than 100 environmental regulations of all sorts, in all areas – water, air – including those industries which deal with his business;
Packing Federal courts with judges who favor power over people. Without the restriction of laws governing equality, everything is possible and all but guaranteed…and inequality flourishes.
We read of rich and powerful companies and industries receiving the billions being sent by the Federal Government to assist small businesses survive the horrific economic results of a pandemic; it is but the most immediate example of power in control.
The payoff of four more years is more of the same.
Will the Stock Market rebound (if it comes) make any difference to blue collar workers and small business owners? It hasn’t yet.
Will those with years of student debt receive relief? Little chance.
Will monies be freed up to rebuild our infrastructure? No evidence of that.
Will The Court eventually deal with Roe v. Wade? You can get Las Vegas odds.
Will those who have get more while those who don’t won’t? Bet on it.
Will climate change now become a more potent weapon against humanity than a virus can ever be? No question.
Is Donald Trump going to face a much weaker opponent whose choices and goals only sound good to those who don’t really hear the alarm bells? All but guaranteed.
Can you fool a sucker more than once? Do we have to ask?
“Will monies be freed up to rebuild our infrastructure?”
I expect debt service to eat up so much of the federal budget that there will be little left for infrastructure work.
Who are “we” in this essay? I see no antecedent.