As
anyone who follows American politics has been made aware, billionaire Donald
Trump claims to be running for the Republican nomination for President. As a
Libertarian.
He
says he is actually running. He holds rallies with significant turnout. He
leads the fifteen other Republicans who are vying for the nomination in the
polls. His private jet takes him all over the country to meet his public. He
promises to release his financial statements including income tax returns (just
as soon as Jeb Bush does the same), claiming a net worth of $10 billion,
perhaps less than half what he really owns. He appears at a variety of press
conferences. He is a guest on news programs. He gets invited to some talk
shows.
There
is even a Twitter hashtag #TrumpYourCat that features photos of cats wearing
Trump hairpieces made with their own combed-out fur—such as Grumpy Cat a/k/a
the scowling Trumpy Cat.
Just
what and who is this strange-looking pontificating windbag with the flying
locks that threaten to ascend like a helicopter in a stiff wind?
He
is a 69-year-old native New Yorker born in the Borough of Queens, of German and
Scottish ancestry, a billionaire who was given his financial start by his
successful father, a New York City real estate developer. As a teenager, the young
Donald had been dismissed from a private Queens secondary academy for
behavioral problems, and thereafter transferred to the New York Military
Academy, where he played numerous sports, including football. He attended
Fordham University and the Wharton School to concentrate on real estate
studies, graduating with a B.S. in economics and anthropology—as well as a war chest
of $200,000 courtesy of his father. Some years later Donald John Trump was even
awarded an honorary doctorate by the evangelical Liberty University of Lynchburg,
Virginia, founded by that avatar of the Moral Majority, the late Reverend Jerry
Falwell.
This
was some years after Trump’s Bavarian paternal grandfather changed the
paterfamilias surname of Drumph to the more dazzling Trump.
And
like Howard Hughes before him, The Donald has a “morbid fear of shaking hands.”
Trump
began his real estate empire in middle-class real estate in Brooklyn, Queens,
and Staten Island, and then turned around a forlorn Cincinnati apartment
complex belonging to his father, selling it for a tidy profit. Focusing again
on New York City and a variety of larger building projects, Trump ultimately
used a $40 million city tax abatement to turn a bankrupt Commodore Hotel into
the Grand Hyatt, and created The Trump Organization. By 1988 he had acquired
his first gambling casino, and then another, nearly losing all in a corporate
bankruptcy shortly thereafter. The year 2001 saw the completion of the 72-tower
Trump World Tower across from the United Nations (which Trump insists is 90
stories high), perhaps the tallest residential building in New York, glass
walls gleaming with dark bronze tint in the sun. Trump claims to have
considered a career as a film producer or studio executive, but chose to
concentrate on more lucrative opportunities in real estate development.
The
Donald has built a number of other residential and commercial towers, including
the luxurious 52-story Trump International Hotel and Tower completed in 2003
and located at Columbus Circle, characterized by a golden world globe at the
intersection of Central Park West and Central Park South. A recent kerfuffle
over the disappearance of marble benches in the lobby for the use of the public
at another Trump tower located at 725 Fifth Avenue—replaced by stores selling
luxury goods marketing the Trump name—has received almost no attention by the
New York Department of Buildings.
The
Trump Entertainments Resorts, Inc. owns the Trump Taj Mahal, and formerly owned
other gaming properties, most in Atlantic City. Four business bankruptcies,
including one filed in 2014, have kept these properties afloat and protected
Trump’s personal assets.
Other
Trump businesses over the years have included:
— A
television show that Trump hosted, “The Celebrity Apprentice,” which immortalized
Donald’s favorite punchline, “You’re fired!”
— The
Miss USA pageant, although it has suffered from adverse publicity generated by Candidate
Trump
— Trump
bottled water Trump Ice, which was short-lived and is hard to find
— The
search engine GoTrump.com for luxury travel deals, which lasted about a year
before it was shut down
— Trump
Magazine, a glitzy annual magazine now known as the Jewel of Palm Beach, which is
distributed at Trump properties and through a resort media group
— The
New Jersey Generals football team, which lasted only a season or two
— Trump
Airlines (formerly, Eastern Air Shuttle), which was a Trump property for about
four years before being sold
— Trump
University, which has been described as being an “extended infomercial” preying
on student fears, is no longer in business, and has been sued by the New York
State Attorney General for defrauding students
Real
estate businesses are still the most lucrative enterprises in Donald Trump’s
portfolio, but other less well-known ventures have met differing fates, i.e., there
have been Trump Mortgage, which vanished shortly after the 2007 real estate
crash, Trump Steaks, high-priced and still served in Trump properties around
the world, Trump Vodka which may or may not still be marketed under the Trump
name, and Trump: The Game, a Monopoly-like board game that has survived, barely.
The
reader will note the preponderance of Trump’s name on nearly all of his
businesses.
His
personal life reflects his views on women: They must be young, gorgeous, and
compliant. To date he has married a young Czech skier Ivana Zelníčková, who
remained a celebrity in her own right, by whom he fathered two sons and a
daughter. After their divorce in 1992, The Donald married the pretty young
Marla Maples, fathered a fourth child, and was divorced within six years. He is
currently married to the former Melania Knauss, by whom he has fathered a fifth
child, now nine years old. His children have so far produced seven grandchildren.
No
one seems to question his overt hostility toward women who may criticize or
disagree with him. That is, as Jezebel
noted only three years ago:
“The trouble with Trump is the
hostility he reserves for the women he doesn't like, basing his insults and
jabs largely on their looks, weight, and sex lives. The most notorious of these
was his 2006 battle with Rosie O'Donnell—a fight that was such a media
shitstorm that . . . years later, he continues to dredge up when he needs some
attention. Responding to her comments on The
View about his defense of Miss USA Tara Conner, Trump called
O'Donnell a ‘fat pig’ and an ‘animal’ to basically anyone who would listen, from reporters to late night talk
show hosts. The worst of it was probably a two-minute rant he filmed for Entertainment Tonight that was so vile,
the show decided not to air it on television.”
Donald
Trump has pretended to enter the race for the presidency at least twice in
recent presidential election lead-ups, and then dropped out quickly. But in
2015 he is actually proceeding with his “campaign,” having achieved significant
notoriety in recent years with his endless shrill demands that President Obama
produce his birth certificate, claiming that Barack Obama is not a natural-born
U.S. citizen (causing the President to actually produce the birth certificate).
A remarkable display of crazy, playing right into the hands of similar
constituents.
Trump
has in recent weeks before huge, boisterous crowds:
— Described immigrants who yearn for a path to legal
citizenship or even residency as being violent offenders, including rapists, purposefully
sent to the U.S. to harm Americans, and adding that U.S. officials were being
"dumb" in dealing with immigrants in the country illegally:
"These people wreak havoc on our population.”
—
Characterized Senator John McCain, who endured more than five years of
captivity and torture by the North Vietnamese, as no war hero, suggesting that
McCain might have been a war hero if he hadn’t been caught. (Trump sought and
received four Vietnam War student deferments and then was reclassified 4-F for
purportedly having bone spurs in one or both feet; draft records are incomplete
and neither support nor contradict this claim.)
—
Been described by South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham as a “jackass,” and in
response, Trump yelled out Graham’s private office telephone number at a public
rally and urged his audience to let Graham know how they feel about him
— Criticized
candidate Texas Governor Rick Perry for wearing glasses as a foil to make
voters think he looks intelligent
—
Become a bombastic hero to crowds of ignorant conservative Republican voters
who are thriving on Trump’s outrageous rhetoric and finding an outlet for their
anger at feeling helpless under an onslaught of circumstances that they do not
understand and cannot accept (and which the Republican party has largely
created)
Republicans
worry whether any of the other hopefuls in their party can keep up with Trump’s
fast (and profane) mouth on a primary debate stage: possibly the quick but mean-tempered
Chris Christie, maybe another contender with courage and a thick skin.
In the
final analysis, let us look at Trump’s own prediction from one of his
ghost-written books, Trump: The Art of
the Deal: “You can create excitement, you can do wonderful promotion and
get all kinds of press, and you can throw in a little hyperbole. But if you
don’t deliver the goods, people will eventually catch on.”
