Trump Timeline ... Trumpocalypse

Inside the Failing Mission to Tame Trump’s Tongue
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/14/us/politics/donald-trump-campaign-gop.html

Donald J. Trump was in a state of shock: He had just fired his campaign manager and was watching the man discuss his dismissal at length on CNN. The rattled candidate’s advisers and family seized the moment for an intervention.

Joined by his daughter Ivanka and her husband, Jared Kushner, a cluster of Mr. Trump’s confidants pleaded with him to make that day — June 20 — a turning point.

He would have to stick to a teleprompter and end his freestyle digressions and insults, like his repeated attacks on a Hispanic federal judge. Paul Manafort, Mr. Trump’s campaign chairman, and Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey argued that Mr. Trump had an effective message, if only he would deliver it. For now, the campaign’s polling showed, too many voters described him in two words: “unqualified” and “racist.”

Mr. Trump bowed to his team’s entreaties, according to four people with detailed knowledge of the meeting, who described it on the condition of anonymity. It was time, he agreed, to get on track.

Nearly two months later, the effort to save Mr. Trump from himself has plainly failed. He has repeatedly signaled to his advisers and allies his willingness to change and adapt, but has grown only more volatile and prone to provocation since then, clashing with a Gold Star family, making comments that have been seen as inciting violence and linking his political opponents to terrorism.

Advisers who once hoped a Pygmalion-like transformation would refashion a crudely effective political showman into a plausible American president now increasingly concede that Mr. Trump may be beyond coaching. He has ignored their pleas and counsel as his poll numbers have dropped, boasting to friends about the size of his crowds and maintaining that he can read surveys better than the professionals.

In private, Mr. Trump’s mood is often sullen and erratic, his associates say. He veers from barking at members of his staff to grumbling about how he was better off following his own instincts during the primaries and suggesting he should not have heeded their calls for change.

 
The secret white house tapes of previous presidents give us a more realistic view of the real person behind the political facade that they present to the public (JFK, Johnson, Nixon, Reagan, etc, etc). Millions of dollars are spent by politicians on advisors, speech writers, et al in what to say and how to present themselves to a very gullible and uninformed public. This guy Trump is saying things off the top of his head.....Just like he's sitting around a bar with a bunch of friends and saying whatever comes in to his mind at the moment. He's saying a lot of things that people are thinking and pissing them off on others......But thats what we do in open conversations.
 
WASHINGTON ― For the past year, Donald Trump has been selling himself to Republican voters and party leaders as a master developer, casino mogul, airline executive and all-around brilliant businessman.

What they didn’t hear much about, though, was his single greatest talent: master self-promoter.

Now, with the general election just three months away, they are learning they may have been sold a bill of goods. That Trump was actually a so-so developer. That his casinos failed and pushed him to the edge of personal bankruptcy. That his airline was a money-losing vanity project that he eventually lost when he missed loan payments. That his business acumen, far from brilliant, is now fodder for millions of dollars’ worth of negative TV ads.

“He is, as someone said, the hobo’s idea of a billionaire,” said Rick Wilson, a Florida political consultant who is now working for independent candidate Evan McMullin. “I’ve had donors say: ‘I’m a billionaire. Trump’s a clown with a credit card.’”

I’ve had donors say: ‘I’m a billionaire. Trump’s a clown with a credit card.’Rick Wilson, Florida political consultant
“Trump is the master of creating a perception that he is successful, when he has used https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/that-time-trump-sued-over-the-size-of-hiswallet/2016/03/08/785dee3e-e4c2-11e5-b0fd-073d5930a7b7_story.html (aggressive lawsuits) and multiple bankruptcies in attempts to mask huge failures,” said Texas Republican consultant Matt Mackowiak.

For his part, Trump continues to insist he’s worth more than $10 billion, despite outside reviews that calculate his net worth at less than half that. A National Journal analysis of his finances found that he would have been far richer if, when he took control of his father’s empire in 1974, he had instead taken his share and merely put it into a stock market index fund.

Yet for millions of Republican voters, Trump’s self-proclaimed business savvy and great wealth ― as seen on television for years and validated by party leadership last autumn ― were major reasons for backing him over more than a dozen Republican governors and senators.

In New Hampshire last June, 67-year-old janitor Steven Sweeney said: “The Donald is going to shake things up. He’s got money. They can’t buy him. They’re not going to be able to push him around.”

In Des Moines, Iowa, last August, fairgoer after fairgoer dropping corn kernels into Trump’s jar as part of a straw poll said his business experience was what was needed in the White House.

Now, nomination in hand, Trump’s sway over his hardcore supporters may have only strengthened. One, a barbershop owner in St. Clairsville, Ohio, the site of a recent Trump campaign rally, seemed genuinely distraught at the suggestion that Trump was not as successful as he claimed.

“Mr. Trump is worth every dollar he says he is,” said the barber, giving only his first name, Kent. “Mr. Trump is a man of his word.”

Unfortunately for Trump and the Republican Party, the Kents of this country make up only a fraction of the voters Trump will need to win in November. As for the non-Kents ― particularly voters in the half dozen battleground states this year ― they will have been flooded with tens, even hundreds of millions of dollars of advertising using Trump’s business record against him.

I broke the unspoken code of confidentiality with Donald Trump on Art of the Deal because I truly believe his election imperils the planet.Tony Schwartz, ghostwriter, The Art of the Deal
Recent polling by The Huffington Post and YouGov shows that Democrats and independent voters, the groups that Trump must start persuading, are already receptive to that unflattering message.

While 70 percent of Republicans believe Trump is at least as rich as he says he is, only 44 percent of Democrats and independents believe that. Perhaps even more worrisome for Trump: While 65 percent of Republicans call him “very successful,” only 41 percent of independents and 27 percent of Democrats do so.

“He’s the master of the long con, pretending to be something he isn’t to scam the next victim,” Wilson said. This time, he added, the victim is the GOP itself.

Trump businesses tanked, but Trump’s brand soared
Although Trump may not really be a brilliant businessman, he played one on TV. For over a decade, his primetime series made his success part of the popular culture, bringing him into as many as 28 million living rooms a week. Starring in “The Apprentice” and its follow-up, “The Celebrity Apprentice,” Trump played an authoritative businessman making rational decisions. Never mind that the tasks the contestants had to perform ranged from the menial to the ridiculous. Trump himself, week after week, was the show’s voice of informed reason, making a tough but fair decision at the end of each episode.

The series itself was created by Mark Burnett, the producer of the “Survivor” reality TV show. He came up with the idea after reading Trump’s book, The Art of the Deal, which portrayed Trump as the shrewd, level-headed builder of a vast and profitable business empire.

That best seller was the first real vehicle pushing Trump’s celebrity beyond the reach of the New York City tabloids. It’s written in an easy, sometimes self-deprecating style ― which essentially makes it a work of fiction, according to Trump’s ghostwriter.

Tony Schwartz, who split millions of dollars with Trump from the book’s earnings, came forward last month, saying he had grown alarmed that Trump could actually win the presidency based on the character Schwartz had created.

“I broke the unspoken code of confidentiality with Donald Trump on Art of the Deal because I truly believe his election imperils the planet,” Schwartz wrote in a July 27 tweet.

In a New Yorker piece, Schwartz described a man unable to focus for any period of time and driven by a compulsive need for more money and more attention, to the point of reckless behavior.

If he were writing the book today, he said, it would be called The Sociopath.


Indeed, within a few years of the book’s 1987 release, Trump’s empire was on the verge of collapse. His casinos in Atlantic City were bleeding money. Trump had personally guaranteed nearly $1 billion in business loans, which were now threatening to put him into personal bankruptcy. Over a period of years, Trump’s empire shrank as lenders made him hand over ever-larger portions of his holdings and forced him to give up personal extravagances like his 281-foot-yacht. They even put him on an allowance.

With his credit shot, Trump’s business model shifted away from building things and consolidated instead around collecting a salary and profits from his television show, membership dues from his golf courses and fees for the use of his name on various hotels and condominiums that he did not own.

The Trump “brand,” thanks to his aggressive and constant promotion, had become his primary business line.

None of his defeats made him change the way he presented himself. In every speech, every debate, every interview, Trump brags about his success: his “phenomenal business,” his “tremendous cash flow,” his “very low debt.”

“I built a phenomenal business with incredible, iconic assets, one of the really, truly great real-estate businesses,” Trump said at last autumn’s Reagan Library debate.

Republican voters believed him.

“He’s a great builder,” said retired contractor Frank Savino at Trump’s very first “house party” in New Hampshire last summer. “He means what he says, and he says what he means.”

GOP leaders bought the myth, now stuck with it
That the average American tended to believe Trump’s boasts heading into last summer is perhaps understandable. After all, that was the proposition underlying his reality TV show for 12 years.

But what put Republicans into the box that traps them today is the failure of party leaders and Trump’s primary rivals to challenge that premise back when there was still time. During the crucial early debates last year, most of the other candidates ― assuming that Trump’s popularity would fade as the actual voting drew closer ― avoided attacking Trump. Even more important, they acknowledged his business success as a given.

“I love Donald Trump. He is a good man,” former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee said at the October debate in Boulder, Colorado. “I’m wearing a Trump tie tonight. Get over that one, OK?”

The party’s top officials, meanwhile, were so fearful of Trump’s purported net worth and a threatened third-party run that chairman Reince Priebus traveled to Trump Tower and secured Trump’s signature on a pledge that he would support the eventual nominee. (Trump repudiated the pledge this spring, citing the party’s unfair treatment of him.)

While other candidates eventually starting calling Trump a liar and a con man, top Republican officials, advisers and donors continue to this day to believe Trump’s self-portrait of a business genius.

“He builds buildings. He runs a large business,” Andy Puzder, the CEO of the company that owns the Hardee’s and Carl’s Jr. restaurant chains, told HuffPost recently. “He certainly has all the indications of wealth.”

Supply-side economist Stephen Moore, one of Trump’s economic advisers, pointed to Trump’s numerous buildings as proof of his success ― seemingly unaware that many had nothing to do with Trump beyond sporting his name on a sign. “One of the things that he is a master at is branding,” he said. “His business skills are unrivaled.”

A great irony for Republicans is that four years ago they nominated a candidate who actually did have great business skills. For those who believe that running a successful presidential campaign requires a no-nonsense mindset to make informed decisions, Mitt Romney possessed that in spades ― and still lost the popular vote by a significant margin, thanks to demographics that are tilting ever more drastically against Republicans.

Four years later, with fewer than 90 days left before the election, the party is stuck with Romney’s opposite: an at-best mediocre businessman, with an all-nonsense, all-the-time approach to campaigning based primarily on his whims at any given moment.

Republican leaders concede privately that it is next to impossible to make Trump accept advice and that even to try risks putting him in a foul mood that makes the effort counterproductive.

To ghostwriter Schwartz, who followed Trump around for 18 months gathering material for The Art of the Deal, none of this is surprising.

“Trump doesn’t take advice from anyone. Ever. That won’t change. He is who he is. He won’t reset because he can’t,” Schwartz tweeted on Aug. 3. “Never thought I’d say this: Trump is worse today ― harsher, more erratic, more grandiose ― than when I first met him. And he was bad then.”
 
Always bin interested in American politics.Curious to hear American members thoughts or views on Trump? Yes he is a smart business man and great at self promoting. But can he run your country? Or is he outta his league? I'm neither for or against Trump just interested...
In reality it isn't the President who runs the country. It's the staff he has around him that advices him. Can he do worse than the last eight years of course. America needs a lesson in finance. I believe he may be the more realistic choice on the financial side while Clinton would be on the political side. She has proven she can lie her way out of things! IMO either way we got make chicken soup with chicken shit!
 
In reality it isn't the President who runs the country. It's the staff he has around him that advices him. Can he do worse than the last eight years of course. America needs a lesson in finance. I believe he may be the more realistic choice on the financial side while Clinton would be on the political side. She has proven she can lie her way out of things! IMO either way we got make chicken soup with chicken shit!

I can't bash any American Meso members for who they vote for, I don't live there. But funny you quoted my very first post too this thread. My views of Trump have definitely changed since then hahahahha. In the end someone has to win and my true beliefs about all politicians is their all shady con artists. No matter who you vote into government. Like everything in life it's a game and the Playa's will play. Haha
 
I can't bash any American Meso members for who they vote for, I don't live there. But funny you quoted my very first post too this thread. My views of Trump have definitely changed since then hahahahha. In the end someone has to win and my true beliefs about all politicians is their all shady con artists. No matter who you vote into government. Like everything in life it's a game and the Playa's will play. Haha[/QUOTE
I'm a firm believer in individual rights to vote for whoever they want. I don't get into politics just for the reason you said they are all fucked up by lies, money, sex, drugs or some scandal. In the end they have their own agenda and will do and say what it takes to get there. As for the quoting your first post from this thread I have a knack for bumping old threads. Seems to be my thing... Lol. Interesting to here others opinions on America. Playas will play for sure!
 
I guess what I'm saying about quoting my first post it's ironic as hell. Reason being when I started this thread it was out of pure shock and bewilderment that Trump was attempting to run. lol As I stated right away yes he's a proven and great business man. But never did i think we'd be here and him have made such a legitimate race. So gotta say hats off for proving the doubters wrong. lol He's smart in playing towards the "general" populations feeling and emotions. But very foolish for getting involved and displaying his prejudices towards the other minorities. Either way will be interesting to see who comes out on top.
 
I can see where that could have been your thoughts being in Dec. I didn't think he would make it this far but I also didn't think the other Clinton would either.
 
I guess what I'm saying about quoting my first post it's ironic as hell. Reason being when I started this thread it was out of pure shock and bewilderment that Trump was attempting to run. lol As I stated right away yes he's a proven and great business man. But never did i think we'd be here and him have made such a legitimate race. So gotta say hats off for proving the doubters wrong. lol He's smart in playing towards the "general" populations feeling and emotions. But very foolish for getting involved and displaying his prejudices towards the other minorities. Either way will be interesting to see who comes out on top.

I think it mostly shows how disillusioned everyone is with the federal government as a whole. Until Trump, no one had been offered up by the parties or media who wasn't a bought and paid for stooge of the established powers. Unfortunately, in the unlikely event he wins, Trump will probably be one himself before he ever takes the crown.
 
Transcribers' agony: Frustrated not by what Trump says but how he says it
Transcribers' agony: Frustrated not by what Trump says but how he says it

Few conventions in political campaign coverage are as straightforward and unassailable as quoting a public figure verbatim. After all, how can there be any doubt when you are putting down the exact words someone says?

And yet, as with many other parameters of the process, Donald Trump has complicated this, too.

The rhetorical challenges of Trump are not just those of substance — or the lack thereof, but of syntax — and the lack thereof.

His unscripted speaking style, with its spasmodic, self-interrupting sentence structure, has increasingly come to overwhelm the human brains and tape recorders attempting to quote him.

Trump is, simply put, a transcriptionist's worst nightmare: severely unintelligible, and yet, incredibly important to understand.

 
Last edited:
Back
Top