Joy-Ann Reid sees Donald Trump in very clear and simple terms: a con man.



Trump, as Reid explains in her op-ed video with The Root, is a con man with a track record of screwing over people with his various failed business deals who ended up convincing enough Americans that his mediocrity, masked as entrepreneurial success, would trickle down to them too.




Of course, this was never Trump’s intent. In her new book The Man Who Sold America: The Unraveling of the American Story, Reid explores Trump’s political rise and how he has undone much of what we have been taught America is. Long gone are the days of the United States being an unshakable democracy whose institutions can’t be corrupted or bought. The White House is a Kleptocracy, the Republican Party functions as his boardroom and many of the federal judges care more about administering hyper-conservative ideology than following the rule of law.

“Donald Trump wants to be an autocrat,” Reid says in her op-ed. “He’s trying really hard. An autocrat is basically a president for whom the law does not apply. It is an individual who is above the law. And that person can be elected (she uses quotes) “elected” into office. He wants to stay in power for life.”


Check out the rest of the op-ed above.