Lifetime Grifter Finally Met Opponent He Can’t Con

Photo by Gage Skidmore/Flickr

A few weeks ago I heard a mental health professional say President Donald Trump remains popular because he has a significant part of the American population hypnotized.

There may be some truth to this. He doesn’t use a pocket watch and tell people to count to 10, but Trump’s managed to mesmerize a lot of Americans. Of course, he’s been aided by the media who gave him $2 billion of free coverage during the 2016 campaign.

After studying Trump in-depth for more than five years, I’ve concluded that I underestimated him in 2015 when he first threw his hat into the ring. He’s criminally ignorant, just look at his press conferences where he rambles incoherently, repeats unscientific facts and fumbles the basic tenets of Christianity. Also, according to “A Warning,” by Anonymous, he had no idea of the significance of the Pearl Harbor monument when he visited it.

But Trump has mastered two important skills, media manipulation and conning people. I describe Trump as a master conman, and his presidential campaign is probably the biggest con of all time. (You could also argue that it’s one of the most successful intelligence operations of all time because Russia managed to install a president who’s sympathetic to their causes.)

Everything about Trump is fake. He’s not a successful, self-made businessman. He’s a scion of wealth whose millionaire father repeatedly bailed him out. He’s lost more than a billion dollars and even managed to lose money with a casino, a business where they literally line up to give you money!

In a Salon article, author Lucian K. Truscott IV says Trump has been perfecting the art of BS since the ‘70s.

“Bluffing is what Trump does,” said Truscott. “He gets up in the morning and looks at himself in the mirror and, instead of a bald man with pitted, sagging skin and lifeless eyes, he sees Mr. Handsome, the swordsman who bedded a thousand beauties, the billionaire who made a thousand brilliant deals, the Most Powerful Man in the World.”

I describe Trump as a master conman, and his presidential campaign is probably the biggest con of all time. (You could also argue that it’s also one of the most successful intelligence operations of all time because Russia managed to install a president who’s sympathetic to their causes.) Everything about Trump is fake. He’s not a successful, self-made businessman. He’s a scion of wealth whose millionaire father repeatedly bailed him out. He’s lost more than a billion dollars and even managed to lose money with a casino, a business where they literally line up to give you money!

Trump has repeatedly defaulted on loans to the point that American banks turned their backs on him. He eventually turned to Deutsche Bank, a financial institution that has been accused of laundering Russian money. Deutsche Bank funded him, but even then he needed a co-signer. And when he eventually defaulted, he turned around and sued the bank, according to The New York Times! Trump currently owes Deutsche Bank $350 million.

To call Trump a successful businessman would be a false statement, but many of his supporters still believe this. They also believe he’s doing a good job with the coronavirus.

“I think Trump, no matter what anybody thinks of him, is doing a good job at trying to get these states — and all of the American people — what they need,” said Quaid in a Daily Beast article.

A recent CBS poll showed Trump supporters trusted him over the CDC.

“Eighty percent of Republicans trust Trump for coronavirus information, compared with 74 percent naming the CDC as their trusted source,” said Newsweek.

So how do you explain this? Evidently, his supporters have bought into the con. They believe whatever he says, simply because he says it. Trump is a great believer in the PR adage, “Perception is reality.” If he acts like he’s a successful businessman who knows what he’s talking about, people will believe it.

I too once believed he was a successful entrepreneur. But then he decided to run for president and I started digging deeper into his background and was horrified by what I found. Multiple bankruptcies, thousands of lawsuits, accusations of scams such as Trump University. Conning people is his business.

Over the years, Trump has ensnared many people. Randall Pinkett, the first black winner of “The Apprentice,” also bought into Trump’s image. But once inside the Trump “empire,” the scales soon fell from his eyes.

In a Daily Beast article, Pinkett described the Trump organization as “unnecessarily combative” and said Trump was only interested in projects that would benefit him. He also never experienced at another black executive in the company.

Tim O’Brien and David Cay Johnston, two longtime biographers see through Trump’s BS. Johnston said, “Trump doesn’t know anything,” and O’Brien stated, “He’s P.T. Barnum” in the Netflix documentary “Dirty Money.” After O’Brien wrote a book that was critical of Trump, the now president sued him for $250 million and lost.

Today some of the strongest Trump support comes from the fundamentalist Christian community. But after years of absorbing anti-evolution and anti-climate change messages, they’ve been primed to disregard reality. They believe Trump is a modern-day Saul who’s been sent to usher in the return of Jesus.

“They’re also known as Rapture Christians, thanks to their conviction that before things start to get really ugly on the earth, with God-sent wars and plagues far worse than COVID-19, they’ll be wafted up to heaven en masse, to live in eternal peace, bliss, and moral superiority while everyone else — including lesser Christians — suffers years’ worth of unspeakably gruesome torments prior to the final, earth-destroying battle between Warrior Jesus and Satan at Armageddon, and the Final Judgment in which Jews and others who refuse to convert are condemned to eternal torture in hell,” said Rolling Stone.

Tim O’Brien and David Cay Johnston, two longtime biographers see through Trump’s BS. Johnston said, “Trump doesn’t know anything,” and O’Brien stated, “He’s P.T. Barnum” in the Netflix documentary “Dirty Money.” After O’Brien wrote a book that was critical of Trump, the now president sued him for $250 million and lost.

It’s not surprising that some evangelical ministers are urging their flocks to return to church amidst the coronavirus. Trump told them to do it.

But after a lifetime of successful grifting Trump seems to have met an enemy he can’t defraud. His daily briefings expose his ineptitude, corruption and callousness. When the smoke finally clears, a lot of people are going to be angry grandma, and 20,000 other Americans died because the Trump White House held up medical supplies and sent them around the world.

As the old saying goes, “You can’t cheat death.”

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