The 6 essential cons that define Trump's success (WaPo: paywall warning)
Last edited Sat Feb 23, 2019, 09:56 PM - Edit history (3)
President Trump speaks at a rally in El Paso on Feb. 11 to promote a wall on the southern border. (Nicholas Kamm/AFP/Getty Images)
By Jonathan Greenberg
Jonathan Greenberg is an investigative financial and legal journalist and author.
February 22
Nearly four decades ago, Donald Trump deceived me into including him on the first Forbes 400 list of the richest Americans. He claimed a net worth of $100 million but was actually worth less than a tenth of that. Last week, President Trump declared a national state of emergency to bypass the constitutional budgeting powers of Congress and divert money to build a wall on the border with Mexico. What do these acts have in common? Only that they are the first and latest entries on the continuum of cons that have defined Trump’s success.
A real estate insider told me back in the 1980s that Trump’s win-at-all-costs father, Fred, “loves a crook and he loves a showman.” Donald Trump has built his extraordinary career by exhibiting the characteristics of both. He is a self-promoter willing to lie, swindle and destroy to advance his insatiable self-interest. I am not the first journalist to observe that for Trump, the “Art of the Deal” has been the art of the con. But as the first journalist to enable the consummate con man’s career-boosting deceptions, I have a completist’s view of the pernicious racket that is his playbook. Here, in roughly chronological order, are the six essential cons around which Trump has built and sustained his success:
(much more at link)
https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2019/02/22/essential-cons-that-define-trumps-success/?utm_term=.2f02a6f5a5ec&wpisrc=nl_most&wpmm=1
For those who haven't subscribed to WaPo: try deleting your browser cookies, restart your browser, and try again. PM me if it doesn't work.
= new reply since forum marked as read
Trump's "success"?
How many times has he declared bankruptcy after inheriting a half billion $$$$$?
Unlike big names in sports, music, film, etc., who earned their fame, Trump basically bought his fame by promoting himself using that half billion $$$$$$ he inherited. NBC and a whole lot of suckers fell for it.
I was able to open it in an incognito window, but my experience is that only works for so long.
Don't forget you can copy up to four paragraphs. 
One thing that dismays me is that people even today, like this author years ago, still do not accept and understand the reality of personality disorders, in spite of their being fairly common. Trump demonstrates his virtually every day to the nation, yet even many of those riveted to his horror show here still imagine he is a whole person who chooses to act in strange and bad ways.
To make every business deal with him sound sweeter than it was, Trump marketed his name as synonymous with gold-plated luxury. But few of his deals had happy endings. His narcissistic need to be a winner every time meant that there were losers every time. This included just about anyone who made the mistake of signing a contract to lend or partner or supply goods or services to him.
No wonder this whack job is far less wealthy than if he'd just put his inheritance in index funds long ago. And of course becoming president guaranteed scrutiny that would bring him and his tacky little crime family down.
