Donald J. Trump is a "performer" -- through his business career and through his relatively brief tv career: he has shown a flair for the dramatic ("you're fired!"), a relentless reliance on being the outlier in any argument, a strong sense of victimology ("hit back harder than you have been hit"), and a total disregard for historical fact, tradition, and fair play. It is what he is: a mostly uneducated Wharton School of Business graduate with an exaggerated sense of his own knowledge and understanding.
Some will say the above is a useless "rant" and all that stands between us and our own victimization is Trump as a "truth teller." I don't believe that -- my "personal experience" (first person, up close, in the same courtroom) tells me that Trump is a "fake." He is a used car salesman "gone big" just like his Dad and Ray Cohn were. Making equivocal statements to shore up his "base" of mostly base voters is not telling the truth -- it is "spinning" events to make himself look good (real fake news).
His techniques as an actor/politician are not as benign as Reagan's were. Trump is neither a statesman nor a visionary as Reagan was. Trump's agenda is an America without governance -- whose businesses (citizens) are then unrestricted to do as they please. He is a laissez faire capitalist -- and he doesn't know or care much about other important disciplines: the role of government, the role of people, the role of truth.
Ronald Reagan was almost our greatest President -- except for the Neo-Con predilection of his followers for war and power. I met Ronald Reagan in 1985 when I received an arts award in the Rose Garden of the White House. At that point I saw Reagan's great confusion doing simple things (he was "handled all through the ceremony") and knew something was wrong with his health. I still remember turning to the man next to me among the award recipients and saying "I bet we won't be seeing him hosting the ceremonial dinner for us at Georgetown tonight." It turned out I was correct --- William Bennett took his place. But at least Ronald Reagan knew how to govern without malfeasance nor malevolence.
This Rose Garden event took place two years before I met Mr. Trump personally and then two years later watched my business partner file lawsuits against him for "corrupt business practices."
Trump is not a "watchdog" -- he is a wolf, a lone wolf -- who eventually will witness his own end by the many wolf packs out there, or by chewing his own tail off when he finally trapped by his own fabrications. His Presidency is a lost cause.
I urges "continued resistance."
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