Capitalist Outlier

Teaching Trump in the classroom is like trying to describe "chaos theory" to an English Professor.  I have been struggling for months trying to explain the radical, inhumane, undisciplined, and sometimes just moronic words and actions of our President, Donald J. Trump. Now I believe I have the key.

Trump came to politics from the business world -- but even there he is an "outlier." What is an outlier?  Someone who says and does shocking moves to scare and intimidate competitors and foes into thinking that such instability is normal, unpredictable, and likely to result in disaster at any moment.

As a "capitalist" Trump was not very good -- losing and winning vast sums of money on the basis of his own outrageous and often stupid gambles. The Taj Mahal project(s) in Atlantic City are a good example. Trump steps in at the last moment to "save a struggling" project -- in this case the proposed largest active gambling casino in the world. He takes over, adds to the project (with "signature branding Trump hotel(s)"), always using other peoples' capital -- and then fades out quickly when he discovers that once again, he has miscalculated. Lying and miscalculation (especially with other peoples' money) leads unfortunately to the protection of the bankruptcy laws -- and losses all around.

So as a businessman -- as a real estate developer -- that was the Trump motif. Now transfer that process to the world stage: relationships with countries, with industries larger than most countries, with leaders whose personalities are often as warped as Trump's -- and you find many chances for error -- and "bankruptcy" laws cannot protect anyone once the bombs are falling, once the stupid and harsh words have been said.

So Trump is a "loser" more often than not as a developer -- and equally a loser in human relationships (his family; comforting the families of fallen soldiers; his ridiculous hyper-patriotism via his worship of the flag/anthem/etc;) -- and we are stuck with him.

All we can reasonably do -- is "resist."