The NYT and USA Today ran articles on Trump’s businesses last week which made it clear–to nobody’s surprise–that his fortune is derived largely from sharp practices. From investors in casinos that he used as a personal piggy bank, to contractors he required to take unjustified haircuts, to “students” in Trump University, the story is essentially the same: get people to trust you with the flash-and-dash of the Trump name, and then screw them over.
If you are one of the millions of Americans who think that the President should represent the values of your country, you have to blanch at the thought of a President Trump. Trump will have a ready response to this line of reasoning, however; he will say that the people who were foolish enough to trust him are “losers,” and that we should elect him because he can perform the same magic on other world leaders. In other words, Merkel, Putin, and Xi will be the next pupils at Trump University, and the whole country will benefit from his frauds.
Even if you aren’t troubled by the notion of electing a high-rent grifter as President, you need to know that this approach won’t work, for the following reasons:
- A successful grifter requires trust from the people with whom he interacts. Trump is broadcasting his untrustworthiness in advance.
- A successful grifter also has to churn his victims. That doesn’t work in politics. If you lie, say, to Xi, he will still be there when the transaction is over, and you will have to continue to deal with him on a daily basis. Good luck with that.
- The world economy ultimately operates on the concepts of predictability and trust. President Trump would be the antithesis of both. He would make the markets go nuts.