bapifar01: How did Trump become so dang successful?

Saturday 23 April 2011

How did Trump become so dang successful?

Trump at CPAC 2/10/11. Photo by Gage Skidmore

Well, it helps when your daddy banks almost half a billion dollars and gives it to the kids:

By the time of his death, [Fred] Trump had amassed a $400 million estate, left largely to his children, contributing a significant amount to Donald Trump's fortune.

What's bizarre is even with daddy's millions, the best business education money can buy, and income and capital gains taxes slashed to the bone, somehow, Donald J. Trump still managed to declare bankruptcy several times, and was accused of turning of millions of investment dollars into a pile of junk along the way. Of course these days, on the right anyway, making truckloads of other people's money disappear in risky schemes is essential for any self-proclaimed smart guy to be officially crowned Wizard of Finance.

Nevertheless, this is one hell of an entertaining train wreck. Trump helped himself to the entire grassroots GOP apparatus and there's not a damn thing they can do about it. In conservative circles, super-rich equals untouchable, he's well known in pop culture, and he has absolutely nothing to lose or fear from increased visibility of any kind. One second the professional right had tea party numbskulls whipped into a usable frenzy, waving guns around, making racists jokes and snickering, and the next second this cartoon figure comes out of nowhere grinning ear to ear, deftly steals the stage, and proceeds to out-clown even the dimwitted Palin/Bachmann twins. Sure, it's a long shot he actually runs. But if there's anything we can do to prolong the right's paralysis, we should do it. The longer Trump stays in the spotlight the worse it is for Republicans.