Monday, July 13, 2020

Trump: One Part Mogul, Two Parts Moron

by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist

Back in the summer of 2019 when Donald Trump had been in office a little over two years, he floated the idea of buying Greenland, a notion which brought a quick and curt "no thank you" from officials in Denmark, the country which ostensibly controls the affairs of Greenland, the world's largest island that has been more-or-less self-governing since 1947.

Trump had entered politics to increase his brand recognition, but in 2016 he had somehow overshot that mark and managed to get himself elected president.  He came into office with no political experience, something he and his base touted as a positive,  Trump had run on the claim that as a "real" businessman he could manage the very important business of America.  He would be the nation's CEO and great days would fall upon us.

Trump's base was rapturous that someone as successful as Donald Trump would be in charge of the country.  His success as a businessman was obvious because his name was on so many buildings - and what more evidence could anyone need?

Well, the joke, of course, was on them - and us.  It turns out that Trump inherited a pile of money from his racist slumlord father and managed to squander most of it.  By the time NBC hired him to do reality television, the Trump business "empire" had been reduced to basically money laundering for Russian oligarchs. He had failed at legitimate business - repeatedly - and was now satisfying his ego through "stardom" on television and helping Russians hide their illegal takings from the motherland in investments in the United States - things like apartments and condos in Trump buildings.

Trump's actual business experience was steeped in failure or clouded in secretive international transactions.

But Donald Trump is a raging narcissist who believes in himself regardless of mountains of evidence to the contrary.  He describes himself as a business mogul, so he must be one.  And when he talks about perhaps striking a deal to uy Greenland, he wants to be taken seriously. His man Mnuchin is over at Treasury signing the money - and Treasury has the money - so why can't Trump  buy Greenland if he wants to?  It is, after all, just business.

According to a report this week in The New York Times,  Greenland was not Trump's first foray into the realm of buying and selling land for the United States.  Two years earlier, in the fall of 2017, when Hurricane Maria was bearing down on Puerto Rico, Trump floated the idea of selling Puerto Rico, but his acting Homeland Security Secretary Elaine Duke and others talked him down from that lunacy.    Trump wound up initiating a series of petty disputes with the island's leaders, and much of the damage from that devastating storm and Trump's bickering still remains nearly three years later.

But the people of Puerto Rico were brown-skinned and primarily spoke Spanish - and the Trump family had no expensive real estate holdings on the beautiful Caribbean Island - so why not sell it? Puerto Rico had no value to Trump and was more aligned with what he considered to be "shithole" countries.  Apparently at one point he even talked about trading it to Denmark for Greenland.

Donald Trump, who could not run his own businesses without help from the Russian mob, seemed to think that he could buy and sell property for the United States of America based on nothing but his instincts.  Somewhere he probably came across an illustrated history of the Louisiana Purchase and saw himself as both Napoleon, the seller, and Jefferson, the buyer.

Today few people take Trump seriously, but one more election could raise his stature as international real estate tycoon significantly.  Who really needs the Guam, or Catalina, or Brownsville anyway?

And Denmark might see the US Virgin Islands and American Samoa as being a fair swap for the glacial Greenland.

Donald could do his deals in the mornings - between 1:00 and 2:00 p.m - and still have a nice chunk of daylight left for golf!  With just one more term he could truly transform America into a quality Trump resort - bedbugs and all!

As long as Donald John Trump remains in office, we all would do well to keep an eye on Craig's List!

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