Today I come not to bury the Trump. I come to laud the fraud.
As fraud's go, Donald John Trump is the real deal. No other huckster in our nation's history sinks to his level of brazen naked duplicity
That's because the Donald is a lifer. He was born with a silver spoon in his mouth and spent his youth convincing everyone he was the silversmith. He went to the best schools but knew more than all the teachers. He won a scholarship to the Wharton School if that's what you want to call dad making a very large donation to get him in.
Some say tomato some say acidic orbs of seedy devil juice.
By the time he'd inherited most of his father's fortune, he had told his contemporaries he was the seventh son of immigrants who got rich selling steak knives after tennis practice. Soon he was conning people with more money than sense to invest in Manhattan skyscrapers.
In most stories, the skyscrapers wouldn't get built. The genius here is the skyscrapers got built, then went bankrupt and everybody lost their money. Everybody but one, that is.
Over the years Trump bankrupted property management corporations, an airline, a frozen steak business, a line of neckties, and a couple of casinos. There is a long line of pretend businesses that were just means of fast cash in the pocket of the walking punchline.
In true flimflam fashion, the Trumpster took his long line of failed businesses and paid someone to ghost write a book with his name on it. The instructions were "write me a book called Art of the Deal that makes me a great businessman, which everyone already knows I am, of course. send me a draft in 3 weeks."
The book made the New York Times best seller list proving that stupid people sometimes read, too.
But every great hustler needs a break to reach the sting stratosphere and Cadet Bonespurs got the big one when a reality tv producer needed somebody to play a successful businessman hiring an apprentice. What Donald lacked in success he made up for in spades by looking like what people think success looks like.
The rest is history. There are millions of Americans out there who never learned the most important thing to know about reality television--it isn't real--who became convinced the guy playing the businessman actually knew how to run a business.
Which is a good place to bring this home. This week a judge ruled the entire Trump line of businesses fraudulently over-valued its assets in order to get more favorable loan rates and purchase offers. He rescinded all Trump business licenses in the state of New York which effectively puts him out of business. Assets, including a Wall Street skyscraper, could be sold off to keep them open.
This isn't the first fraud conviction for Trump family organizations. The Trump charities raised millions just to give away painted portraits of Donald Trump. That's world class bamboozlement right there.
Only P.T. Barnum comes close in the annals of American history. But there are two things he never did: get himself elected president of the U.S. or get himself convicted of fraud.
When it comes to fraud, the Trump is king. Bigly.