As if the Donald clan had not trouble enough coping with
Donald Duck, our great name has now been appropriated by Mr Trump, widely known
as “The Donald”. I cannot say that my joy is unconfined at this development as
Donald Trump is not wholly admirable and yet he may emerge (I joke not!) as a
serious contender for the presidency of the United States.
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| The Donald in full flow |
Donald Trump was born in 1946 (so he is 69) in Queens, New
York City to Fred Trump, who was to become a successful New York residential property
developer. His paternal grandparents were of German origin (they had Anglicised
their name from Drumpf) and his mother was born Mary Anne MacLeod from
Stornoway on the Isle of Lewis, Scotland who had emigrated to the USA. As father
Fred prospered, Donald moved to private Kew-Forest School in Queens. An
obstreperous youngster, once expected to join the army, Donald helped out in
the real estate office. He attended Fordham University in the Bronx and then
move to Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania to study the real
estate business, where he graduated in 1968. So Trump’s educational credentials
are quite sound, even if sometimes he appears to have forgotten much of what he
must have learned.
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| Trump Tower on 5th Avenue, New York |
There is no denying that Trump is a talented property
developer and has pulled off several business coups. In 1977 he bought the
dilapidated Commodore Hotel at Grand Central. It had been a very successful
operation but it declined with the railways. Trump, taking advantage of the
parlous finances of NYC, negotiated favourable planning permissions, gutted and
renovated the hotel and relaunched it in 1986 as the gleaming Grand Hyatt with
his signature reflective glass façade. It is now worth many hundreds of
$millions. Similarly when in 1980 the prestigious department store Bonwit
Teller on 5th Avenue went out of business, Trump bought the site,
ignored a requirement to preserve the façade and erected the original glitzy
Trump Tower, with its famous water cascade, housing retail on the lower floors,
offices above, including that of the Trump Organisation, and some amazingly
expensive apartments. Trump’s empire went through a sticky time in the early
1990s with 4 of his companies in administration after the foolish acquisition
of the Taj Mahal Casino. He was grossly over-borrowed and in time his lenders
took a large haircut and The Donald had to sell his yacht and his airline. Yet
Donald bounced back.
Trump conducts his business in a blaze of publicity and
egotistical pronouncements. He claims to be one of the richest men in America,
worth, he says, $10bn, Forbes thought it was more like $4bn and others estimate
$2.9bn. Whatever, property valuation is an inexact science and Trump is said to
own 2million sq ft of property in New York City, so he is worth a bob or two. Nowadays
he franchises the Trump name and brand very profitably and there are Trump
Towers globally in which Donald has no ongoing financial interest. He has
fallen for the usual rich man’s playthings, often unprofitably, American
football clubs, two golf resorts in Scotland and beauty pageant promotion.
His glamorous love-life attracts popular interest and he has
a taste for exotic models for wives: Ivana (1977-91), Maria Maples (1993-1999)
and Melania (2005 – present).
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| Ivana |
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| Maria |
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| Melania |
Trump became a nationally recognised face when he hosted the
popular TV programme The Apprentice from
2003 -15. It gave him many opportunities to inflate his own and disparage
others’ business acumen. Latterly he was supposedly receiving from NBC $3m per
appearance. He left the show to pursue his political career, he said, hastened
by NBC dropping him anyhow after he made rude remarks about Mexicans “bringing drugs and bringing crime and their
rapists” to the US.
Trump could simply be categorised and marginally tolerated
as a typically colourful American tycoon. However he has chosen to enter
politics as a Republican Presidential hopeful and standards for that office
should be high and transparent.
Trump runs on the Republican ticket but at heart he is a
populist. He shares the current GOP revulsion of “large government” but his
most frequent tirades are aimed at high taxes, Obamacare and illegal immigration
from Latin America. There is little evidence that these policies/prejudices
have been thought through. Trump shines as a platform orator but is noticeably
weaker as a participant in a debate with well-informed opponents. Yet the
public go for his “we can do it” philosophy and his claim that he has actually
done it in business terms resonates well. He says with characteristic modesty
that he will be “the best jobs President
that God ever created”.
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| Trump rants about illegal Mexican immigrants |
He plays the racist anti-immigrant card constantly and this
might be thought unwise in melting-pot America. But its reception is complex.
Plenty hard-working Mexicans, for example, fear an uncontrolled influx of their
fellow-countrymen as threatening to their own livelihoods. These Mexicans value
America way ahead of their ancestral Mexico to which they have no wish to
return. Trump’s simplistic notion that all illegal Mexicans can and should be
rounded up and sent home is not dismissed as nonsensical although his pledge
that Mexico will pay for a new border wall probably is!
Trump embodies the dissatisfaction seen elsewhere in the
West with under-performing political elites. As he articulated it, “We’re tired of being pushed around, kicked
around our country and being led by stupid people.” He echoes the
complaints of the dissatisfied and the marginalised of all the world – what he
calls “the fed-up crowd”. He revels
in being an outsider, with no favours to repay, as most of his financing so far
has come from his own pocket. The other Republican candidates are competent but
not thrilling – including laid-back and intelligent Ben Carson, the black
neurosurgeon currently leading in Iowa, (don’t
wake him up! jeers Donald), Carly Fiorina, ex CEO of HP, who out-debated Trump
earlier but has since faded, and Jeb Bush dynastic ex-Governor of Florida.
Someone said Jeb looks like a kale-eating vegan when up against the daily diet
of red meat from Trump. There is no doubt that Donald is the character in the
race, and Americans love a celebrity.
Regularly Trump shows his nasty side. For years he led the
ugly mob of “birthers” determined to prove that President Obama was born
outside the USA (in fact he was born in Hawaii) and hence ineligible to hold
office. More recently Trump outraged many by sneering at war hero John McCain: “He’s not a war hero……I like heroes who were
not captured” In many countries Trump’s remarks would have put him beyond
the Pale of respectability and electability.
To city sophisticates Trump’s consistently high poll ratings are
inexplicable as at first glance he is a loud-mouthed ignoramus with an
eccentric hair-piece. On second glance too – hear him on foreign affairs,
confused about geography, and elementary history but frankly Middle America
cares nothing if Trump cannot tell a Sunni from a Shia.
If by some stroke of fortune Trump wins the Republican
nomination, he would almost certainly be pitted against Hillary Clinton for the
Democrats. Hillary is well-briefed, experienced in high office and much admired
by many, even if her personality is rather chilly. But Trump would be no
walk-over. Hillary carries a heavy load of political baggage from her days in
Arkansas, her term as First Lady supporting Bill and as Secretary of State in
troubled times, especially in the Middle East. Moreover she is a woman and no
American has broken through that Presidential glass ceiling. The world would,
alas, not be a safer place if The Donald were taking the Oath in January 2017.
SMD
26.10.15
Text Copyright © Sidney Donald 2015
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