Wednesday, October 25, 2023

Too Much and Never Enough - M. Trump

Fred, Freddy, Fritz.  Names we don’t hear often but the names of the three people in our current President’s past life that explain in real terms, why Donald J. Trump will go down in the book as the worst President in American history.  And, if we recover from the damage he has done to our many institutions, he will be recorded as either the most dangerous or the most destructive.  Trump supporters will immediately dismiss the new book from which the narrative of these three names become known to us without ever considering the story...and I quote “Disgruntled family member, lifelong dem, writing just to cash-in on old news”.  That quote was to describe the author of the just released, topping the book list in record sales in a single day, and arriving with all the fanfare of a federal lawsuit blocking it’s publication... just denied by a federal judge, Mary L. Trump, the President’s niece, offspring of his deceased brother, Freddy, and sister of his nephew Fritz,  has arrived so we may hear her version of Donald’s formative years.  And what created, in her words, “...the world’s most dangerous man”.  

She is definitely a disgruntled family member, and that’s fair.  And why shouldn’t she be?  As Machiavellian empires go, one might notice her worth  to the Trump family based on her unique lineage.  Donald Trump wasn't the first born. The first born honor belongs to Freddy, her father.  Donald was the second born.  In medieval times, Donald’s off-spring wouldn’t be in line for anything.  As the line of royal blood succession would go to Fritz, Freddy’s 1st  son. But as with all history, with regard to the Trump family, facts are of no value.  Thus, when Freddy passed away at 42, a broken man, broken and bullied into the ground by his own family, that branch of the family tree, that included Mary, was cut from the trunk.  Not because it didn’t continue to exist, but because, if you are a Trump, sharing something with someone else, means you get less. Thus Mary and Fritz get nothing...their dad is dead.  You don’t share with a dead man. You don’t have to believe this line of succession, that is if you don’t believe in facts. What kind of a selfish family does that to their grandchildren?  Yes, obviously there is no royal bloodline in our Country, and certainly not in the Trump family, but it’s a good example of just another in a long list of problematic decisions committed by the most selfish and arrogant man alive today.  Of course we already knew this.  It feels good, however, to hear this charge levied from on the inside of the very much not a royal family.  

Regardless whether you initially believe Mary’s version of the Trump family history, or not, the fact’s will support her version.  The family exists, the company exists, the house in Queens exists, and the many properties accumulated and subsidized by the Federal government exist.  Fred Trump built the empire that Donald Trump effectively stole from his family.  The records exist but have been long hidden.  It’s no wonder it’s been so hard to put the pieces together.  And, when the Trump financial records and tax records finally see the light of day, animus or no animus from Mary, the facts as they trickle out will shed light on the career of the most amazing fraud ever perpetrated on the American people.  Mary Trump will be charged with telling the correct version of the story.  Not the one we’ve read about in the tabloids for so many decades.  The Donald, for his ego, can be happy in the knowledge that any publicity is good publicity, and with any luck, he will avoid the embarrassment of prosecution and jail time without the hope of a Presidential pardon.  Which many will pursue, but to that extent, I would not support. This comical chapter of our Nation’s history will hopefully be quickly forgotten.

Fred, Trump’s father,:  by all accounts, was a hard worker.  SIx days a week, 10-12 hours a day, a classic workaholic.  He built the empire, but he didn’t start it.  His mother fronted him the money, and kept the books in the early days to get him rolling. Fred was henceforth able to amass a large housing construction and management business by building apartments with subsidies from the Federal Housing Administration on the heels of WWII.  It was the income from the rent charged on those thousands of units that funded the subsequent building of the empire, and later, Donald’s lifestyle.  It also bailed him out as the building ceased, and the bankruptcies caused by his incompetence mounted.  Perhaps the best story is the one about Atlantic City.  Simply put, if one casino is good, wouldn’t two, or three be better?  Maybe in Las Vegas, but in a brand new location, where there wasn’t a market.  All Donald achieved was the creation of Papa Johns, a Domino’s, and  Pizza Hut, all on the same street corner, in a City that was still eating at Taco Bell. Those are my words, not Mary’s, but that’s the analogy.  If you ever wondered why Atlantic City never caught on.  In a larger sense, Donald’s failure in Atlantic City not only took a major negative  toll on his father’s empire, he arguably doomed the City itself to failure because of the failure of these casinos.  This isn’t hate speech coming from me, This is his business record.  And it’s abysmal.  His father repeatedly had to bail him out of his bankruptcies and bad business deals.

Freddy, Fred’s first son, and aire apparent to Fred’s business, tried to break away from the looming shadow of his Father.  He longed to do something else with his life.  Not only did he obtain his business degree from Lehigh University and was President of his Fraternity, through  ROTC he obtained a commission in the Air National Guard, he  learned to fly aircraft, and on his own  accumulated sufficient hours to become a commercial pilot.  Not something easily accomplished without military flight hours. And by all normal standards of performance, demonstrated both academic and leadership acumen.  Thus it was no surprise he was hired by Northwest Airlines and flew 727s on several routes. The problem, as recounted by her daughter, was that Freddy was never good enough for Fred who hated that he would do something different with his life other than commit totally to the family business.  He believed the military to be a waste of time and thought being an airline pilot was akin to being a glorified bus driver.  As the story goes, Donald, observed his older brother doing everything his father disliked, Freddy would do everything wrong in his father’s eyes.  So Donald gained his Father’s favor by doing everything exactly the opposite of Freddy. Thus Donald fraudulently gained his father’s favor by being a charlatan and thus successfully pushing Freddy under the bus and out of  the line of succession.  And if you think, perhaps that Donald was just savvy, not a ruthless bully, his torment of his younger brother Robert was not passive..  Donald would actively hide his younger brother’s toys just to torture  him until he cried.  This torment at the hand’s of Donald was not unknown to his family thus Donald was sent to military school so peace could return to the household. 

At the end of the day, and by all accounts, there is nothing extraordinary about the Trump family and the Trump  management company that makes the Trump name anything special.   Calling it an empire is to confuse a management company with a real empire.  The only thing that makes the Trump brand, TRUMP, is it’s big letters, right alongside Donald  telling you it’s great.  Is telling you something is great enough to warrant praise?  Just like the MAGA campaign the whole idea of being told to make America great again, never resonated with those who already thought America was great.  Where did these notions come from?  Well, when a snake oil salesman is selling snake oil, he first has to create the non-existent market for snake oil. The track record of Donald creating demand for something that doesn’t exist, is perhaps his only talent.  But many, including me, would conclude it’s less the strength of Donald, and more the weakness of his targeted victims.  And Donald also knows that as well.  His primary marks, as  Mary has said, are people Donald would have only contempt outside of his political rallies. There is something to be said for positive thinking, and Fred Trump was a believer in the power of positive thinking, but his son learned from this rule book, and took it to the extreme.  Every first and second utterance from Donald J Trump fits this profile.  There is no reason to believe this well written profile of our President’s upbringing is anything but highly plausible.  I suspect that after his Presidency has ended, given Mary’s lead, much much more about the history of the Trump family will surface and the sham of both this man and his life will unravel.  Four stars for the courage it took Mary to write this book...and we should all thank her for publishing and exposing how we created the fallacy that is our current President.  


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