The odds are too small to calculate that Donald Trump will become President of the United States. The fact that he’s doing well in early New Hampshire polls, however, may spur some sales of tranquilizers among the political class.
Trump keeps reminding us that he’ll bring sound business principles to the federal government. But he has failed so many times there are Top 10 lists on the Internet of his biggest screw-ups. Seriously, go look.
They are edited and updated almost hourly. And every time he files for bankruptcy, which is frequently, Trump walks away with truckloads of cash while his debtors clean lint out of their pockets.
He does have skill sets, however, which include offending friends and allies, and rank hypocrisy. These characteristics might end up being baseline qualifications for president in the scattered field of GOP candidates, and Trump has them mastered.
Before he even wins a vote, Trump has managed to prebungle foreign policy and offend Mexico — one of America’s largest trade partners — by describing immigrants as rapists and robbers and claiming that he will have a wall built along the entire length of the border.
Trump also said he will force Mexico to pay for his new Tortilla Curtain, which may be a responsibility the country would have to accept when hordes of Americans flee south and cross the border seeking refuge from a Trump administration in the White house.
Univision canceled its broadcast of the Miss USA Pageant owned by Trump after his comments, and he subsequently banned its employees from his properties. NBCUniversal has followed suit by canceling both the Miss USA Pageant and the Miss Universe Pageant on its network and ending business ties with Trump even though it jointly owned the pageants.
If these are Trump’s diplomatic skills in graphic relief, there are likely many countries that will be turned into parking lots that glow in the dark, if he is elected president.
Musician Kris Kristofferson has a song that goes: “…a walkin’ contradiction, partly truth and partly fiction.” Trump is kind of like that, but the neophyte candidate may be more contradiction than fiction.
Like complaining about how America makes nothing and we get everything from China and it’s crap and falls apart, but failing to mention that his personal clothing line is made in China. Oh, and Mexico.
Or how about that Trump Mortgage Company that his son said was going to be America’s No. 1 home-loan lender, and it went under in about a year and a half? Might have been the housing market or maybe the guy he hired to run it who claimed to be a top executive at a prestigious bank, but turned out to have been a stockbroker with six days of experience, according to Time magazine.
Yeah, Donald, I want you making decisions about who will be secretary of defense.
But really, what would a Trump presidency be like?
Everything in America will carry his brand. The president will travel on Trump Force One. The Trump Defense System will involve missiles that land safely without explosion and then begin playing Trump speeches that annoy our enemies into submission. Trumptrak trains will crisscross the continent, and work will begin immediately to carve his gigantic countenance into what will become known as Mount Trumpmore.
The thing is, Trump has turned himself into a caricature with his personal life, financial collapses and resurrections, along with his signature “you’re fired,” tagline from his TV show, (which is something Americans will, eventually, say to him.) He is kind of a Walmart version of H. Ross Perot, the Dallas billionaire who ran for president. (Sorry, Walmart.)
I compared Trump to Sarah Palin a few years ago in a CNN.com op-ed and said he’d never run for president because he couldn’t handle the rejection, and if he did file, it was nothing more than a marketing campaign to drive up his brand. He emailed me and told me to remember my words, and I always do as The Donald says.
But Trump will find an excuse to exit the campaign before it gets serious. He will, however, make a lot of money on the democratic process by raising his brand awareness. And his laughter as he flies away to the bank in his personal jet will be considerably louder than ours as we cackle at his candidacy.
