As a journalist, I first encountered Trump when he was about 31 years old. In 1980, he demolished the Bonwit Teller building in Manhattan to create Trump Tower. He imported undocumented nonunion labor from Poland in violation of multiple regulations. Donald Trump employed a crew of 200 Polish workers who worked in 12-hour shifts, without gloves, hard hats or masks., The workers were paid as little as $4 an hour for their dangerous labor, less than half the union wage, if they got paid at all.
In 1998, despite frequent claims that he never settles lawsuits, Mr. Trump quietly agreed to end a class-action suit in which he was a defendant. Settlement documents were sealed. In 2016, Time Inc. and the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press filed for release because the public had a right to know. After all, Trump was now president. At long last we do.
Trump paid $1.375 million in 1998 to settle the case, known as Hardy v. Kaszycki.
$500,000 of it went to a union benefits fund, and the rest to pay lawyers’ fees and expenses. Today, we understand Trump’s 1980 attitude toward worker exploitation is mirrored by his voter exploitation in 2024.
Knowing this, how can working-class Americans find the man attractive? Can we all agree that Trump was the model for the teenage Biff the Bully in the 1985 movie Back to the Future?
This long-time journalist tries to add some insight into the crisis we are living through. Sign up at a level that works for you as subscriptions are an important metric in this new media sphere.
In a national effort to regain the White House, Trump's campaign rhetoric is absurd. This behavior replicates how some high school seniors approach electing a class president. Excusable at the teenage level because it’s play-acting. To make matters worse, this candidate’s core ideology is not conservative values, but hate, domination, and economic self-interest above all else.
You don't have to be a mental health professional to recognize a megalomanic when you see and hear one. Defined as a “delusional mental illness that is marked by feelings of personal omnipotence and grandeur," it matches Trump to a ”T.”
In a post-election story in 2015, I suggested his term would be chaotic because he lacked any consensus management experience. Other than working for his father, he’s always been the boss! As a media executive, I experienced a variety of management styles. Megalomania was never anyone’s winning approach. If this armchair psychiatry offends you, here is a self-administered test for you to take. Most people can agree with four out of six.
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Working directly for a man who behaves like Trump is hard. Y/N.
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Are his traits undesirable in a father-law? Y/N.
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Is Refusing to release a college transcript a disqualification? Y/N
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Do six bankruptcies suggest incompetence? Y/N
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Accepting blame for a team's failure is part of leadership. Y/N
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Trump only laughs with enjoyment when someone fails? Y/N
At a rally this week he complained the crowd was small because the Secret Service said no to an outdoor rally after two assassination attempts. Deflecting with a provable lie, he said, “But outside, we have thousands and thousands of people. 40 to 50,000 people at least out there.” It looked like when Lindbergh landed in New York. Do you remember that? Thousands of people”
Lindbergh landed in Paris in 1927.
Trump, at 78, disguises his obesity with extra large business suits, except when he plays golf. His lack of self-control is legendary.
He has a colorful, if unbecoming, way of saying things: He may think of Vice President Kamala Harris as a dumb bitch, but moderated it in public, until saying,“Joe Biden became mentally impaired. Kamala was born that way. She was born that way. And if you think about it, only a mentally disabled person could have allowed this to happen to our country.”
His MAGA cult absorbs this and plays it back as hate mail.
Here are just a few examples:
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“I will kill you without remorse.”
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“We will eradicate scum like Public Citizen.”
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“I would rip you apart limb from limb if given the chance.”
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“You should die slowly, in horrible pain.”
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“We hope and pray you die.”
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“You all deserve a bullet.”
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“What’s really sad is that no one has killed the twisted morons at Public Citizen.”
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“The FBI should lock you up and anyone who supports you.”
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“Get the f*** out of my country.”
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“Your day is coming sooner than you think.”
FAMILY PLANNING: Republicans are not stupid, although they may appear venal at inconvenient times. Trump proudly took credit for the Supreme Court ending the Roe V. Wade decision that had created a national right to abortion for 50 years. Trump claims it should be a state-by-state issue again.
Some states want a Handmaid’s Tale approach including:
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Ban legal drugs designed to induce abortion.
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Surveil and block women from traveling to other states to obtain an abortion.
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Threaten to make doctors and other medical professionals — who might give counsel on or know about a woman’s plans responsible for reporting her actions.
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It applies to third parties who might assist a woman traveling to get an abortion or getting FDA-approved medications. We’ve already seen sheriff’s departments wanting to pull medical and travel records for evidence of a pregnancy not brought to term.
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How long before they demand euthanasia for people born with a disability?
ECONOMY: The moneyed class in America knows the economy is fine. Interest rates are coming down, inflation is going down, and the Stock Markets continue to go UP and UP. All this has happened under Democrats and will continue with Democrats, who at least have the decency to recall that substantial sectors of the nation are not doing so well. While people complain about the economy it is not a winning issue, so the new emphasis is immigration regardless of what is legal or illegal.
IMMIGRATION: The fabrication of the deportation of thousands of Haitians who are temporarily in Springfield, Ohio, is a racist and planned effort to drum up support from MAGA folks who have forgotten their families came to this nation at some point from elsewhere. JD Vance, as vice presidential candidate, is responsible for initially floating Trump’s worst ideas. He knew the Hiatians were here legally on temporary refugee status and that no cats or dogs were stolen and eaten.
THE PLAYBOOK: So why say it? Distract and deceive. These techniques work in the short run for totalitarian regimes regardless of ideology. Will voters bring back the chaos of Trump ’45, or have a majority of Americans figured out this charlatan?
FERAL: Trump knows this election is a matter of his life or death. Winning means he shuffles between the White House and his faux palace in Florida. Losing brings seemingly endless legal cases and the distinct possibility of ending up in a federal prison for white-collar criminals in North Carolina.
POLLING: This was and remains an imprecise measurement of direction not actual election day results. The Republican strategy is filling social media and broadcast space with negative advertisements about the Harris campaign. The conservative media ecosystem amplifies these lacking performances to talk about, and it bleeds into people’s responses. Who the hell answers mobile phones and talks to pollsters these days? Thankfully, as Trump’s coherence diminishes, there is less to say on a positive note. With no sense of Irony, he returns to the themes that most animate him— race and racial violence. At a speech in Pennsylvania, he puts aside his 38 felony convictions and launches into a long and meandering riff on crime. The fantasy that lurks under all that fake coiffure makes clear that police brutality, vigilantism, and pro-wrestling theatrics – are strengths he wishes to project.