Donald Trump: the
‘politician’ from hell
Donald Trump thinks he has a shot at winning the upcoming election.
He’s wrong. How about Hillary Clinton? Well, I’m not trying to give her a pass.
To some voters, she and Trump are as bad as each other, just like Coke and
Pepsi, both of which are not good for the body. But in any case, I don’t
believe Americans want a leader like Mr. Trump yet. They would rather hold
their noses and vote for the lesser evil.
“I’m really rich,” said Donald
Trump, when he made the announcement that he will run for the White House at the
Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue, New York.1 It is very understandable
why the billionaire real estate mogul chose the Trump Tower as the venue for
the announcement: the skyscraper has been central to his business life. Mr. Trump built the Tower between 1979 and
1984. At the time, it was one of a remarkable achievements to the young Trump
whose father rented out mere apartments in Brooklyn. Standing close to the
Tower is the Plaza Hotel, which was also owned by Mr. Trump. He, however, sold
it in 1995 after his casino business folded. Today, half of his fortune is
still tied up in real estate holdings, majority of which are located within a
four-mile radius of the Tower and the Plaza Hotel. The Tower indeed has great
significance in Trump’s business life: its bar exemplifies his late-life pivot
to the business of celebrity in which he starred in the NBC reality series The Apprentice, which was also filmed at
the Tower. The Apprentice quickly
became a hit, with things like cocktails and aftershaves named after the show.2
As the headquarter of Mr. Trump’s
organization, the Tower is among a few clear and consistent features of Mr.
Trump’s grand vision as well as his empire. Much else, including some of his
claims regarding his business interests and investments is opaque, volatile and
contested. Obviously, for someone who wants to be the next president of
America, Mr. Trump is an ambitious man. To him, self-made billionaires like
himself would make a better president since they can sponsor their own campaign
and hence will not be easily influenced by donors and lobbyists. His critics
say he is not really a self-made billionaire as he claim. They are convinced
that he inherited his money – that all of his successes is due to his father,
who was a real estate tycoon.
So, is Mr. Trump as rich as he claims? Let us
start by reviewing his career, third party estimates of his wealth, and his
filings with the regulators. Four conclusions stands out. First, Donald Trump
is indeed very wealthy, and his fortune is in billions of dollars. Second, many
years ago, he made many attempts to move away from debt-heavy property business
and to build a global brand. However, his efforts in that regard produced
limited success. Most of his investments (as much as 93 percent) are in
America. When we take a look at his investments, we will discover that almost
80 percent of them, including his gulf courses, are in real estate. Third, when
compared to the stock market and the property market in New York, Trump’s
performance as an investor has been mediocre. Lastly, Trump is known to be
‘clannish’ when it comes to management and leadership. This suggests that he
might not do so well if he is to manage a larger organization.
Like anyone who have been doing
business for decades, Trump had has his share of the ups and downs of the
business cycles. Generally speaking, his entire business career went through
three stages. The first stage ran through 1975 to 1990. For Trump’s empire,
this is the era of debt-fuelled expansion. Trump had his big break during this
time after renovating a site at the Grand Central Station – a site that is now
occupied by the Hyatt Hotel. He completed this complex job by raising cash,
finding a tenant and securing the necessary permits. His success in this
project seemed to boost his confidence and he went on a long investment spree.
He bought buildings in a depressed Manhattan (including the site of Trump
Tower), picked up a small airline, and expanded into casino business in
Atlantic City. During this time, the value of his investment is about $5
billion in today’s money. And as much as four-fifth of this investment was
financed with debt.
In the 1990s, which is the second
stage of his business career, the casinos business started having problems and
two of Trump’s gambling entities defaulted. Thus the 1990s was an era of
humiliation for him. Two of his casino enterprises also defaulted in 2004 and
in 2009. During these period, his empire had about $6 billion of debt in
today’s dollar. Hence, these wave of defaults basically destabilized almost all
his business operations. In spite of this, he clung on and did not choose to go
the way of personal bankruptcy. Some of his assets was sold off by his
creditors. Some of the creditors even offered him a form of forbearance. He
recovered his poise when property prices in Manhattan rose and started doing
small deals again. For instance, in 2001, he bought the Hotel Delmonico for
$115 million.6
The last stage was the era of
celebrity. This started with his starring role in The Apprentice in 2004. The
Apprentice was a very successful TV show: at its peak it had 28 million
viewers. So it is not surprising that it ran until 2015. It also made Donald
Trump to become even more popular and, as an astute businessman, he took
advantage of his new fame to create a flurry of ventures. Today, he is involved
with 487 companies, which includes hotel licensing in Azerbaijan and energy
drink in Israel. This represents a significant increase: in 2004, he was only
involved with 136 companies.7 Thus his name became a global brand that
attracts lots of cash.
By the numbers
There’s very little information
about Mr. Trump’s business because he doesn’t run a publicly listed firm. Not
only that, he does not really have a holding company into which his assets are
grouped. After declaring his intention to run for president, Mr. Trump did
release a one-page, unaudited, estimates of his wealth to the public. He also
filed the required documents that showed his finances with the Federal Election
Commission (FEC). Such filings, however, do not specify the value of assets
worth over $50 million. And in most cases, they do not even include all
categories of income. Thus the estimates of his wealth made here are based on
the information from The Economist
and Forbes magazines, and from
Bloomberg, a financial data provider.
According to the available
published evidence from The Economist,
Forbes, Bloomberg,8 and
from Mr. Trump himself, he is worth,
on average, about $4.93 billion (see table 1). Whether
Table 1: Estimates of Donald Trump’s Wealth, 2015, $Billions
|
Trump
|
8.3
|
|
Forbes
|
4.4
|
|
The Economist
|
4.1
|
|
Bloomberg
|
2.9
|
Source: FEC, The Economist, Bloomberg, Forbes
Mr. Trump has excelled in the
property business is debatable. But some of his other business interests have
definitely became global brands. For instance, his appeal is strong in Gulf.
This is an area Trump-flagged resorts are well-regarded. But his name carries
less weight in hotels or consumer goods, and does not travel well beyond
America.
Of his wealth, about 66 percent is
made in New York, and only an estimated 7 percent is outside America. The
assets Mr. Trump actively created in 2004, the time he became a reality TV
star, generated about 22 percent of his current wealth. Of this, some 64
percent comes from his investments in conventional property and another 17
percent came from his investments in resorts and gulf clubs. Of his recent
deals, his biggest one has been in real estate: in 2012, he bought Doral hotel
out of bankruptcy. The licensing and branding companies he created since 2004
does not make much money for him: only about 11 of them make more than $1
million of income.9 Even though Mr. Trump claimed that he has 38
more deals in the pipeline, it is not easy to find out how much they are really
worth.
It is really tricky to gauge Mr.
Trump’s business performance. One reason for this is that early estimates of
his wealth may have been overstated. Going by Forbes’ data it can be inferred
that, by the standards of America’s oligarchy, he is a small potato: his
ranking among America’s billionaires fell from a peak of 26 to 113. Also, in
terms of size, his property empire is about a seventh of that of the biggest real estate firm in
America(as reported in The Economist)10.
Mr. Trump made a smart move when he
dumped his investments in casinos in Atlantic City. But he wasn’t smart enough
to be a stakeholder in the casino industry boom in Macau. Some of his rivals
like Sheldon Adelson of Las Vegas Sands benefitted tremendously from the boom –
a boom that propelled them into a different league. According to Forbes, Mr.
Adelson is currently worth $26 billion.11
It is worth bearing in mind that
when considering Mr. Trump’s performance, it is only fair to say that lots of
outside investors in his projects had made money too. However, many has lost
money as well. His forays into professional football, airlines, casinos and
other industries did not end well. Simply put, Trump’s investments that went
bust contain roughly $5 billion of equity and debt belonging to outside investors.12
The next thing to look at is Mr.
Trump’s management style. Broadly speaking, Mr. Trump do have charisma. His
other attributes include spontaneity, quick decision-making and frequent
communication. He is also a well-skilled negotiator: he is certainly not a pushover
when negotiating deals. People who knew him well say he is assertive and is not
afraid to ask for what he wants, an attribute that often put him in the good
position to get deals done in his terms.13
The other side of Mr. Trump’s
personality is not very exciting. He is very volatile and has a nuclear temper.
And at most times, his behavior can be very unpredictable. In his lifetime, he
have pursued energy-sapping feuds.14
Just like his campaign machine,
which has surprisingly improved with time, Trump runs his business empire in a nonconventional
way. His organization is composed of his three eldest children (Eric, Ivanka
and Donald) and a dozen other key executives. Based on the FEC documents, the
best word that would appropriately describe Mr. Trump’s organization is
‘crude’. Rather than being grouped
together, most of the organization’s legal vehicles are owned directly by Mr. Trump.15
Mr. Trump hates bureaucracy, which
is good. But then, he really have no experience of how to run a big, complex,
organization. Thus he is an expert when it comes to publicity but inept in
running large, complex organization where bureaucracy is inevitable. For
instance, in 1995 – 2004 he was in charge of a publicly listed company, and the
company defaulted.16
According to Mr.
Trump, if he becomes president, he will move his attention from his business to
governance. Specifically, he will put his business interests in a trust and
focus all his energy in running America. Past presidential candidates,
including Ross Perot (who ran in 1992 and 1996) and Mitt Romney (who ran in
2012) did the same thing.17 Mr. Trump can also let his children run
the show in terms of managing his businesses when he moved into the White
House. The business community are convinced his children can do so effectively,
even though they might struggle to make a leap forward.
If Trump did not win the election,
he can simply go back to his business. But for Trump, that is not a good
option. Thus, it is not a surprise to hear Mr. Trump saying that doing so will
be less exciting than politics. His political campaigns has indeed made him
more popular. Perhaps he can leverage this popularity to build the ultimate
marketing campaign to launch another flurry of branding efforts (like he did
after 2004) if he fails to become the president.
Yet even though Mr. Trump is
claiming that his candidacy is boosting his brand, the truth is that he had
recently lost some businesses. For instance, Univision, a media firm, cancelled
the deal they had with Trump – a deal whose goal was to broadcast the Miss USA
pageant, which Mr. Trump owned.18
Also, as was reported in The Economist, Trump’s hotels charges room
rates that are on average 10 percent below other luxury hotels.19
Without putting it in so many
words, Donald Trump is definitely wealthy. But he made most of his money from
the buildings and other properties he has in New York. As far as I know (and I
had provided some data here to prove it), he has not really built a great
company or raised permanent capital on public markets. He has not even
diversified very successfully. These are some of the things Americans need to
think about when voting in the coming election, especially given Mr. Trump’s
frequent claims about his business prowess.
Trump, thou art crude
One thing is certain: Donald Trump
is popular among his supporters because of his fame as a successful
businessman. Broadly speaking, his supporters sees him as a great chief executive
and as someone who will get things done. Mr. Trump himself is convinced that his
prowess in the commercial world has prepared him to be the most qualified
president America needs at this period of her history. Fine, except that his
business skills are irrelevant because commerce is different from government.
Three past U.S. presidents –
Franklin Roosevelt, Lyndon Johnson, and Ronald Reagan – had virtually no
commercial background. Yet they achieved a lot for America. In contrast, George
W. Bush and Herbert Hoover fared worse in the White House, even though they
have business experience.20 Thus, Mr. Trump and his supporters need
to understand that, from a practical standpoint, a big difference exist between the public and
the private sectors. For instance, every business has a single goal, which is
to make profit. Government, on the other hand, have a large number of
legitimate and often competing goals. Thus for the government, the goal of
achieving energy sufficiency may conflict with that of environmental
protection; or the goal of implementing a stringent but good safety regulations
may impact on productivity, and so on. This complexity of goals means that
governance requires an approach that goes beyond commercial experience.
One other big difference between
business and government can be summarized in one single word: authority.
Broadly speaking, no political leader, including the president, has the kind of
authority every corporate boss does. In the business realm, CEOs can hire and
fire based on their employees’ performance. In order to motivate their
subordinates, they can pay bonuses or promote them aggressively. By contrast,
the boss of a government agency does not have such unlimited powers or
authority when it comes to hiring, firing, and pay bonuses. Most of the time,
what the boss of a government agency does is to persuade and warn, rather than
command.
This difference between the two
realms actually showed how American democracy works. In America, political
power is checked, balanced and counter-balanced for one important reason: to
help individual liberty flourish and to ensure that no one branch of government
is too powerful. So one can now see why Donald Trump admires Vladimir Putin.
President Putin don’t have to deal with the complications of balancing powers
among the different organs of his government, and can simply get things done.
In various interviews with media
houses, Mr. Trump made it clear that he is going to compel government
departments and even nations do his bidding if he becomes the president. He has
also stated that he is prepared to work with people who care about winning. For
his view on the role of UN, he noted that the agency is doing less to end the
big conflicts in the world. So its ineffectiveness in that regard can be
resolved by appointing a strong ambassador who would win by really shaking things
up at the UN.
Mr. Trump’s model described above
shows that he indeed lacks an understanding of how our modern world works.
First, the UN has no power and hence cannot end conflicts. The solutions for
ending conflicts around the world rests with sovereign governments. So Mr.
Trump’s argument that all it takes to have a better America or to make America
great again is a strong U.S. ambassador to shake up the UN, end conflicts and
win shows that he is utterly removed from reality. I mean, the strategy might
work for business, where one can use uncompromising and hardline negotiation to
make great deals. It just can’t be apply to politics and governance.
One cannot dispute the fact that
business success is both important and deeply admirable. But the skills for
succeeding in business is a far cry from the set of skills that produce success
in government.
Hilary is a lesser evil
If you ask me, I would say that the
best way to allow someone like Donald Trump into the White House should be as a
guest or if he is on a tour. I am not a fan of Hillary Clinton. Now don’t get
me wrong. I know her name and her status: she is from a political dynasty. But
sometimes I find it hard to understand where she stands on various issues. She
seems to change her position at every election: if America is sick of war, she
is sick of war. If America is pro-vaccine, she is pro-vaccine. If America
questions the efficacy and safety of vaccine, she questions their safety. If
America is angry at Wall Street, she is angry at Wall Street. The list is very
long. Perhaps this explain why a lot of voters call her ‘phony’. Also, her use
of private email server when she was the Secretary of State indicates bad
judgment.
Nevertheless, I do know one thing:
the nomination of Donald Trump is the single most irresponsible act by the
Republican Party, at least in the last 150 years. And as someone who believes
in individual liberty and small government, I consider Hillary to be a lesser
evil than Trump, for many reasons.
First, unlike Trump, Hillary is
more lenient with the immigrants. Trump’s policy is to deport millions of
immigrants, including the hundreds of thousands of children who have never
known any other home. He is also hatching the plan of building a wall on the
Mexican border – a wall which, when completed, can threaten the freedom of
migrants and the property rights of large number of Americans. Hillary is not
interested in any of that. Instead, she said she with hatch out a plan to make
life easier for both documented and undocumented immigrants in America.
Second, unlike Trump, she has
political experience. When she was the Secretary of State, she visited 112
countries.21 So, as the president, she will know how to deal with a
foreign crisis because there’s a good chance she will have already been there,
had tea with the local power brokers and read the briefing book. As far as I’m
concerned, Donald Trump cannot boast as much.
Third, unlike Trump, Clinton
understands Washington DC very well. When Bill Clinton (her husband) was the
president, she was his closest adviser for eight years. It is important to note
here that during his presidency, Bill Clinton not only balanced the budget but
also secured bipartisan agreements to reform welfare and open up trade in north
America.22 Also as a senator, Hillary Clinton was known to
co-operate and interact well with the senators on both sides of the aisle. The
implication of these is clear: if Hillary Clinton becomes the president of
America, she could be better at hammering out deals with the lawmakers of both
parties than Donald Trump will be.
Free trade is another area where
Hillary will do better than Trump. But my only concern is that her record in
this area is very inconsistent. While on the campaign trail, she usually support
protectionism. But when she was in power
as the First Lady and Secretary of State, she tilted toward free trade. So my
assumption here would be that the latter is probably a better guide to her
intentions and agenda than the former. It is worth remembering that Barack
Obama did the same thing: he supported protectionism during the 2008 campaign
but advocated free trade when he became the president. Hillary may end up doing
the same thing if she becomes the president.
Donald Trump, on the other hand, is
a firm believer in protectionism and has made it a central theme of his
campaign. As a result, I do not believe he can change direction or his mind in
that regard overnight. Given the proposed policies of these two politicians on
trade, there’s no doubt that Trump is more likely than Hillary to seriously
damage the economy by starting a huge trade war with America’s trading
partners. As a matter of fact, Trump had made it very clear in his campaign
rhetoric that he will do just that.
On issues of freedom of speech,
Hillary is also preferable to Trump. For instance, Trump is known for using
bogus libel suits and FCC harassment to suppress his critics. In fact, the only
person that have not been sued by Mr. Trump is his hairdresser!23
Hillary Clinton, by contrast, do not believe so much in harassing or suing
people, places or things just for criticizing her, unless it is the last
resort. And unlike Trump, she discourages her supporters from beating up
protestors. This, however, does not mean that she is a paragon of free speech
virtue. After all, she wants to overrule the Citizen’s United decision within
her first 30 days in office if she becomes the president.24 She also
has a plan that would impose harsh new campaign finance regulations - a
regulation that threaten political speech by people who use the corporate form.25
This is an area where Trump and Hillary shares a similar ideology: Trump had
made it clear that he loves the idea of reforming the campaign finance.
A lot of people, both the
libertarians and conservatives, believe that Trump would appoint judges who
would enforce the original meaning of the Constitution and hence protect
important constitutional rights. Others hold out hope that he will repeal
Obamacare. Unfortunately, these are merely wishful thinking because Trump has a
longstanding hostility to freedom of speech and constitutional property rights.
Also, if he has a healthcare policy at all, it will end up becoming Obamacare
by another name.26
Broadly speaking, Mr. Trump is not
averse to reckless military interventions and this simple fact will makes him
more dangerous as a president. For example, he had noted in one of his speeches
that he will seize the oil fields of Iraq and Libya if he becomes the
president.27 This also presents the key difference between Mr. Trump
and Hillary: unlike Hillary, Trump is more willing to use force to achieve his
goals and policies, and it does not border him if his actions in the process
violates the basic codes of morality or humanitarian values. What concerns me most
about Mr. Trump, which I believe should concern every American, is his
impulsiveness, authoritarian instincts, and his manifest ignorance. This means
that as a president he might try to demonstrate the macho strength he is
constantly boasting about and, in the process, stumble into a dangerous
conflict or take America to another war. I don’t believe Americans are ready to
trust such a man, a con artist, with the control of their military, including
their nuclear weapons, regardless of what the media is saying.
So, can Trump win the presidency?
The best way to know if Trump can
win, or if this is Hillary’s call, is to take a close look at the available
data. So, what I will do here is to present as well as explain the implications
of the available data as they relate to the coming election and then allow my
readers to make the predictions or conclusions themselves.
To be fair, let me start by giving
Donald Trump some credit for what he has achieved so far in the presidential
race. The billionaire has avoided all political norms, as per the Republican Party;
and, so far in his campaign, he has not spent as much money as the experts say
is needed. He had campaigned in states that are not traditional battlegrounds.
His position in trade run counter to the standard Republican line. He had
continued to say inflammatory and controversial statements – statements that
can be a total turnoff to record numbers of nonwhite voters. He had done all
these and yet he won the Republican nomination. That is indeed astonishing!
Well, it is true that Donald Trump
is very popular in the media, in his rallies and among avowed bigots who see
him as a fellow traveler. However there’s one factor that hasn’t grabbed much
headlines but has the potential to topple him in this coming election:
demography. America’s demography has
changed significantly. Simply put, the U.S. is now less white and more diverse
(see tables 1 and 2). And demography says a lot about a country’s voting
pattern, simply because how we identify ourselves is among the best predictors
of how we will vote.
According to the available data from
the Pew Research Center and others,
the U.S. electorate this year will be very diverse. Nearly 31 percent of the
eligible voters will be Hispanic, Asian, black or another racial minority. The
value for the same groups was 29 percent in 2012. This increment was caused by
the strong growth among Hispanic eligible voters, especially the
Table 1: Eligible
Voters in United Sates, 2008, 2012 & 2016
Percent (%) Among
Eligible Voters
|
Race/Ethnic Group
|
2008
|
2012
|
2016 (Projected)
|
|
Asian
|
3
|
4
|
4
|
|
Hispanic
|
9
|
11
|
12
|
|
Black
|
12
|
12
|
12
|
|
White
|
73
|
71
|
69
|
Source: Pew Research Center28
increase in U.S.-born youth. Researchers
at the Pew Research Center, a think
tank, analyzed numerous data showing the changes in the U.S.’s eligible voting
population. The results of their analysis offers a preview of profound
U.S. demographic shift – a shift that is
projected to continue in the coming decades. In 2016, according to their
analysis, the nation’s 156 million non-Hispanic white eligible voters far
outnumber the 70 million eligible voters that are ethnic or racial minorities.
Nevertheless, the growth rate of non-Hispanic white eligible voters lags that
of minority groups. This caused the non-Hispanic share of the electorate to
fall from 71 percent to 69 percent (see table 1).
Pew
Research Center’s data also showed that America has 10.7 million more voters
today than had in 2012. Also, from 2012 to 2016, more than 75 percent of the
net growth in America’s electorate has come from racial and ethnic minorities,
which includes blacks, Hispanics, Asians and other minorities. In quantitative
terms, during this time frame the minorities had a net increase of 7.5 million
eligible voters while the non-Hispanic whites experienced only a 3.2 million
net increase in eligible voters.30
The reason for the non-Hispanic
whites’ slower growth in eligible voters when compared to that of the racial or
ethnic minorities are many. One of them is that the non-Hispanic whites are
overrepresented in the death statistics due to an aging population. Simply put,
even though the non-Hispanic whites make up 69 percent of America’s eligible
voters, they accounted for as much as 76 percent of all eligible voters who
died between 2012 and 2016. And, going by
Table 2: Projected
Change of the Voting-Eligible Population by Race/Hispanic Origin
All figures in
thousands
|
|
Nov. 2012 Eligible Voters
|
Nov. 2016 Eligible Voters
|
Change in Eligible Voters 2012-2016(%)
|
|
Total
|
215,081
|
225,778
|
5
|
|
White
|
152,862
|
156,084
|
2
|
|
Black
|
25,753
|
27,402
|
6
|
|
Hispanic
|
23,329
|
27,302
|
17
|
|
Asian
|
8,032
|
9,286
|
16
|
Source: Culled from Pew
Research Center29
the data from the Pew Research Center, they accounted for
6.6 million of 8.7 million of all eligible voters who died during the period.31
Another reason for the slow growth
of eligible voters among non-Hispanic whites’ has to do with their low birth
rate. According to the available published evidence, the non-Hispanic whites
are underrepresented among young people born in America who turn 18 – an age
group that is very important because they are most responsible for the nation’s
growth in eligible voters. Broadly speaking, about 57 percent of the 16 million
new eligible voters who turned 18 between 2012 and 2016 are non-Hispanic
whites. By comparison, 43 percent of new eligible voters born in America are
the racial ethnic minorities. When we consider the fact that the ethnic
minorities constitute only about 31 percent of the electorate, that value will
begin to make some sense. 32
Unlike the other groups, the Asian
electorate in America grows through the process of naturalization whereby their
immigrants become America’s citizens. About 60 percent of new Asians became
eligible voters by this means in 2012. By comparison, during the same time
frame, about 26 percent of new Hispanic eligible voters came from
naturalization.33
These results speaks for
themselves: To win this election, Donald Trump must figure out a way to corner at least 70
percent votes of the working class non-Hispanic whites with his dystopian vision, racially-loaded
language and the promise to reverse globalization. He is already doing this.
But alas! Only about half of the eligible voters in this category will vote for
Trump in this election. This is because all of them will not vote for the
Republicans. As a matter of fact, there are many non-Hispanic white Republicans who do not like Trump’s ugly rhetoric about
minorities, or his policy proposal which sounds more like making America great
again by preserving white dominance. Add this number to the non-Hispanic white
Democrats who definitely will not vote for him and the idea of Trump winning
may prove to be wishful thinking. How about the minorities votes? Don’t even
ask: convincing them to vote for Trump will be like selling pork pies at a
vegetarians’ convention.
The implications of this is clear:
in this election, demography appears to give Hillary Clinton a clear advantage
over Trump. The bottom line is also that the white working class voters alone,
whom Trump is appealing to, cannot make him win this election. The reason for
this is simple: Trump’s rhetoric is partly racial and tends to turn off at
least as many lower-income, less educated, white voters as it attracts. This
will make his route to the White House difficult in this election.
When we look at the voters who support Trump
(mainly the poor white working class whites who felt that they were battered by
free trade and globalization), we will observe that they are the anxious voters
– the voters with more fears than facts. These voters found Trump’s words
awfully reassuring, without realizing that he is merely promoting a false but
satisfying optimism about the future with his words. They are the type of
voters who refuse to understand that America’s economy has been transformed by
the forces of globalization over which the president (including Donald Trump,
assuming that he wins) has little control; that many of the lost jobs they are
being promised will never come back. These voters do not want to hear that
America will not solve its terror problems with more bombs and fighter jets;
that Trump is exploiting their petty hatreds for his political gain; and that
the Mexicans they hate so much came to America because business owners need
their skills and want them to be here.
Instead, Trump’s voters wants to
hear something different; and they don’t care if it is bullshit or not. For instance, they want to hear that America
is the best country in the world. They are delighted to hear him say that
America stopped winning in trade because its leaders are weak and its borders are
porous. They love to hear the message that the type of country they dream of is
only one president away; that without paying taxes or funding governments they
can still have their social security, healthcare, and their roads and public
education. They love these soothing words coming from Trump, and they are
excited about the way he has reduced all their desires and dreams into four
words: “Make America great again.”34
How about Hillary Clinton? Well,
I’m not trying to give her a pass. To some voters, she and Trump are as bad as
each other, just like Coke and Pepsi, both of which are not good for the body.
Nobody asked me but I think her struggle in this election was made worse by her
wretched trust ratings, and she should be blamed for that. As the secretary of
state, her irregular email arrangements was outrageous. Also, the manner in
which she handled the outcry the situation caused has trashed her standing with
millions of voters. According to The
Economist, only about 30 percent of the voters consider her honest. For
Donald Trump, whose speeches are packed with untruths, the value is 43 percent.35
In the meantime, if Trump wins this
election, a lot of bad things can happen in America. The consensus that trade
makes the world richer and better; the tolerance that lets millions of people
to move to other countries in search of opportunities; and the ideal that
people of different colors and religions can get along – all will be under
threat if he wins. He might even take America to an unnecessary war. I don’t
believe Americans want a leader like that yet. They would rather hold their
noses and vote for the lesser evil.
References
1Rushe, D. (2015, June 16). 'I'm really rich': Donald
Trump Claims $9bn Fortune During Campaign Launch. The Guardian. Retrieved
May 17, 2016 from http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/jun/16/donald-trump-reveals-net-worth-presidential-campaign-launch
2Analyzing
Trump Inc: From the Tower to the White House. (2016, February 20). The
Economist. Retrieved May 18, 2016
from
http://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21693230-enigma-presidential-candidates-business-affairs-tower-white
6Bagli, C. (2001, November 30). Trump Buys Hotel
Delmonico for $115 Million. New York Times. Retrieved June 16, 2016 from
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/11/30/nyregion/trump-buys-hotel-delmonico-for-115-million.html
7Analyzing Trump Inc: From the Tower to the White
House, op. cit, para. 6-13
8Melby C.
& Rubin. R. (2015, July 28). Here's Our Tally of Donald Trump's Wealth. Bloomberg.
Retrieved May 18, 2016 from
http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-07-28/here-s-our-tally-of-donald-trump-s-wealth
9Analyzing Trump Inc: From the Tower to the White
House, op. cit, para. 6-13
10Ibid
11Sheldon
Adelson. (2016, July 12). Forbes. Retrieved July 12, 2016 from
http://www.forbes.com/profile/sheldon-adelson/
12Analyzing Trump Inc: From the Tower to the White
House, op. cit, para. 12-13
13Ibid
14Ibid
15Ibid
16Ibid
17Ibid
18Stelter,
B. (2015, June 25). Univision dumps Trump, cancels Miss USA over his comments
about Mexicans. CNN Money. Retrieved July 14, 2016 from
http://money.cnn.com/2015/06/25/media/univision-donald-trump-mexicans/
19Analyzing Trump Inc: From the Tower to the White
House, op. cit, para. 12-13
20Zakaria,
F. (2016, May 5). The Problem With Trump as CEO of America: Government Is Not a
Business. The Washington Post. Retrieved July 15, 2016 from
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-problem-with-trump-as-ceo-of-america-government-is-not-a-business/2016/05/05/146cc1a0-12f5-11e6-8967-7ac733c56f12_story.html
21Garber,
M. (2013, January 29). Hillary Clinton Traveled 956,733 Miles During Her Time
as Secretary of State. The Atlantic. Retrieved July 22, 2016 from
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/01/hillary-clinton-traveled-956-733-miles-during-her-time-as-secretary-of-state/272656/
22Center for American Progress(2011). Power of Progressive Economics: The
Clinton Years.
Retrieved
July 22, 2016 from https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/economy/report/2011/10/28/10405/power-of-progressive-economics-the-clinton-years/
23Nuzzi,
O. (2015, July 6). Donald Trump Sued Everyone but His Hairdresser. The Daily
Beast. Retrieved July 26, 2016 from http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/07/06/trump-sued-everyone-but-his-hairdresser.html
24Oreskes, B. (2016, July 16). Clinton Pledges
Constitutional Amendment to Overturn Citizens United Ruling. Politico.
Retrieved July 26, 2016 from
http://www.politico.com/story/2016/07/hillary-clinton-citizens-united-225658
25Somin,
I. (2016, May 5). Why Hillary Clinton Is A Lesser Evil Than Donald Trump. The
Washington Post. Retrieved July 26, 2016 from https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2016/05/05/why-hillary-clinton-is-a-lesser-evil-than-donald-trump/
26Ibid
27Geraghty,
J. (2015, July 30). Donald Trump’s Odd Fixation on Seizing Middle Eastern Oil
Fields. National Review. Retrieved July 29, 2016 from
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/421825/donald-trumps-odd-fixation-seizing-middle-eastern-oil-fields-jim-geraghty
282016 Electorate Will Be The Most Diverse in U.S.
History. (2016a, February 2).
Retrieved from Pew Research Center:
http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/02/03/2016-electorate-will-be-the-most-diverse-in-u-s-history/ft_16-01-26_eligiblevoterchange_diverse/
292016
Electorate Will Be The Most Diverse in U.S. History. (2016b, February 2). Retrieved from Pew Research
Center: http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/02/03/2016-electorate-will-be-the-most-diverse-in-u-s-history/
30Ibid
31Ibid
32Ibid
33Ibid
34Illing,
S. (2016, March 15). Here Lies the Secret to Trump’s Rise: Political Science
Can Explain the Appeal of Donald Trump’s Bullshit. Salon, pp. Retrieved
August 8, 2016 from
http://www.salon.com/2016/03/15/here_lies_the_secret_to_trumps_rise_political_science_can_explain_the_appeal_of_donald_trumps_bullshit/
