You’re Hired! How To Make Trump President
The Donald is in.
From his hair to his “efforts” to unearth President Obama’s birth certificate last election, it’s easy to use Donald Trump as a political punching bag. We know that his conglomerate has been in bankruptcy in 2009, 2004, 2001 and 1991. He’s unqualified (never held office in any capacity before), hasn’t shown much depth of knowledge on domestic or foreign policy, but is popular and bombastic enough to draw enough votes from the Republican candidate to allow the Democrat to win (this liberal would not mind that). This makes his candidacy a disaster for the GOP, but entertaining for the rest of us.
The Candidate
Trump has some slogans and a collection of belligerent poses, but nothing resembling any kind of a platform other than being rich. He’s a master brand manager, and he is saying things Republicans would love to hear from other candidates such as building a wall from San Diego to Brownsville Texas, and making Mexico pay for it. This is all he needs for viability in this GOP primary which, as of now, has 19 declared candidates.
How Rich Is He?
Vastly wealthy people, even self-made ones, are often eccentric. Trump’s wealth, like Ross Perot, Steve Forbes or William Randolph Hearst before him, is entirely beside the point. Whatever his merits as a businessman are, in the political arena he’s nothing but a sideshow kind of “other”.
Trump’s father died with about $400 million ($550 million in 2015 dollars). Trump has $300 million in cash and marketable securities, according to his own account. The rest is real estate and licensing and management agreements. Given his established record of over-leveraging his businesses, who knows how much of that is really free and clear?
He has stated a net worth and a total assets figure. It would appear the “net” portion ($8.7b) is free & clear, though certainly not liquid. Considering Trump sued the only person who ever tried to actually figure out his net worth (and lost), I am pretty sure the numbers he puts out are questionable. I also imagine he will drop out of the race before he actually has to disclose his real income.
You can’t make Donald Trump president. You can increase his bottomline which is what I suspect this “campaign” is all about.
