General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsEvidence mounting that Trump's candidacy is just one big con-job
http://www.democraticunderground.com/1014149585220% of his campaign-expenditures go to his businesses and he draws a salary from his own presidential campaign.
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Trump is spending next to nothing of his own money on his own campaign. (He only gives out his money as loans to the RNC.)
Trump refuses to get serious about fundraising. (Maybe begging for support is just beneath him...)
Trump thinks he can run a presidential campaign on the cheap, with free media and the power of his charisma.
Trump's campaign:
* next to no grassroots-campaigns
* next to no data-analysis staff
* no rapid response PR-staff (Trump said, he would be that)
* Only one staffer for campaign communications, Hope Hicks, and she has no prior campaign-experience. And there already exists an Internet-meme how she refuses to issue comments on anything.
Trump demands that the RNC cough up the money to fund his campaign while refusing to fundraise to get the RNC that money.
While elections are won locally, Trump keeps on campaigning in territory that is already safely republican.
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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/donald-trump-fundraising_us_5768a417e4b0853f8bf1fdb0
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This is how Trump does business:
http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/6/20/1539947/-Wait-is-the-Trump-presidential-campaign-just-an-over-elaborate-bank-heist
Trump needed money. Quickly. Because loans he had personally guaranteed were about to be due.
So he founded a company and pocketed some money by making it public and selling its stocks.
Then he sold two money-losing Trump casinos to his new company. At inflated prices. While pocketing a salary for arranging that deal with himself being buyer and seller at the same time.
Then, after setting his new company on the road to financial ruin, Trump continued drawing a salary and making profit from selling over-priced Trump-products to this new company.
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It's just one big con-job.
Campaigning for President with as little effort as possible, spending as little of his own money as possible.
Expecting other investors (the RNC...) to cough up the money to keep HIS venture running.
Trump is putting NOTHING on the line for his own campaign.
Trump is already preparing talking-points to have scapegoats ready in case of failure: like his "not-so-smart" campaign-staff, or how the RNC refused to support him in every way possible...
And when this non-campaign explodes in a fiery crash of colossal defeat, who will walk away from this venture without a scratch, without money lost, and with plenty of new media-attention to make more money???
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If Trump is running for President, why is he running his campaign like a business-opportunity he wants to exploit, instead of like an actual election-campaign???
uponit7771
(90,364 posts)ChairmanAgnostic
(28,017 posts)I said is really great advice. So, why do I need a PR rapid response team, when I can listen to myself if I need to, and take my own advice? My thoughts are so brilliant that it is scary how right I can be!"
Cary
(11,746 posts)It would be a disaster. We need to fight him with everything we have to make sure we never find out what a Trump presidency would be like.
If he gets crushed it will be interesting to see the affect on Republicans. I can't see how they can reprise the "not 'conservative' enough" whining but then I don't see how they exist in the first place. I would like to see them evolve into something more functional but I don't see that either.
pangaia
(24,324 posts)Cary
(11,746 posts)I don't see how he isn't the candidate, absent an act of God.
pangaia
(24,324 posts)No, just kidding.
It is just my gut feeling.
malaise
(269,157 posts)but ReTHUGs will fugg him up properly in the end.
If the entire project wasn't so destructive to the USA and our planet, I'd be on the floor laughing because ReTHUGs produced him.
lovemydog
(11,833 posts)He's a messed up whack job.
PeteSelman
(1,508 posts)Shouldn't we shut up about all of this until he's locked in as the nominee?
It's like we're trying to blow a game rigged in our favor.
Jerry442
(1,265 posts)There are always wild cards in a campaign. Ask Israeli President Yitzak Rabin.
truebluegreen
(9,033 posts)I don't want Trump to implode before the convention, which could result in a much tougher opponent (or a schadenfreudalishus melt-down in the Republican party--I'm all for that, but timing may be important).
AllyCat
(16,222 posts)wiggs
(7,817 posts)...I believe the GOP has already figured out a way to get a nominee to the general election without having to win the primary. Don't know who it will be but I bet behind the scenes there's a LOT going on trying to make this happen. (Note: Chris Matthews noted that even though the Koch brothers made a public point over the weekend about not supporting Trump, at the same time they sent a representative to Trump tower for discussion...and, why was Trump in Nevada over the weekend too? Adelson?)
Trump won't implode, he'll quit and come out with his pockets full and the GOP will have a surprise nominee who didn't make himself unelectable pandering to the RWNJs in the primary. Trump is a Trojan Horse....a fake nominee....
That's why Hillary has to be making a clear, broad case against the GOP not just Trump's small hands. Maybe dem leaders even need to be clever and ridicule this election pathway before it happens...
truebluegreen
(9,033 posts)On Dems needing to be clever and think more than one move ahead, for once. The way they act sometimes makes me think they want to lose.
nuxvomica
(12,442 posts)That was the name of Spy magazine's ongoing meme of fin-de-siecle excess and cultural devolution. The title alone aptly describes Trump's candidacy.
IronLionZion
(45,528 posts)yellerpup
(12,254 posts)"It's just one big con-job.
Campaigning for President with as little effort as possible, spending as little of his own money as possible.
Expecting other investors (the RNC...) to cough up the money to keep HIS venture running.
Trump is putting NOTHING on the line for his own campaign."
Everything he does is based on this model.
BumRushDaShow
(129,459 posts)He is paying himself $10,300 a month out of his fund-raising.
Botany
(70,582 posts)BumRushDaShow
(129,459 posts)"Billionaire in name only".
jalan48
(13,884 posts)socialist_n_TN
(11,481 posts)that his candidacy and success showed the "reality show" nature of bourgeois elections. You say "kabuki", I say "reality show". Potato, potahto.
Folks, it's a game show, an entertainment.
CaptainTruth
(6,601 posts)As I noted in a recent reply, Trump decided to run as a protest candidate with a goal of getting 20%. He didn't intend to get the nomination.
He's deliberately alienated every voter demographic he needs to win, along with the press & his own party. When you look at his "campaign" & funding, does it look like he's trying to win?
He knows if he wins he'll be exposed as the clueless huckster he is, his whole charade of "greatness" will fall apart. That scares the heck out of him. His charade is all he really has & his fragile ego depends on it.
So, to protect his ego (& maintain his charade) I think he's planning to lose. Losing is safer, he can blame it on others & talk about how much better things would be if he had won (more ego stroking by criticizing others) without being expected to actually DO anything, which deep down, I think he knows he can't.
cntrygrl
(356 posts)jimlup
(7,968 posts)certainly not fit for the Presidency.
davidthegnome
(2,983 posts)Particularly if the GOP is working with him, which doesn't seem to really be the case, in public... but, who knows?
Maybe the strategy is to present someone so out of control, so crazy, such a complete asshole and idiot... that any other republican candidate would look really good in comparison. Maybe. On the other hand...
Those who voted for Trump in the primaries were very numerous, very angry - and can be very loud. If Trump is denied the nomination at the convention... if they pull off some kind of "white Knight" scheme, it could very well blow up in their faces. What I mean is - we're talking about a lot of rednecks with guns, frustrated people in general - and people who, well, let's face it... aren't that well informed or educated, otherwise they would have voted for someone else.
In particular, those armed militia groups on the border want that wall. They will probably kill to get it - and I don't think they'd hesitate to get really, really violent if they felt that there was no longer any point in voting. Whether we like it or not, whether the establishment republicans like it or not... Trump won the popular vote and the delegates. What it comes down to in regards to him being the Nominee for certain... is the question of whether the Republicans are desperate enough to toss him out on his ass - and what will happen if they do.
Con job or not, this is going to get a lot uglier, I suspect.
socialist_n_TN
(11,481 posts)It's not that Trump is a fascist that makes him dangerous. He's not really a fascist, he's an opportunist and an egotist. But the social forces that he uses to fuel his opportunism and egoism ARE fascist. And dangerous. But the members of the bourgeoisie have always trotted out these forces when they need them to be attack dogs, thinking they can control them. The hubris involves that control. When they are unleashed, these social forces are hard to control and put back on the leash.
davidthegnome
(2,983 posts)Those same kind of people once believed they could use and control Adolf Hitler and his Nazis. Was a hell of a job putting that particular genie back in the bottle. They are playing with Pandora's box. They never should have let Trump get anywhere near the nomination - but they propped him up, the media propped him up, they made the debates and the coverage almost something like a really awful reality show. The media, especially... is very complicit in this. How many hundreds of billions of dollars in free promotion did they have to give him? Well, they gave him enough to be really, really god damned dangerous - because... ratings.
Greed, anger, xenophobia, racism, bigotry... hatred... all of these things, these dark and ugly forces, helped unleash this particular monster - and it's a damned hungry one.
socialist_n_TN
(11,481 posts)there is one difference today than in the 30s. Back in the day, the bourgeoisie unleashed and supported fascists because they believed that capitalism was under attack and was in danger of being supplanted by socialism. And that was true. Today they attempt to use those social forces for something less than an existential crisis. In Trump's case, it's, as I said, opportunism and egotism.
And it's not just Trump. A segment of the Ukrainian bourgeoisie used fascists to support THEIR opportunism, also expecting to be able to put that djinn back in the bottle. And it's STILL out in Ukraine. I don't expect it to be controlled here any better than there.
GulfCoast66
(11,949 posts)While they pay him to do it.
Sometimes life is fair
underpants
(182,879 posts)ffr
(22,671 posts)arcane1
(38,613 posts)I sometimes wondered but never changed my mind, even now.
It's one of the reasons "fear of a Trump presidency" doesn't work on me.
ffr
(22,671 posts)His name is slipping my mind at the moment. But he had his own campaign software that was his tool. It didn't go according to plan. He had the entire RW media believing he was going to win big, FOX Entertainment stooges couldn't believe it either when he lost big.
Romney. That was the guy!
Javaman
(62,534 posts)what does he stand to gain if he loses?
answer that question and everything falls into place.
cbdo2007
(9,213 posts)Win or Lose....having your name on the ballot for President for a major American political party will get your name in the history books for the next few hundred years, especially when you are associated with the first female President of the United States.
So far, nothing Trump has done in his life is worthy of actual history books yet after this, his name will be listed in the W/L column for Presidential elections for hundreds of years. He has plenty of money, and with that can really have almost anything he wants so this is really the main thing he is missing in his super egocentric view of the world.
Javaman
(62,534 posts)his "fame" won't be as long as he thinks it will be.
once he is dead and gone, he will be an also ran aka a footnote in history.
we will be onto much bigger problems than him, at that point.
cbdo2007
(9,213 posts)It was in the history book, that's what matters. That drives many people in politics. Most of us are living through history, but they are active participants.
Javaman
(62,534 posts)we are to get angry because he gets a footnote in history?
there were much more bigger pricks than him that have left much larger legacies.
I can think of two. nixion and georg w. moron*
pansypoo53219
(20,996 posts)it gave a good view at tRUMP"S psychology. KEEP hitting the SHORT FINGERED vulgarian on his hands. drives him nuts. + he WILL cash $5 checks from the deluded elderly.
niyad
(113,556 posts)Monk06
(7,675 posts)then pulls it back out with licencing, management fees, a share of the profits and most importantly loans against the project. This last tactic puts him first in line of preferred creditors when the project goes bankrupt.
He's doing the same with this campaign Bleeding the RNC dry, pushing them to finance the rest of his campaign thus sending good money after bad
I'm betting he drops out sometime in late September and then blames the RNC for this disaster taking all their cash with him
rhett o rick
(55,981 posts)Cary
(11,746 posts)And who cares anyway? Trump's noise will pass. Republicans will be in even more disarray. I don't see them putting this back together any time soon. It's kind of hard now for them to reprise their "not 'conservative' enough" refrain.
Radicals fail again. The adults have a lot of work to do.