One of the things that stuck with me from Mary Trump's...

[brush]

interview last night on Rachel Maddow was she found out that he doesn't actually do anything. He hired her to help ghost write a book so she had access to his offices (although he never sat for an interview with her). She was able to observe that he didn't do anything but play the part of being the boss. His staff, a surprisingly small one) did all the work involved in his projects—the securing permits, the dealing with construction trades, vendors, suppliers, all of it.

And we can see that it's the same way he "runs" the White House. All he does is eat fast food, spend executive time watching FOX (not so much anymore) and tweet off of that, sit for interviews with favorable pundits like Hannity, do big rallies which he craves for the adoration and approval they give him (not so much anymore because of covid) and make occasional pretend press conference appearance which sort of give him a small fix of what he gets from the rallies.

He doesn't really do any actual presidenting, his sycophants do the work and arrange for press coverage of him applying his jagged signature to bills and executive orders they drew up for him.

And he certainly doesn't read the DPB.

[sop]

1. And it's not like his army of sycophants has been doing that good of a job presidenting for Trump.

[CentralMass]

2. That is no suprize but more the unsettling having it laid out like that.

[intrepidity]

3. His father created the mythology of his persona

He's just a stand-in, an empty suit, a face for the narrative.

A complete zero.

[mr_lebowski]

4. If I inherited $150M+ I wouldn't do shit either ...

But OTOH, I also wouldn't pretend to be doing shit.

Like Presidenting.

[ProfessorGAC]

28. A Nit To Pick, Mr. L

It was WAY more than $150 millions, especially if you count the yearly "loans" from 1971-1978.
In fact, it was enough that he could have broadly market invested, lived like an emperor, done nothing BUT golf, and he'd actually be worth what he lied about. Probably more.
It was close to $400 million, not counting the "loans", which were sizeable.
(Note: the "loans" were a means of both he & daddy dodging taxes.)

[Delarage]

5. I remember

that they started calling it the "Trump Organization" to make it sound bigger than it really is--I think it was like an office with 5 people sitting around.

It's all just a cover for the money laundering and other scams they try to pull.

[catrose]

6. The guy who wrote Art of the Deal said about the same thing.

He never could get an interview, and so settled for following DT around.

And somebody else (or maybe the same guy) said you could usually find him picking out swatches for his latest real estate project--not because that was important, but because that's the only level he could function at. The other stuff was too hard.

[spanone]

7. President Obama pegged him: 'He's nothing but a bullshitter'

https://www.theroot.com/obama-on-trump-hes-nothing-but-a-bullshitter-1795305249

[Captain Zero]

14. George Bush Sr. Called him a BLOWHARD

nt

[demmiblue]

8. Flashback: Did he have any interest in being the most powerful vice president in history?

One day this past May, Donald Trump’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., reached out to a senior adviser to Gov. John Kasich of Ohio, who left the presidential race just a few weeks before. As a candidate, Kasich declared in March that Trump was “really not prepared to be president of the United States,” and the following month he took the highly unusual step of coordinating with his rival Senator Ted Cruz in an effort to deny Trump the nomination. But according to the Kasich adviser (who spoke only under the condition that he not be named), Donald Jr. wanted to make him an offer nonetheless: Did he have any interest in being the most powerful vice president in history?

When Kasich’s adviser asked how this would be the case, Donald Jr. explained that his father’s vice president would be in charge of domestic and foreign policy.

Then what, the adviser asked, would Trump be in charge of?

“Making America great again” was the casual reply.

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/20/magazine/how-donald-trump-picked-his-running-mate.html

[Midnight Writer]

9. Thank you. I recalled this story but couldn't find it.

[CaptYossarian]

21. That makes Kushner the unofficial Vice President.

[Kitchari]

10. K&R n/t

[IcyPeas]

11. he is just a name.... Trump

like his name gets put on buildings that he doesn't have anything to do with. I guess it used to be a good thing to be associated with that name . now they are removing the trump letters from their buildings.

trump does nothing but sell his name.

[lastlib]

12. A name he now shares in my house with a certain bodily excretion....

...that has to be flushed 10-15 times......

Excuse me, I gotta go dump a trump....

[Bernardo de La Paz]

18. In your sig line I see a Russian bear TRUMPing the orange man. . . . nt

[Rural_Progressive]

22. Along that line I have replaced FUBAR

with TUBAR (if you don't recognize the acronym FUBAR means F*cked Up Beyond All Recognition)

[Rebl2]

13. Are we really

surprised?

[leftieNanner]

15. That stuck out for me too

I had always assumed that he did that in the White House, but I guess that has been his MO for ever. He has never done any actual "work". Nothing creative or thoughtful. But he did collect some really toxic folks in the West Wing who do know how to do evil things.

[Cryptoad]

16. ",,,, and the wind cries Mary"

[jaxexpat]

17. bizzaro Reagan

Or maybe just Reagan redux.

[Trueblue Texan]

19. And doesn't that jagged signature look like a psychopath's sig?

[tanyev]

20. Only a couple chapters in, but one thing that jumped out at me was in the prologue.

Mary writes that she had taken a leave of absence from Tufts University and after a year she went to her grandfather and asked for permission to go back to school.

He looked up at me and said, "That's stupid. What do you want to do that for? Just go to trade school and become a receptionist."

"Because I want to get my degree." I must have said it with a hint of annoyance, because my grandfather narrowed his eyes and looked at me for a second as if reevaluating me. The corner of his mouth lifted in a sneer, and he laughed. "That's nasty," he said.

Donald's use of the word nasty has always seemed odd to me. What he seems to mean with it is not how normal, competent adults use the word. But I guess he learned the special Trump meaning early on.

[CaptYossarian]

23. So nasty equals ambitious?

I suppose when it comes to "the little woman". In Trump's world, Mrs. Cleaver was self-actualized.

Hillary once said that a segment of America only wanted her to wear an apron and bake cookies.

Excuse me, while I throw up. Later this evening, when I see my daughters (outside), I'll continue my lessons on how to be a feminist--as any good liberal dad can.

[Cha]

25. Thank you for that from the book, tanyev.. I just used

the word to describe Treasonous trump hawking BEANS from the Oval Desk.

Blew the word right back at him

[Cha]

24. KR

[Skittles]

26. I think the story isn't that Trump is an empty suit

but how someone so fucking obviously inadequate and disgusting could fool SO MANY PEOPLE

[brush]

27. Right. That tv show "The Apprentice" made people outside of NY...

Last edited Sat Jul 18, 2020, 08:51 AM - Edit history (1)

think he was a billionaire, successful business man. None of which is true. New Yorkers knew better, just as Mary Trump said in the interview.

Somehow that Mark Burnett, the producer of that show, needs to be made to pay for foisting the inept, orange cretin upon the nation. He's even held back the N-word tapes that several contestants say he used during taping.

[FakeNoose]

30. This!

There really are outtakes from that show where he uses the N word, also the C word when discussing various women. Chump never could follow a script because of his dyslexia, so they just let him flap and say whatever he wanted. The show runners had to edit out 95% of it. He is vile and useless, and all the people who knew it kept silent in 2016. Including the entire Chump clan.

[JI7]

29. I don't think he fooled anyone. His supporters are people like him which is just bigoted trash

and then there are the opportunists looking to cash in .

[CatLady78]

31. He is actually an excellent anti-role model

If you tried to work out what the exact opposite of Trump is (remember what George did on Seinfeld?) you would probably get a relatively decent and functional human being .
When confronted with any new situation filled with uncertainty, ask yourself..What would Trump do?