America’s First Real Estate Presidency, wrote Politico's Jack Shafer 12/7/16. Some excerpts:
If you’re wondering what’s behind Trump's transition antics over the past few weeks—exaggerating the sticker cost of Air Force One, rolling the dice on an official phone call with Taiwan, sweet talking/shaking down Carrier to keep its factory in the United States—look no further than the real estate mind-set, which defines the way Trump thinks and acts. As a real estate guy, he always craved risk...Shafer's conclusion:
Then there’s Trump’s unique relationship with the truth, which earned him a chart-busting 59 four-Pinocchio ratings from Washington Post fact-checker Glenn Kessler during the campaign. That’s a whole lot of big, fat lies in a very short period; but by developer standards, it’s a modest haul....
Not all real estate lies are lies. Many are mere exaggerations, as when a landlord hypes a property’s sun-drenched patio that upon inspection turns out to be a grimy air shaft. Through his career, Trump has exaggerated the way other people breathe....
The lust for gambling—a subset of risk—is endemic among the real estate crowd. Where developers differ from the common man is they almost exclusively wager with other people's money...
Real estate tends to be a family business, with the companies passed down to the children to continue. That’s how Trump got his start... Trump has done the same for his eldest children and, extending that practice to government...
From his first days in real estate, Trump exploited the media to amplify his power and importance...
Do I need to argue by this point that a real estate operator makes the least natural fit for the job of president?...
But the difference between a president and a scam-artist real estate guy is a president cannot skip out on debt or responsibility or without real repercussions. Behavior like that will put the lives of great numbers of innocent people in peril. When you fail in the presidency, you don’t merely lose an investor’s money. Bankruptcy is not an escape option. Trump has no business making citizens pay for the crazy risks he might decide to take.
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