Find part one on this article here.
Many proponents of Trump's bid for Presidency state his business acumen as a key component of why they support him. Sure, he's had his successes as a businessman, but is he really as great as he says that he is? He is the chairman and president of The Trump Organization, one of the most successful real estate companies in the world. But it wasn't his effort that built the company, it was his father's. The Trump Organization began in 1923 as Elizabeth Trump and Son Co. and ran successfully for nearly 50 years before Donald began working there in 1968. In 1971, he was handed (yes, handed) control of the company.
So, one can argue that he is a "successful" businessman, but he was given the reins of a decades-old established company that succeeded long before Donald took an active role in the company. Since he's taken over, Donald has taken the company to new heights, but also has a long list of failures: Trump Plaza, a now-closed hotel and casino in Atlantic City, Trump's Castle/Marina, which was sold in bankruptcy court in 2011, Trump Taj Mahal, which remains open but has been financially struggling for years and almost resulted in its closure two years ago, Trump Towers Atlanta, a project which was foreclosed on, Trump Tower Philadelphia, which he declared bankruptcy on before it could be foreclosed on, Trump International Hotel and Tower: New Orleans, which was foreclosed on and sold at auction, and Trump Ocean Resort Baja Mexico, a planned condominium project that fell through due to the failure to secure funding. In addition to his failings as president of The Trump Organization, Trump has also failed in many of his personal business ventures.
Trump Vodka was his brand of "super premium" vodka that he predicted would fly off the shelf, but, instead, never even made it there as the brand stopped production after failing to meet the threshold requirement. In 1988, Trump bought an eastern corridor airline and rebranded it as "Trump Airlines". After updating the airline to suit his ultraluxury taste, Trump had to default on his loans by 1992 and cede control of the airline and its holdings to creditors. In 2005, Trump launched Trump University, a for-profit "business school" that was closed by 2011 and has landed Trump three separate lawsuits for allegedly scamming participants out of a total of $40 million.
Trump Mortgage was another colossal failure by Trump, who famously stated "Who knows more about financing than me?" as he launched his mortgage company right as the housing market crashed. Trump Mortgage was closed down within two years. Likewise, Trump failed in his endeavors into print media (Trump Magazine, which ended circulation less than two years after it was announced), toys (two separate Trump board games have failed) cuisine (Trump Steaks were announced as high-quality beef cuts only sold at Sharper Image, but are no longer sold anywhere.
Additionally, Trump tried to get into the bottled water game by selling Trump Ice, which quickly failed as well) and sports (Trump bought the USFL team the New Jersey Generals, eventually merged it with the Houston Gamblers and advocated for a fall football season to directly compete with the NFL, which he believed would force a merger with them and USFL team owners would more than double what they bought their current teams for. USFL operations ceased before the 1986 season ever began).
While Trump is the president of a multimillion dollar conglomerate, he was and is not responsible for their success. He took over an already successful brand and took it into the 21st century. When you look at his personal business ventures and the decisions he is directly responsible for, time after time, he his failed and made mistakes that many other business people would not have. Donald Trump wouldn't be taking over a financially stable cooperation, where he is free to do with money as he pleases. He would be taking over a country, with an always changing economy, that is $11 trillion in debt. Based on his on history, that's not something I'm confident handing him the reigns of and you shouldn't be either.
Perhaps most concerning is Trump's lack of knowledge about anything, really. Trump's economic plan (although very little of it has actually been laid out) has been widely panned by critics and economists alike. Trump's current tax plan is to lower the number of taxable income brackets from seven to four, as well as drastically cut the percentage of that money that is taxed. His plan to drop the top income tax to 25 percent would cost at least a trillion dollars over the next 10 years (just how big of an impact his tax plan is hard to determine since Trump has not released any other information about his tax revenue plan other than the tax brackets) and his defense that the lower taxes would stimulate economic growth has been debated by experts.
When it comes to health care, Trump's only specific plan so far is to "repeal and replace" the Affordable Care Act. He has also stated that he plans to "get rid of the lines around the states" to allow healthcare providers to sell insurance across state lines, but that plan has been scrutinized and questioned as to how much of an impact that policy would change anything. Trump has also supported allowing less scrutiny of pharmaceutical companies so that it is easier for them to release drugs into the market.
Trump has claimed these plans, in addition to bargaining prices, would save hundreds of millions of dollars. When pressed for more details, Trump was unable to respond. Trump loves to tell us how great and smart he is. If you haven't listened to a Trump interview or rally, he constantly likes to state that he went to an Ivy League school, that he went to the Wharton school "the hardest or one of the hardest schools to get into" he has said of himself "I’m, like, a really smart person” and that "my I.Q. is one of the highest -and you all know it!"
His self-promotion would lead you to believe he really is intelligent but listening to and analyzing what he says proves the opposite. He has claimed that the concept of global warming was created by the Chinese to lower intimidate U.S. manufacturers. He doesn't know what the nuclear triad is. He likes to think that it was his 'genius' that created the success of the Trump Organization, but really, it was the hard work of his employees and other top executives in the companies, which you can tell because nearly every business venture that Trump has gone into solo and didn't inherit has failed miserably.
Donald J. Trump is a closed-minded, schoolyard bully who has been handed all of the success in his life. His business contributions are slim to none, as he has just inherited a highly successful company and employed smarter people than himself (and illegal workers to keep wages low) to run the company and has ridden their coattails. He has this image of himself that he IS the reality TV persona that he portrays on The Apprentice.
He has no sense of reality and is so misinformed that it is often times frightening. The President of the United States is one of the most important people in the world. The POTUS needs to be a well-educated diplomat capable of making split second economic, international, military and domestic decisions that have wide sweeping implications on billions of people. Donald Trump has proven by his own words and actions that he is not capable of that.
He's a businessman, I'll give him that--and at that, not the best one--but balancing world affairs is not the same as balancing out a checkbook. The presidency is a campaign Donald Trump must forfeit, and this time, no one will be there to give him a small loan of one million dollars.
