# Donald Trump announces presidential run **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [June 16, 2015, 4:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/donald-trump-announces-presidential-run/722679 "2015-06-16T16:35:36Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Showing post:** 256
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2015, 9:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/donald-trump-announces-presidential-run/722679/256 "2015-07-12T21:54:20Z")
I agree partly with SA. Except for “Brilliant guy”, I’d substitute “Bullshit showman”. And I disagree with the contention that Trump is widely lauded in the business world. I understand that the structure of his deals changed markedly after his first bankruptcy in the early 1990s. He was once a developer. Over time he evolved into a showman. Hey, it’s a living and a pretty good one. I do disagree with the contention that Trump is a skilled businessman: > [@Donald Trump: How did such a nutcase get so rich?](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/donald-trump-how-did-such-a-nutcase-get-so-rich/723903/18): > > Sort of. > > Gawker posted a chart of his fluctuating net worth. Objective estimates had it in negative territory in 1988 and the early 1990s. If somebody makes market returns for himself and his investors, I’d say they were competent in business. If your partners take a bath and you wind up in the black, I’d say you were good at negotiation. Or self-promotion. Not business. That’s a wider skill set. Mitt Romney was good at business. I’m not so sure about Donald Trump. > > [http://gawker.com/donald-trumps-grossly-exaggerated-net-worth-a-timeline-1711718182](http://gawker.com/donald-trumps-grossly-exaggerated-net-worth-a-timeline-1711718182) What if somebody said that Trump was brilliant at sales? I think that could be argued objectively. > [@Starving Artist](#): > > But you can pretty well bet that whatever he’s up to, he knows damn well what he wants to accomplish by it. And you can lay pretty good odds that he will. Given the number of his investments that have gone south, I doubt whether Trump is all that good at divine prescience. I’m guessing that he has a decent sense of his ability to improvise: the downside of alienating most of Latin America is manageable, if not necessarily optimal. I would also speculate that Trump knows very well that no battle plan survives contact with the enemy. So you work with decision trees (implicitly) not fixed plans. But yeah: not a fool, dolt or idiot: he only appears that way. And his persona is shaped with intent. And moving beyond his rapist comments rather than clarifying or backpeddling serves his goals I assume. --- _[View the full topic](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/donald-trump-announces-presidential-run/722679)._