I remember when he was listed at around 1.6 billion in 1990, then less than 500 million a few months later. This was before the flop of the Trump Tower Hotel, and just after the Taj Mahal went flat.
So now he’s #121 on the Forbes’ wealthiest list. With his record, expect him to be #389 next year.
Did it ever occur to anyone that maybe Trump is an actor? That he’s Koch’s employee?
They already own most of Congress. The best way for them to finally get the legislation they want is to ensure they’ve got a diversion in the White House. Most legislation begins in Congress. All Pres Trump has to do is not start a war, and slow-roll various regulations and all is right in Plutocrat-land.
Meantime the Trump antics will continue to keep the rubes entertained and mesmerized.
All effective magic tricks include distraction. Make sure the audience is watching all the flourishes with your right hand while the left hand performs the subterfuge that works the magic.
I don’t actually believe this. But it is an intriguing idea.
If they offer him a billion bucks, it won’t even affect his life very much if at all. He’s got the money, he wants the power.
He isn’t really a real estate developer any more - he is a brand and a franchise. And he’s been willing to destroy the high end nature of the brand, say in Macy’s. After this he’ll sell great at WalMart. It’s clearly worth it to him.
You can bet on that if you like. But despite how honest or fair it is, he’s come out staying rich despite his flops. Maybe he deserves to be broke but you are acting like he’s actually poor, despite being worth billions. Get a grip. He’s not going to drop out of the race for a twirly bird ride and he can afford as much as some of the Republican big donors. That’s the cold hard truth.
Why would the Kochs want to destroy the Republican party? If he is an actor, or a troll, he is much more likely working for the Democrats. Look at how he has exposed how crazy large chunks of the Republican base are. Look how he has pushed them to extreme positions, just the opposite of what the power structure said was necessary after 2012.
Well, of course he’ll stay rich. He may have even been richer staying out of the casino business and the political business. I’m not saying he’s poor, but he is chump change to the Kochs and he can’t buy political backing. The fact that the Adelsons picked Cruz to contribute to is not about the money (only $2700 allowed, I think), but for saying we don’t support the other candidates. That is HUGE for Cruz. Now their endorsement, when they give one, may be different, but showing no trust in a candidate in which they have common ground with is basically saying, “Don’t vote for this shmuck.”
I’m the one who said they thought he was a clown first in this thread!
Read my link in post 53. Trump has a net worth equal to all but the top 2 donors. Why say he could be bought off with a helicopter?
Because he’s a shmuck who’s certainly not getting the nomination. He’s just a sore rich kid on a book tour.
Oy vey.
Not a book tour. He’s doing research for his next book. Which will be huuuuuge.
And better than the Bible.
I doubt it will have less contradictions, even if it’s only 40 pages. I’m guessing the title is “How Your Government Screwed Me and Why I Ended Up Supporting Hillary.” 
What the plutocrats want is a compliant government that will do their bidding. If Trump’s coat tails bring in a heavily R, fully bought and paid for Congress then life is good. If the R party blows up, maybe it’ll be replaced by the explicit Plutocrat-shill party; now with more plum jobs for rural prison guards.
If the crazy base can be mollified with some red meat that doesn’t cost much, keep 'em mollified. One certain way to mollify the crazies is to gut social spending. As long as they keep returning the right / correct Congressmen all else is secondary.
You may have confused the “power structure” of the RNC with the real plutocrats. The RNC is heavily the so-called Country Club Republicans. 10-20 mil in net worth and expecting to make more. Not the Forbes List 50. Or 10. Those folks have different interests from the Country Club set.
Again I’m not suggesting I’m confident I’m right. I’m mostly (but not entirely) joking.
I’m simply suggesting we look at the idea; it’s just crazy enough to maybe be real in this Bizarro election year. So much else about what’s happening makes little sense. Maybe that’s because there’s a large and as yet unnoticed force pushing on stuff.
Best as I can tell, the plutocrats own large chunks of the party already. What’s different in this election is that they can work more openly, and with more income inequality there are more of them. What they didn’t expect was that the plutocrats would get behind different candidates. That’s one reason there are so many.
Trump scares them by not giving a crap about them or their money. And he’s not appealing to the country club set either, but to the former pawns in their game who are refusing to get behind the plutocrats’ hand picked candidates.
TV ads can only go far - a master of reality TV can do better.
They’ve educated the Republican base to believe in lies and to not do checking - and now they are surprised by someone who spouts even bigger lies. Kristoff said in his column today that more Republicans believe Obama is foreign born than that Cruz is.
The phrase “hoist by their own petard” has never been more relevant.
I really don’t get this idea of “He’s rich so he won’t be tempted by other peoples’ money”. That’s exactly how you get rich: By accepting other peoples’ money every chance that you get. In fact, there’s no other way to get rich.
Agree with both. My big point (that got obscured in my earlier wall of words) is that I see no reason for Trump not to govern just as the plutocrat he is.
IMO he’s fully willing to sell one thing: rabid populist revolution, while intending to be the exact opposite once in power.
He doesn’t have to work now for the Koch’s directly, nor for Adelman, nor for other shadowy groupings that today each back different candidates.
At the broad level of the Federal executive all those entities, and Trump personally, have the very same agenda.
It’s more Congress where, say, Koch vs. Adelman have different and semi-conflicting agendas. Although they also have a great deal of overlap in their wish lists.
Overall they’re both looking for light regulation, beast-starving, and business tax cuts. They’re each seeking subsidies or sweetheart vendor deals on different specific things and the only reason they both can’t have their specific goodies is the inability of Congress to process too many such bills per session.
The problem with this is twofold: (1) he’s leading in the polls, has just won NH, and will probably win SC; and (2) who’s going to keep him from winning?
Cruz has a good plan and more support than any of the other non-Trumps, but the fact that he’s totally unlikable is already becoming a problem for him. Bush is a weenie. The Marcobot is a lightweight who’s out of his depth once he’s repeated his talking points a few times each. Kasich is too liberal for his party (which says far more about the party than it does about the quite conservative Kasich).
It’s not a done deal yet, but I really don’t see how Trump loses unless it gets down to Trump v. Cruz earlier than the March 16 date I expect, and the party holds its nose and rallies around Cruz.
I thought the standard wisdom is that they’d rather hold their nose for Trump over Cruz. Cruz is good for pushing the party right but he’d be destructive in the high office.
Agree completely with all your post. Although as CarnalK says, it’s not real obvious (at least to me) which of Trump vs. Cruz the semi-mainstream Rs will rally 'round when forced to choose.
Ref the snip above …
I do not understand the folks who keep saying Trump can’t win the R nomination.
I do understand that some folks have a hard time separating what they want to happen from what they predict will actually happen. It’s the folks who can make that separation and yet still find Trump impossible that confuse me.
Admittedly it’s still early days in the primary campaign and a lot might still go haywire for the front runners. But to blithely assume, much less to insist, that a deus ex machina will appear to up-end the status quo with all its momentum seems … ill-advised.
What Nazi-ism?