From what I understand, Trump’s “performance” as a strong tough guy for the show was pretty pitiful, and mostly saved by the show’s editors, who sliced and diced a half hour of meandering commentary into something that looked like a succinct verdict delivered by a hard-nosed business titan.
Ah, here’s a description:
Homilies are so close to sermons they may as well be sermons. And Catholic parishes do have guest speakers from time to time. Although they are almost invariably other Catholic priests, unless it’s some nun fundraising for a mission.
My wife runs her own business, is an excellent critical thinker who I look up to for advice on many topics I am weak on. (There are also many topics she relies on me for perspective).
She used to watch the Apprentice and thought the orange shitbag was some decisive leader. I have dispised shitbag since the eighties and just let her watch her show. When 2016 came she opined that someone with his skills might make a good president. Instead of disputing his skill set, I referenced several of the racist and manipulative statements he had recently made. That was enough to change her mind completely about him.
I struggle that she ever thought there was anything respectable about the shitgibbon. She seems to put a lot of weight on strong personality as leadership and suggests it part of her martial arts culture. (She is part of a province wide organization and runs two very successful Martial Arts schools).
I don’t get it. He always has come off as greedy, stupid and arrogant to me in speech alone, before even looking at all the shitty, shitty things he has done before getting into politics.
I do know that a lot of people are unaware and ignorant of many things that go on. She watched the apprentice with no awareness of all the awful things he had already done in his business carreer.
Could we try to come up with a different adjective, please?
Hey, if they don’t care about the Constitution, why should they care about Zeroth Law of Robotics?
I’m hoping for denaturalization and deportation.
Anybody who has ever had to live with someone that narcissistic and delusional knows it the instant we see it. I don’t necessarily expect other people to know his type. But it baffles me that people don’t instantly look at him and think, “well that guy is clearly fucked up.” I mean he’s so clearly fucked up. So clearly.
Yep. My childhood friend and one-time roommate (and Trump supporter) is like Trump without any money. When Trump first ran for President I thought, ‘Narcissistic Personality Disorder.’
That requires a subscription after the first tantalizing paragraph.
I never watched The Apprentice because I have a burning hatred for all reality programs, but in 2016 I thought Trump was at least a successful businessman. But listening to what he said on the campaign trail, even without the “grab 'em by the pussy” comment, I knew he wasn’t at all qualified to be the president. He didn’t know shit about shit. And I’m saying this as someone who had previously voted Republican in every presidential election since 1996.
As I’ve told my Trump supporting family: I don’t know what I find more embarrassing. The fact that so many of my fellow Americans want a king or the fact that the king they want is a man like Trump.
Do you still think he was?
Oh, my! Not on your life. With all the information that’s come out since he ran for office the first time, it’s become crystal clear Trump is a failure as a businessman. In hindsight it should have been patently obvious. What “billionaire” shills for Pizza Hut and slaps their name on steaks and vodka? Trump was some dude from New York, so I never paid much attention to him because he might as well have been on Mars as far as I was concerned. With everything we’ve learned about Trump over the last nine years, it’s clear that he cannot run a business without regularly committing fraud.
I certainly don’t know everything and I’ll cop to being fooled on more than one occasion (I actually believed there were WMDs in Iraq). But as I’m neither a member of his cult nor a fucking idiot, it didn’t take long to weigh the evidence and see what a tool the Orange Foolius really is.
For too many people up to 2015 the primary referents for Trump were The Apprentice, The Art of the Deal, a vague recall of his marital misadventures being tabloid fodder but par for the course in 80s/90s celebrity terms, and if they were even paying any attention to him politically the birther thing.
Because until then what reason was there for an everyday citizen to dedicate much serious attention to him?
The vast majority of people never actually had to pay any attention to him and/or were only exposed relatively briefly and through an editorial filter, and as for anything other than his public-facing image, well, “he’s one of yours, New York City, not our problem.”
This version doesn’t, I think.
I just saw someone get their face bitten off. I can’t say with certainty this person voted for Trump. But given how loudly they have been endorsing his pogrom against transgender servicemembers and immigrants in general, I strongly suspect he did:
His response in another forum was along the lines of “I think I just lost the job I expected to have for the rest of my life…”
First they came for the Nicaraguans…
…the anti-Palestinian genocide activists…
…the student visa holders…
…the T in LGBTQ…
…and then they came for the defense contractors and civilians in DOT&E [and not only was there no one left to speak for me, other people within the DOD actively cheered in a manor strangely reminiscent of how I spoke of immigrants and trans people because apparently DOT&E is one of the most widely despised organizations in the DOD]
From the article:
“No one involved in The Apprentice—from the production company or the network, to the cast and crew—was involved in a con with malicious intent. It was a TV show, and it was made for entertainment. I still believe that”
FUCK that asshole and all his morally ambiguous opportunistic asshole fucking cohorts. FUCK THEM.
They knew they were lying. They thought nothing of the consequences of the dishonest lie and portrayal of the malignant fantasy of meritocracy and success.
This shallowness in our culture (and I don’t mean just the US - its here in Canada and probably everywhere) that gives credence, admiration and a very long legal leash to those percieved to have money and power is a grievius and shameful failing. If you point out the crookedness and incompetence of some wealthy individual there wil always be some clown that says “but look how rich they are”. Its sickening.
It’s reality TV. It’s all lies. You can count on probably one hand the reality TV shows that don’t knowingly, overtly replace truth with entertainingly curated deception. Because they’re making amusement, not documentary. It’s all fiction, a testament to the power of editing, and anyone who takes any of it seriously is an utter fool.
The only thing that makes The Apprentice unique is the subject of their fictionalizing, and the only problem is that millions and millions of people are total and absolute fools.
And that shit-for-brains decided to parlay celebrity into political office rather than even greater celebrity as a … celebrity.
I mean trump instead could have tried to be the male counterpart to the Kardashians; so over the top macho that WWE wrestlers came to him fawning to get tips on how to be macho.
I could totally see that scenario unfolding. I sure wouldn’t watch it, but I could sure see it.
I still believe that was his goal when he ran for President: Run, lose, start a new network to rant on. But now he’s discovered that he can steal billions instead of only making millions with a new network. ‘Win’ the election, ‘win’ the prestige, ‘win’ the power, and ‘win’ by raping the American people.
Quite so. The creators of the show were not trying to put Donald J. Trump in the presidency, they were just looking for someone to cast as the Big Boss of the franchise. As per their own words the original idea was to have a different top exec from a different business headline each season. Problem was, real, serious top execs don’t have time for this nonsense.
Trump, OTOH, besides as always looking for an easy payday, also was looking for something to revive his then-faltering brand so when pitched he was eager to go for it in exchange for co-producer status.
But creating this show and pitching it to the Donald was no special moral offense per se, or rather no more than is Reality TV itself. The fabricated admiration for money and swagger was just as much behind things from the Kardashians to the Real Housewives and people’s desire to watch people make fools of themselves to get ahead was behind the “people competing to stay in the house/island/restaurant” shows, the talent shows and dating shows.
In a different alternate timeline all that would have happened would have been Trump continuing on as a mega-influencer with highly profitable businesses as a result of this rebranding. That was probably all any serious person connected to it was expecting in 2004.