History's Greatest Con Man tries his Biggest Con, Ever, and Adds a 7th "'Magic Trick"
"Either this nation shall kill racism, or racism shall kill this nation." (S. Jonas, August, 2018)
A Confidence Trick - JM Staniforth. This one is, of course, a classic con. Trump's con isn't --- a classic one that is.
(Image by Wikipedia (commons.wikimedia.org), Author: Joseph Morewodd Staniforth) Details Source DMCA
I have been writing on Trump's "Six Magic Tricks" for some time now, most recently here: "Do Trump's '6 Magic Tricks' Still Work? Well, No." In this column I am focusing on the Sixth, the Art of the Con, and what I am now describing as a "Seventh Magic Trick," which is: "They are all picking on me." This one may well go back to childhood [can't you just see him crying, and throwing sand, in the sand-box?]. But if it does, it is certainly roaring back now. I will get to it just below.
The first Six Tricks are, briefly:
1. He has always had one or more protectors and enablers, either personal, or financial or both.
2. For decades he has had a standard operating procedure when he faces an adversary of any kind. He learned it from Roy Cohn (who learned it from Joseph McCarthy): "Always attack; Never defend." (Just watch him deal with "Die Luegen Presse" in his daily campaign speeches.)
3. Also learned from Roy Cohn is the mantra: "when you run into a problem, just sue." You may not win, and it may cost you some money. But a) you might win and b) with the endlessness with which civil litigation can be drawn out in the U.S. legal system, that other side may just get worn out.
4. In the whole of his business life, Trump has never been responsible to anyone else, either above him (except for Dad, of course) or even alongside.
5. Trump has (for the most part happily) lived his life surrounded by enemies, whether in business, in his personal life, in his banking and financial life (except for a select few, like Deutsche Bank), certainly in politics, and not just at this time. In dealing with them his "Art of the Deal" has not been deal-making, but attempted opponent-crushing. Negotiation is just not his thing.
6. Finally, Trump is history's greatest con man (a subject to which I have also devoted a previous column).
As for the Sixth Magic Trick, I have in some detail described it thusly:
"[U]sing his highly-mastered Art of the Con, Trump always managed to win whatever was the current battle in which he has been engaged. Or at least he managed to convince himself that he had won. Then he was able to project whatever 'winning' was at the time onto both his public- and self-image. This was because his losses never seemed to really cost him, or at least cost him much. With a few exceptions, like Trump University, he was somehow or other able to present them to that part of the public that was interested in such things, or totally devoted to him, as 'wins.' The Art of the Con, absolutely mastered by Trump, always seemed to work. Indeed, 'completely unqualified in any conventional sense for the job, he conned his way into the most powerful position on Earth.' "
As for those "wins," some were as when he was bailed out for his Atlantic City Casino bankruptcy losses by his friend Chris Christie. As for others, questions have been raised about such matters as his "private bankers" at Deutsche Bank, two of whom have just happened to have committed suicide. (Those suicides were for unknown reasons, of course; His last living private banker was discharged by Duetsche Bank close to two years ago.) Then there have been suspicions about how much money he actually got from various sources in Russia. At one time Don Jr. talked about "money pouring in from Russia." (And who knows, maybe there's written stuff about that stuff that Trump took with him to Mar-a-Lago. And oops, if so, guess who's got their hands on it?) But one way or another, Trump has been able to gloss over, cover up, re-direct the series of financial losses he has had, all the way to the White House. (Being an innate racist and then being able to project it widely and at great volume has done just wonders for him, hasn't it?) And, as pointed out above, he has always had Magic Trick No. 6, The Art of the Con, right at his right hand.
One of the essences of the Art of the Con, large or small, is that the con artist always knows that he/she is lying. See a) a short definition: "Definition of confidence trick. British: a dishonest trick that is done to get someone's money," and b) a longer one: "A confidence trick is an attempt to defraud a person or group after first gaining their trust. Confidence tricks exploit victims using their credulity, naïveté', compassion, vanity, confidence, irresponsibility, and greed. Researchers have defined confidence tricks as "a distinctive species of fraudulent conduct intending to further voluntary exchanges that are not mutually beneficial", as they "benefit con operators at the expense of their victims." Those politicians who are running on the "election stolen" thing --- and there are many of them --- are either part of the con themselves or actually believe it, just like the run-of-the-mill MAGA-ites do. For the politicians running on it, whether they believe it or not, the con has helped them raise [relatively] vast sums of money, just as it has helped Trump to do so.
That's why whatever they are doing is a confidence trick --- you run the trick on audiences small or large with such a foundation, such a gift of gab, such a magical presentation --- "if I say it, it must be true" --- that everyone in the particular audience at which you are aiming the con believes it. And, of course for Trump he always has one more objective for running the con beyond fundraising: "I AM the President still," hoping somehow through it to protect his from legal action, and actually pointing towards getting Repub. nomination in 2024.
It is important here to emphasize that Trump doesn't believe a word of what he is saying (at least I must say that I am convinced that he does know he's lying). He can read the 2020 election results, both for the popular vote and for the one that counts --- the totally-outdated-one-that-gives-inordinate-power-to-the-small-mainly-rurual states, the Electoral College. Trump may not read books (or the Presidential Daily Intelligence Briefings for that matter). He may not think much about complicated matters of policy, whether for his companies (which is why he had so many bankruptcies) or the nation, but the numbers don't lie, as confirmed by at least 60 different court cases, none of which the Supreme Court loaded with "Trump" judges even agreed to review. He lost, and he knows it.
Trump has been preparing this post-election since he ran in 2016 when, before Jim Comey tossed victory into this lap. He was indeed sure he would lose, but publicly he was sounding the "election is rigged" chant (sound familiar?) over and over again. And of course, he ran on it again, full-throated, in 2020 as early as June. Of course, even as COVID-19 roared across the country at breakneck speed in part because of Trumpite policies, he still had a genuine chance of winning. So why would he downplay his chance of winning by blaming it on "rigging"? Because, in my view, he saw the chance, if he indeed didn't get elected, of running the biggest con of his life --- which happens to be the one he is running now.
Assuming that I'm right, that he doesn't for a second really believe that he won in 2020, why is he claiming that he did? The reasons are obvious. They are three in number:
1. He is raising an enormous amount of money. If he hadn't claimed the election was stolen, he would already be fading into history --- at least his Presidential, if not his Racist-Numero-Uno, persona would be.
2. He would no longer be able to command the presence he is still commanding on right-wing media.
3. He may truly be harboring an ambition to run again in 2024. Obviously, it would be much more difficult to do that simply as the candidate who lost the Presidency in 2020, rather than as the candidate who had the election stolen from him. This way, he can continue to tease not only his base, but other possible Republican 2024 candidates, and the media (of all stripes) as well.
And now we get to the new Magic Trick, No. 7, which is playing such a central role in his con, as the legal walls close in around him. (Of course, being Trump, he may manage to escape that trap just as he has escaped so many legal ones in the past, essentially by employing two of his long-time Magic Tricks: No. 2, "always attack; never defend," and No. 3, learned from Roy Cohn, "when you run into a problem, just sue.") This new trick, which he has never had to play before, because in one way or another he was always able to wiggle out of one jam or another, can be described, for openers at least, as the "Oh woe is me; everyone's against me, and it's so unfair[!]" trick.
In a way, it is an extension of No. 5, "surrounded by enemies" trick, as spelled out recently by Steven Beschloss: "Poor Donald. It's the deep state . . . . It's a witch hunt, a hoax, fake news. It's Democrats and RINOs and now the FBI. It's always someone else's fault, always unfair, always rigged. . . He is "he always a target of political persecution." The difference is that No. 5 is used to attack, while No. 7 is used for both attack and, unusually for Trump, defend.) This one is not going help legally. The DOJ and the FBI just don't give a wit about Donald Trump feeling that he has been unfairly set upon by his political opponents. But Trump is trying to use it as a political battering ram.
And so, Magic Trick No. 7 is: “Oh woe is me; they're all against me."
His political opponents are against him, of course, on a variety of issues (like embodying the threat to democracy posed by the Republo-fascists). But on the "Mar-a-Lago" documents issue, the FBI and the Attorney General, supported by a variety of judges, believe that he has broken the law, beginning with the Presidential Records Act. Yes, he has also apparently broken several national security laws, but it has to be continually stated that even if he hadn't squirreled away national security texts (so that he could better work on his memoirs [!!!]), he is in clear violation of the aforementioned Act. He is not entitled to take any Presidential records to Mar-a-Lago (or even to the more pedestrian Bedminster).
But for now, at least, this is all playing right into Trump's hands, in perpetuating his Biggest Con. (This is not to say that the legal case(s) against Trump should not be pursued, because he might play nice, [ho, ho, ho]. Of course, they should for a variety of reasons.) To repeat, Trump knows he didn't win. But he is raising enormous amounts of money (for who knows what purpose[s] at this time). Whether ya love him or ya hate him, he remains in the public eye at a level he never could have achieved simply by saying that "he wanted to remain politically active." He has maintained his control of the bulk of the Republican Party (which is certainly happening, even if some of its leadership (can you say Mitch[?]) doesn't like the way it is happening [?]). He is making not-soft noises about "considering" running again in '24, which, again a) keeps his name out there, and b) confines all of the others who would love to be the candidate cooling their heels.
And yes in summary, it all comes down to three of the Six (now Seven) Magic Tricks --- (2) "Always Attack; Never Defend" (watch Fox"News" for the best proponents of this one); (3) "When you run into a problem, just sue;" (6) Run the Con; plus the new one (7), "Oh woe is me; they're all against me." He does have two determined enemies this time (Trick 5), the DOJ/FBI and "Jan. 6 Committee." Conventional wisdom has it that he is far from finished, even though he might well be because of the legal problems he faces. But with Trump, given his history, hey, you never know. As a well-known figure from the world of baseball once said, in one of the most famous of his many sayings: "It's never over 'til it's over."
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Appendix I: Trump's political history-as-it-happened will be detailed in a forthcoming to-be-published collection of the published columns that I have written on him since 2011. They amount to "only" 300,000-plus words. Stay tuned to this space for further information on this upcoming publication of mine.
Appendix II: As for what is happening now (9/6/22) in terms of how he is dealing with the multiple crimes that have been revealed by the FBI Search of Mar-a-Lago, that is 1) violation of the Presidential Records Act, 2) apparent Obstruction of Justice claiming through an attorney that all relevant files had been turned over to the FBI when they hadn’t been, and 3) violation of a variety of Espionage (and other intelligence) Acts, e.g., just what was in those empty folders marked “Classified?” the Magic Trick are on full display. So far with one ally on the Federal Bench he is employing Magic Tricks Nos. 1. Having a protector, 3. Just sue (or in this case, its equivalent, the “Special Master” gimmick and if that one hadn’t been thought up, he would have come up with something else), 5. Surrounded by enemies, and 7. “Oh woe is me”).