The narrative surrounding Trump and his success in business has long been part of what voters have known about him before his debut in the political realm. Both his large, brooding towers and infamous reality TV show have given him a sweet spot in being a household name. But where did the all the success start? And which successes really mattered? As part of the rhetoric that surrounds Trump’s claim to fix America on the basis of business must, one must look at picking a strategic beginning to his story of sucessful business ventures.

Where he really began

After successfully shadowing his father, a real estate mogul in his time, Trump was given control of the company in 1971. From then, his personal real estate growth as a mogul has only skyrocketed as he first opened a Grand Hyatt in a now booming Manhatten corner to establishing hospitality towers under his own name.

What his rhetoric focuses on

In an effort to persaude Americans that an outsider from politics, AKA a self-proclaimed business tycoon, is best for the country, the campaign took the stride to begin his story of success on moments of time where he took a dire situation and turned it into gold. For example, his smart business record can be placed all the way back in 1995, when he chose to claim a near $1billion in operating losses that further helped him avoid paying taxes for upto 2 decades. 

What his opponent has to say 

From the moment Trump uttered the words “good business experience makes a good president”, the Clinton campaign has been out to prove him wrong. In the first presidential debate, Hilary Clinton made a task to point out Trump’s ability to undermine others in attempts to get ahead in business. See clip below (2:15)

The Clinton campaign wants to rhetoric surrounding Trump’s business record to begin at any point in which he has bent the law or ridden on the backs of others to acheive his success. This beginning point could begin with his incorrect perception of $1million being a small loan or a near $1billion claim in operating losses or simply cutting corners with whom he does business with in efforts to only benefit himself.

This constant tug of war for what is good and bad business has

Donald Trump’s number one selling point is that he is a CEO and has credibility with his businesses. NBC NEWS states that as a whole, Trump’s businesses are down a whopping 16 percent. The decline is coming from a decline of 7 percent in July of 2016. At this rate, it i gradually climbing. His ethos as a businessman is being diminished. Republicans have vowed to look past his flaws and vote for him instead, but are now losing faith him him because he is not “bringing his potluck dish to the party”.

CNN wrote a story about Trump and his Trump University. The story was about a woman who had recently lost her husband to the war on Iraq. it talked about how she wanted to start over and how she used $35,000 that she received from her husband’s death and invested it into Trump University and got nothing out of the program. After Cheryl Lankford look thoroughly through the curriculum she noticed that it was just a scam.

 

After sharing this story, i have lost faith in Donald Trump and begin to understand why many more people, including his supporters/voters are also losing faith. He is doing a horrible job carrying out what he has promised us Americans.

With that in mind RealClearPolitics, who is an unbiased organization has taken daily polls on this election and it seems as though Clinton is the frontrunner in this election. NBC NEWS also stated that Clinton has a clear-cut 11 point lead over Trump. RealClearPolitics says that with that kind of lead, she has an 86% chance three weeks prior to the start of election day.

 

 

There is narrative circling that Trump would be wealthier if he had simply taken his inheritance money and invested it in an index fund. While Trump certainly has more money floating around than most of us do, is his wealth actually that impressive considering what he started out with?

Trump’s wealth has grown about 300% since 1987, while other billionaires such as Warren Buffet and Bill Gates saw growths such as 2612% and 7173%, respectively in the same time period. While Trump’s wealth is nothing to laugh at, this does raise the question of whether or not his own narrative of his success as a businessmen should hold up. This information suggests that Trump is actually more conservative as a businessmen than he likes to brag about, and a recent report from the Associated Press stated that Trump made more of his money by “lending out his name to others rather than developing real estate himself.”

Now, there is most definitely an other side to this narrative. Finance and business, especially stocks and investing, is something that is hard to boil down into a simple storyline for the everyday American. That gives the Democrats an advantage with this narrative to grossly simplify and to water down the facts. Part of the other side of the argument is that you can’t put monetary value on name recognition, and building things that have your name on them. Even if Trump would have made more money by indexing, who is to say how much it was worth for him to establish buildings, schools, golf courses, and casinos with his brand. 

The truth of the narrative that Trump would be richer by basically letting the money sit away and touching it, and therefore not having the chance to mess up, is not what I am trying to prove or disprove here. What is interesting, is the way that the liberal media have taken this idea, and over simplified it until they had something really great to run with. They are using this narrative to make it seem like Trump couldn’t even manage to take the money that someone else worked hard for and handed to him (his father), and not mess up with it. This makes Trump seem like the exact opposite of a good businessmen, and in fact the exact opposite of someone that we would want to run our country.

 

Back in 2015 before many voters were decided and before the current political uproar, Republican presidential candidate, Donald Trump and his political campaign team decided to create the rhetoric for his specific target audience that he is a successful businessman.  Trump and his campaign have fought so hard to paint this image by discussing the success of his billion dollar companies such as the Trump Tower, Trump University and many more of his business ventures. With this narrative they purposely leave out many of his business failures and the more than four times that he has had to file bankruptcy. However, this is done to keep the enthemyme that if Donald Trump can be a successful businessman than he is fit to be a great president for the American people.

One of the first instances where he used this rhetoric was in his first campaign stop in Iowa in 2015. During this stop Trump gave his first campaign speech and announced his intent to run for presidency. It was during this stop that he also stated that “He is not a politician; he is a businessman that knows how to create jobs”. This has been the basis of his entire campaign thus far because he has also created the rhetoric that politicians are killing this country in order to sway voters from voting for the typical politician. During this campaign speech he boasted his business record and promised the American people that he will create jobs and they can guarantee that.

Ultimately, it will be up to Trump’s supporters and the undecided voters to interpret his rhetoric of being a great businessman and president for our country.

Recently, Trump Inc. has become as a household topic and a constant top trending topic on twitter. But Donald Trump himself has been at the top of his game in keeping himself recognizable. From his brooding Trump towers to his hard-hitting performance on The Apprentice, Trump has consistenly shown that he is a man of power, in the land of business that is. From his annoucement speech addressing the nation, Trump solidifed the enthymeme of “good businessmen make good presidents” and the idea has been on a see-saw ever since.

 

A Day in the Life. 

The American Dream focuses on the any individual’s ability to start from scratch and create something bigger and better for themselves. It is not new for a presidential candidate to float the idea of having a business background as necessary and possibly be required, per Mitt Romney. However, Trump did not have the most humble of beginings with a small loan of $1 million from his father, yet he has communicated this portrait of acheiving what the American Dream is about: hard work and success.

The scene of this American dream is sest in the daily ritual of the president of the United States in comparison to the daily ritual of a tycoon in the business industry. If one were to treat the country like a business, both the president and the tycoon would want to do what’s best for the country using resources as efficiently as possible. Presidents would seek to do this by focusing on the plausible sucess of the Americans at the heart of the country, i.e. lowering taxes for the middle class in order to encourage propserity and in turn, grow the economy. In a tycoon’s eyes, the same issue is at hand, but with a different solution. In order to churn and stimulate the economy, the tycoon would lower taxes for corporations in order for them to focus their resources on labor and new facilities. The list of comparisons as such could go on.

Is it effective?

Short term answer, not as much. Long term answer, possibly. Trump’s rhetoric in communicating the American Dream has proven successful in some facets. He is not the basic proven hero that rises from the ashes, but the campaign has been able to paint his life as working hard to earn his badges and can be held to a higher standard of competency due to his record

Donald Trump, republican nominee and business man, has gotten himself into more financial problems. On Monday, October 10^th, 2016 the Taj Mahal Casino closed its’ door to the gambling hall for the last time. This property was built and ran by Donald Trump; however, he was not quite successful in keeping this establishment in good financial standing. Donald Trump has brought this casino through four bankruptcies and still cannot manage to keep this casino up and running. On top of letting this casino go he has no explanation and just simply stated, “There is no reason for this.” If something were to go wrong while being in office (hypothetically speaking) there needs to be a reason and a plan.

This is just yet another example to show that Donald Trump is not as  fit to run for President of the United States because he cannot keep up with one establishment, how do we expect him to keep a whole nation out of financial trouble? and considering that the Taj Mahal Casino and Hotel was dubbed the “Eighth Wonder of the World” Although there has been five other casino closed along the boardwalk in Atlantic City in the past couple of years, one of the wealthiest men should be able to capitalize on that and bring more jobs rather than take them away.

 

One of Donald Trump’s major points in this race to presidency is all the jobs he is going to create for America. Yet, the same person also put 11,000 people out of a job by closing the doors to this casino. A major point to question the truth in his word to the United States of America.

http://www.msnewsnow.com/story/33352519/donald-trump-no-reason-for-taj-mahal-casino-shutdown

The Leak

In a strange chain of events, one of the largest controversies in the sea of controversies that is the 2016 Presidential Election has been quelled. A group or individual from within the Trump organization sent The New York Times a letter containing excerpts of Trump’s tax returns. Trump’s vehement refusal to release his records (which makes him the first GOP candidate to do so since Nixon nine election cycles ago) led many to question the legitimacy of his business practices, and more detrimentally, of his tycoon-esque persona. After this leak, it is evident that these concerns were pretty realistic.

 

According to the leaked documents, Trump’s supposed avoidance of income tax (that he believes ‘makes him smart’) is the byproduct of an almost $1 billion (nine zeros!) loss in 1995 when he was attempting to open a casino. This serious of a loss apparently constitutes a break from income tax for twenty years and thus we have the logic behind his choice to withhold the information.

 

 Does it Matter?

At the end of the day, the most important question to ask in light of the slew of scandals that have been occurring is, “Who cares?”. In short, my opinion is a resounding ‘no one’. Trump’s lack of success in the business world and his reliance on his father’s bailouts isn’t new information; it has been readily available for those who seek it out for some time now. At this point in the race, Clinton and Trump have their core supporters. Another example of a failed business is not going to hurt Trump just as another batch of released emails is not going to affect Hillary. If anything, I feel that Trump’s biggest concerns should be his inability to perform in debates or refrain from witching-hour Twitter rants. Trump’s business is the last of his worries; his inherent instability and perceived lack of intelligence will be his downfall long before his corporate savviness comes into play.

 

NOTE: This was supposed to be posted on Thursday Oct. 6th, but there were problems with WordPress.

 

 

One of the biggest questions through this election has been how and why Trump’s supporters continue to allow this rhetoric of his business record. It has been shot down time and time again, but this does not seem to phase his supporters.

Trump’s Sheep

Those who are supporting Trump, are blind to every mistake that he has made. This has been proven time and time again. They were not phased by his tax returns, and were not phased by his most recent video release scandal. The reason why these things simply cannot seem to hurt his campaign is that his voters truly do not care. They want Trump to be president because of his persona, his platform, and his unapologetic “stick it to the man” attitude.

Who Cares

If Trump supporters have not cared about any of his scandals, mistakes, or horribly worded outbursts on National television so far, why would they suddenly start to care that the rhetoric of his good business record is less that accurate? The rhetoric of him being a business man and not a politician serves as the mouthpiece for his followers, but the accuracy of the statements are not of much concern to them. Trump does have one thing going for him, and that is his loyal supporters. The rhetoric of his business record only exists to give those supporters something to grasp on to, and something to hold against Hillary, who is the definition of a career politician.

Throughout this year’s election Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has attempted and in some cases has been successful in selling himself to the American people. One of the biggest pushes of his campaign thus far has been the narrative of Trump presenting himself as being a great business man and because of this “ability” he has attempted to paint the picture that he will make a good president. However, after a long awaited time, on October 1, 2016, The New York Times leaked Trump’s 1995 tax record that revealed that “America’s business man” may have been able to legally avoid paying taxes for almost two decades. Tax experts were hired by The New York Times to investigate the tax return that was retrieved from financial records that he left behind in the 1990’s. They found that certain tax rules that mainly serve as an advantage to the wealthy may have allowed him to use a $916 million loss to cancel out an equal amount of tax income over that 18-year period. To further agitate this issue Politico reported that Mr. Trump also did not pay taxes back in 1991 and 1993. Surprisingly, this discovery does not exactly match up with his act to be the business savvy savior that he claims to be.

The reason Trump has not been paying taxes is a direct effect of the business mistakes that he has made in the past and also not to mention the six times that he has filled bankruptcy. He fortunately was able to get out many of his financial debacles mainly not because of his wonderful business techniques but because he has a very rich resource. His wealthy father.  In an attempt to fight back these allegations his supporters have come to his defense by stating that he has been open with his business failures and bankruptcies throughout his campaign. However, records have shown that he was not paying taxes well before many of the failed businesses.

It will be interesting in the next coming weeks to see how much Trump’s leaked records affect him in the polls if any since most of his supporters have been solidified. It will be difficult for Trump to continue with his “great businessman” narrative because Hillary Clinton and the rest of the Democratic party will continue to run this issue until its dry especially during the next Presidential debate.