Thread: Report confirms the billionaire’s presidential bid is a long and calculated con job

MONDAY, FEB 1, 2016 06:55 PM EST

Donald Trump is a fraud: Report confirms the billionaire’s presidential bid is a long and calculated con job

Everything Trump has done during the campaign is designed to dupe the media into funding his marketing strategy

SEAN ILLING

Donald Trump’s presidential campaign feels whimsical, like a practical joke or publicity tour gone awry. But it turns out the Donald is running a long con. A newreport in Politico suggests Trump has been plotting this stunt for years, and he knew exactly what he had to do to succeed.

According to the report, Trump was approached two years ago by GOP operatives who wanted him to run for governor of New York. To their surprise, he declined but added that they would be useful when he ran for president. “I’m going to walk away with it and win outright,” Trump told the group, “I’m going to get in and all the polls are going to go crazy. I’m going to suck all the oxygen out of the room. I know how to work the media in a way that that they will never take the lights off of me.”

Trump knew all along that his celebrity and media savvy were sufficient to support his campaign. Although they didn’t believe him, Trump told the Republicans in that room in 2013 that he would dominate the race without spending much on paid advertising. From the report:

“’You can’t run for president on earned media,’ one attendee recalled telling Trump. The billionaire looked up, and paused for a long moment. ‘I think you’re wrong,’ Trump said. ‘Are you going to do all those little events at the Pizza Ranches?” another person asked, referring to the Iowa fast food franchises that are a staple of presidential campaign stops. ‘Maybe a little,’ Trump replied. ‘But it’s really about the power of the mass audience.’”

Trump was right. The ability to control the narrative, to dominate the coverage, is all it takes. Trump’s amorality coupled with his gift for self-promotion has turned the Republican presidential race on its head. He’s made the race about him, and anytime he isn’t the main story, he lurches back into the headlines with an outrageous comment about women or Muslims or Mexicans or disabled people – anything to win the news cycle.

The biggest takeaway from the report is that Trump is indeed a professional huckster. And whatever else he is, he’s not stupid. He doesn’t believe half the absurdities he utters on the campaign trail either. As the report makes clear, everything he’s done and said was designed to dupe the media into funding his marketing strategy.

Trump’s a TV man; he understands the landscape. He knows interesting is preferable to informed or reasonable or lucid. Which is why he eschews talking points or scripts and instead riffs on stage like a stand-up. Trump’s free-wheeling approach means he could say literally anything at any moment, and that’s the kind of thing people want to watch. The bit about Mexicans being criminals and rapists, for example, was entirely improvised during Trump’s announcement speech, and while it was an egregious thing to say, the sheer craziness of the remarks won him a week’s worth of headlines and catapulted his campaign.

HTTP://WWW.SALON.COM/2016/02/01/DONALD_TRUMP_IS_A_FRAUD_REPORT_CONFIRMS_THE_BILLIO NAIRES_PRESIDENTIAL_BID_IS_A_LONG_AND_CALCULATED_C ON_JOB/

Salon is a communist rag full of distortions and I dont see anything in this article that would qualify as a "long con" or con job of any kind. It is merely Salon magazine making the claim that Trump is a lying crook.

W

Trump has the liberals and the big government "on the take" guys running scared and the vitriol of headlines just to continue to escalate. They are really starting to leave themselves open for libel and I hope he sues the pants off a few of them for stating their opinion and theory as fact.