Donald Trump profile: Why he wouldn't disappear from American politics
What makes him the kind of fighter he is? What were his early influences and what's his appeal to the American voter even today?
Maverick business magnate Donald Trump is poised to win the 2024 US presidential elections. And, he is also about to accomplish the rare feat of winning the presidential election after losing an earlier one.
Trump is making this comeback in a climate where his own Republican party members are wary of him. 'He is never to be trusted with power again', a veteran party member had famously remarked, when the real estate magnate threw in his hat to run for the 2024 presidency.
His critics are baffled, aghast and disbelieving that Trump is back and may very well become the President of the United States again. The billionaire's hate-filled propaganda against immigrants, violent remarks targetting political opponents, and his incapacity to handle a defeat, make them nervous.
What’s more, the 78-year-old politician has racked up thirty-four felony convictions, and is charged with fraud, election subversion, and obstruction. Twenty-six women have accused him of sexual misconduct and in one case involving a journalist and columnist, E Jean Carroll, the jury has found him liable for sexually abusing her in 1996.
But, they cannot seem to wish him away as a sizable number of Americans have reposed faith in him again and voted for him. So, what makes Trump the kind of fighter he is, what were his early influences and why does he refuse to disappear from American politics? And critically, what's his appeal to American voters?
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The idol
Born in Queens, Trump is the middle-child of five children. The son of an immigrant mother from Scotland, Trump was heavily influenced by his father. There is a theory that he was scared of his father and towed the line with fear.
His father Fred Trump was a successful real estate developer who made his money from building low-cost, affordable housing in Brooklyn and Queens.
According to staffers who worked for his father, Trump saw him as his “idol” . His father instilled in him very early on his life, a deep drive to win at all costs. According to the autobiographies he wrote, 'The Art of the Deal' and 'Trump Revealed', Trump admits he was mischievous as a child and liked to “stir things up”.
His parents sent him off to study in a New York military school, when he was just 13 years old and that experience too seems to have moulded him into the person he is today.
Military school
Trump in interviews has called it a “good training” and ostensibly liked the school. But journalists tracking his childhood claimed that it was a place where “physical brutality and verbal abuse” was tolerated and Trump thrived in such an atmosphere.
It fired up his competitive nature, and he told his fellow mates that he would be famous one day. According to journalists, the seeds of the quality – that he will do anything to win – was sown in here.
After leaving military school, he started to work in his father’s real estate business, and also went on to study in the University of Pennsylvania.
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Fight rather than fold
In the 70s, while working with his dad, the Justice Department slapped a housing discrimination suit against Trump management for not providing rentals to blacks and immigrants in their buildings.
Trump denies this allegation and turned the lawsuit into a long battle. He alleged character assassination and turned on the government accusing them of trying to force him to rent to “welfare recipients” and filed a $100 million countersuit accusing the Justice Department of defamation. This is how he would react to any allegation against him, said journalists tracking his career. (In the end, when it was over, Trump said the consent decree he ultimately signed did not include an admission of guilt.)
He always preferred to “fight rather than fold” as he would often say.
Trump was also driven by an craving to be known and be in the spotlight. Though, he has often said, ‘I have been trending all my life since the time I was born’, he loved the limelight. By this time, he also moved on to focus on building glitzy, luxury Manhattan projects.
Tabloid hero
The famed Fifth Avenue became home to his 50 something storeyed Trump Tower, arguably the mogul's most famous property and his home for many years.
Other properties like casinos, condominiums, golf courses and hotels, bearing the Trump name opened in different cities like Atlantic City, Chicago, Las Vegas and even in Turkey and Philippines.
Since he loved being surrounded by women, he bought over beauty pageants. His flashy lifestyle attracted New York city tabloids and he was often on their covers. He also famously appeared on Playboy cover.
Trump opened a travel and tourism site, a winery, a mortage company, men’s clothing line, Trump ice water, and even an airline. All of which folded up. Most of them he never owned but had licensed his name out, which had become a brand by then. Though, he was grappling with bankruptcies he still managed to convince people that he was leading the fantasty life.
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Reality TV star
What made him a household name and shot him into the limelight really was the reality show The Apprentice in 2004.
Over 14 seasons, he presided over the Apprentice contestants as the Boss. They had to compete for a management contract in his business empire, and his trademark "You're fired!" line (which he used on his current opponent Kamala Harrris) became a signature line. The show had 10s of millions of viewers, and elevated his name. It was his launch to running for president, say political analysts.
He was a showman who was entertaining people but also building his image as a successful and ruthless businessman.
Trump started to flirt with politics when he challenged presidential candidate Barrack Obama’s citizenship in 2008. It was clearly an “overt display of rascism” but it also coincided with a sharp decline in the ratings of his show.
In 2015, he ran for presidency. "I have so many rich friends and nobody knows who they are," was one of his reasonings for doing so.
President of America
It is not fair to dismiss his presidency saying Trump lied, distorted, bent to Russia, alienated allies, increased national debt, made the rich richer and importantly, bungled the COVID-19 pandemic.
The pandemic led to the death of over 400,000 Americans, job losses, and the economic recession. It did not help that he had suggested people to inject disinfectant as a cure. He also mishandled George Floyd's death that later morphed into the "Black Lives Matter" campaign globally, besides triggering a trade war with China and the Ukraine scandal.
But Trump dug in his heels as he made his stand known to the world that 'America would always come first' in his policies on assuming power. And he did this by imposing stiffer immigration policies like building the US-Mexico border wall
According to political analysts, Trump however did wage a war against global terrorism, restructured the federal judiciary system, expanded the space force and attempted tax reform. During his time, the dreaded ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was killed.
Impeached twice
However, Trump will go down in history for becoming the first president to be impeached twice by the House of Representatives
Trump was impeached for abuse of office and obstruction of Congress in 2019. The second impeachment came for his incitement of his supporters after losing the 2020 presidential election to Joe Biden, which led to the storming of the Capitol hill building
Despite losing in the 2020 presidential election, in true Trump style, he never conceded to the loss and believed the election was a fraud.
How Trump seduces Americans
Trump has always sold the fantasy of being ‘an everyman’ in America, while he lived the life of a king.
His fist-thumping, 'let's make America great again' cry appeals to the angry, demeaned American, "the white working-class American who is tired of being sold out in trade deals to other nations".
Americans were angry that Wall Street seemed to be functioning better than “real” Americans. They were upset that their jobs were being off-shored to India and the Philippines and that immigrants into the US were bagging the well-paying, high-tech jobs while Americans, particularly white working-class Americans, were being laid off.
America’s tendency to easily intervene in foreign security problems with military interventions was disrupted by Trump. This was seductive for some Americans.
Moreover, he went after China and its mercantilist trade and intellectual property practices. But no US president had challenged China so relentlessly like he did.
Some political analysts see the anger of the Trump voter, and Trump's roar and bluster, as the rise of the white nationalist, neo-Nazi, and other strident, right-wing groups.
However, others feel this may well be the last gasp of a white, male-dominated political order that is being forced by demographic realities to concede to a more inclusive, multi-ethnic political order.
But that is not happening now as America is still not ready to get its first female president.
