Donald Trump is one of the biggest con artists in history. He has tried to sell — or has allowed others to use his name to try to sell — steaks, educational classes, clothes, condominiums, gambling junkets, commercial airline tickets, commercial buildings, apartments and hotels, mostly with marginal success. At least six of his hotels and casinos have declared bankruptcy. Lawsuits have been filed against him alleging fraud, including the Trump University fraud lawsuits that were settled for $25 million. His family “charity” was fined and ordered to dissolve because of numerous violations of law.
Now he’s undertaking the biggest con of his life, trying to convince the public that the first four years of his presidency warrant his re-election.
His first selling point is that he built the greatest economy in the world. However, we now have the highest unemployment since the Great Depression and we recently suffered the worst decline in gross national product in the history of the country.
Trump inherited an economy that had been creating millions of jobs over seven years. For a while, he was able to continue job and GDP growth at about the same level. That came to an end with the pandemic.
He referred to the severity of the coronavirus pandemic as a hoax and tried to convince us that no serious steps were needed because the virus would soon just disappear. Trump’s failure to take reasonable steps to get the virus under control makes him responsible for the dire economic and medical condition our country is in.
His second re-election selling point is that the country has deteriorated into anarchy and lawlessness from which only he can protect us. The big problem with this argument is that he has been the president for the past four years, and if there is massive lawlessness and anarchy (which is very questionable) it has happened on his watch. The Black Lives Matter demonstrations are a response to the racial hatred that Trump has championed.
The fact checkers have now caught Trump in more than 20,000 lies since he took office. Don’t let yourself be a victim of his most recent con.
Dennis Rooker
Albemarle County
Information links:
Information links:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_career_of_Donald_Trump
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/nov/07/donald-trump-charity-foundation-misuse-lawsuit
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-45827430
https://www.politifact.com/article/2020/apr/01/president-who-cried-hoax-experts-weigh-trumps-use-/
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/timeline-president-donald-trump-changing-statements-on-coronavirus/