MY TURN: Challenging Regan's claims about Trump
On Nov. 22, Brent Regan, the chair of the Kootenai County Republican Central Committee, wrote a paean to Donald Trump, who won the 2024 presidential election. Liberals like me do not deny this; and we are not sending a phalanx of yahoos to D.C. on Jan. 6, 2025, to upset Congress, and we fully expect Biden and Harris to congratulate Trump at the Inauguration; Trump didn't have the decency to attend Biden's inauguration in 2020.
Liberals like me are obviously disappointed by the recent election. But Brent Regan proffered a number of claims about Trump that must be challenged. I will begin with something that Regan and I agree about: Trump is an obnoxious self-absorbed jerk. But I'll continue; all of the quotes below are from Regan's apologia.
"He has owned hotels, casinos, (etc.)." This is true only if you ignore the huge amount of debt that Trump has taken to "own" these properties. Consider the casinos: all of them went bankrupt. So many other ventures of his went sideways too: Trump Steaks, Trump Airlines, Trump Vodka, Trump University. Trump University (surprise) was shut down by New York for fraud. Trump doesn't own Trump Tower in NYC.
"He is a best selling author ..." No, he isn't. Trump hasn't actually written anything. His most famous product is "The Art of the Deal" which was (ghost) written by Tony Schwarz; Schwarz has subsequently expressed extreme dismay about Trump.
"[Trump is a] reality TV star that has gone from boom to bust to boom again, a real life Horatio Alger hero persuading his way to amazing success." This is absurd, if by "success" you mean "real success." Trump was worth a million dollars by age 6, from money given him by his father, Fred Trump. During Donald's failed attempts to run a casino, Fred Trump bought $2.5 million in chips, and then threw them away, in order to float an unreported, untaxed gift to Donald. Of all the people reading this, who has a father who could grift/gift them $2.5M? Trump is infamous for stiffing contractors and employees and banks. No U.S. bank will lend him money, because he is a terrible risk. Trump has been a party to about 4,000 lawsuits. That is one new lawsuit per day for 11 years. There should be an entire court system just to deal with Trump lawsuits.
"You can almost feel the Europhile limousine liberal elites shudder at the thought of this “ugly American” outlier being a cultural icon or possibly being the President." Where to begin! I'm a Europhile: Is that a bad thing? How many liberals have you met who are "limousine" liberals? Donald Trump has Elon Musk and Peter Thiele, after all. Musk actually sells yachts. Peter Thiele doesn't have a yacht; he has two of them (250 and 350 feet in length). And by the way, Regan demonstrates that he doesn't know and doesn't understand the origin of "The Ugly American," a 1958 novel by Burdick and Lederer.
"Is it that deep down there is a guilty secret little room where we want to BE The Donald? Imagine you are Donald Trump. Remember the private 757 jet, hotels, golf courses, football team, casinos and A-list parties. It could be worse, right?" Where to begin. Apparently it's terrible to be a limousine liberal, but jim dandy to own a 757. Does Trump actually own any hotels? He has huge amounts of debt associated with nearly all of his properties; he doesn't even own Trump Tower in NYC. At the moment, the COP climate meeting is just ending in Azerbaijan; the capital city, Baku, has a "Trump Tower," empty and bankrupt.
I'm a bit baffled by Regan's defense of Trump because of his popularity. Popularity does not equal goodness. For example, both Obama and Hitler were popular, but for wildly different reasons. Even Hillary Clinton was more popular than Trump, by 3 million votes.
I've only hinted at the excesses and obfuscations in the first third of Regan's article. I could go on and on.
If this is the president you want, fine. But not even a majority of Americans wanted him (he won less than half the popular vote).
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JD Sahr is an Otis Orchards, Wash., resident.