Trump vs. the truth is back for Round 2
By: Mike Kelly
columnist
USA Today Network
..... It was the morning after April Fool's Day in 1990 when Donald Trump formally opened his Taj Mahal Casino in Atlantic City. he called it the "eighth wonder of the world.'
I was there, laughing at Trump's brazen hucksterism as he trotted out pop star Michael Jackson to drum up publicity.
.....
But even on that first day, the place seemed destined for failure. The "
"
Taj," as I wrote at the time, was a block from a small homeless encampment and represented much of the phony glitz of Atlantic City that coexisted with its chronic poverty. The casino;s fake, tulip-shaped, Indian-style turrents and garish color seemed yet another cheesy effort by Trump to hoodwink the American public. A year later, the Taj Mahal field for bankruptcy - the beginning of years of finical problems that resulted in the Taj closing its doors only weeks before Trump was elected president the first time, in 2016. Not exactly a world wonder.
.....Nut no matter. since the 1980s, Trump has garnered a well-earned reputation for playing fast and loose with facts and perception. His projects were always the biggest and most successful. His parties were the most lavish. His women, the most beautiful. Or so he claimed, anyway.
..... Trump even admitted that his fact-bending and reality-sculpting was nothing more than "truthful hyperbole.: Or, as he wrote in his first book, "The Art of the Deal," an "innocent form of exaggeration, and a very effective form of promotion." In other words, he had a habit of telling lies.
..... No one seemed to push back - certainly not in the political world. After all, Trump's marketing of himself seemed like harmless entertainment. So what if he claimed that his casinos were the best and most successful?
..... Well, I'm no longer laughing. And the rest of America shouldn't be, either.
..... Trump's ascension to the White House is not just a political triumph. It's a victory that was also paved by his surreal ability to step aroj dugly truths and forge a false narrative. Let's face it, America, Trump is really adept at painting over his problems - of "putting lipstick on a pig" that to many of us might seem like failure or even crimes. The Master of Marketing is about to have the last laugh in the Oval Office.
..... If you doubt it, consider this undeniable fact: In the coming days, Trump will take the presidential oath of office at the U.S. Capitol near the same portico where his supporters four years ago punched, kicked, pushed, sprayed chemical irritant and stampeded over police in a brazen attempt to keep him in the White House even though he lost the election.
..... the attack on the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, was little more than a clumsy cop d'etat, the kind of power grab that America, despite its political divisions and culture wars, had managed to avoid through more than two centuries. It was a shameful, embarrassing moment for a nation that bragged to the rest of the world that it was a beacon of democracy and an example of how government should work.
.....
Yes, he was impeached afterward by the House of Representatives for his behavior around the January 6 [2021] attack. But the Senate could not muster enough votes to convict him - and, therefore, ban him from ever holding office again.
..... Trump's legal woes ran into a similar cloud bank of truth and few consequences. Yest, he was charged with crimes related to January 6. [2021] But he was not put on trial and possibly dispatched to a jailhouse instead of the White House.
..... More importantly, perhaps, Trump's political life and his place in the nation's policy dialogue did not end. Comedians poked fun a him. columnists - me included - called out his lies. Democrats labeled him a "threat to democracy' and compared him to Adolf Hitler. Others case him as akin to a nutty crackpot.
..... But Trump survived. He wasn't banished form American life, as Richard Nixon was after the Watergate scandal. Nor was he forced to face the legal consequences of the January 6 [2021] debacle.
..... Congressional investigators found that Trump circulated a torrent of wacko falsehoods that the 2020 presidential election had been stolen in a massive plot by Democrats and that he had been unjustly pushed form office by Joe Biden. Some of Trump's staffers - including military leaders and Cabinet officers - essentially described him as craven, irresponsible and power-mad, a president more interested in conspiracy theories than truth. Federal prosecutors even indicted Trump on a variety of charges related to the false narrative he concocted in an effort to stay in office, including that he conspired to disrupt the official certification of Biden's election as president on January 6, 2021.
..... But the congressional investigation was never supported by a majority of Republicans. And even most Republicans who had criticized Trump's lies - including now-Vice President-elect JD Vance - reversed themselves in kiss-the-ring visits to the Florida mansion.
..... It was as if the Grand Old Party of Abraham Lincoln and Ronald Reagen had become a grand joke.
..... The same could be said of the legal efforts to hold Trump accountable.
..... The federal indictments of Trump collapsed when the U.S. Supreme Court, in one of its most controversial and, frankly laughable decisions, gave him mere-blanket immunity for any alleged crimes he might have commuted while conducting official presidential business on charges rel;lated to his covering up a hush money payment to a former pron film star, who claims to have had an extramarital affair with him, has essentially been put on hold because Trump has been reelected to the presidency.
.....
But it would be a mistake to blame Congress, the Republican Party and the Supreme Court's legal gift to Trump as the only reasons behind his political resurgence. Trump;s return to the White House is also a triumph of marketing.
..... In rising form an apparent political as pit, Trump managed to concoct a narrative about the January 6 [2021] attack that portrayed him as a victim of a tawdry 'witch hunt" and the "deep state." The throngs of Trump supporters who converged on the Capitol injured 149 police officers, but in Trump's new narrative, the event was nothing more than a "peaceful protest" and a "day of love." Those angry attackers were "patriots."
Avoiding inconvenient truth
..... This marketing transformation may turn out to be a stunning version of what Trump hoped to attain 34 years ago in Atlantic City [NJ] when his Taj Mahal opened -a wonder of the world.
..... In this effort, Trump was aided by a complacent Republican Party and a clueless Democratic Party. Republicans seemed to embrace a hear-no-evil personality when it came to pushing back on Trump's false claims. Democrats mockery of Trump and the scream-on-your-face tactics of street activists.
.....
Perhaps even worse, Trump's supporters in the media - mainly at Fox News - pushed falsehoods that ended up galvanizing his base.
..... One of the most oft-repeated lies involved an alleged decision by Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to block efforts by Trump to deploy large numbers of U.S. solders on January 6 [2021] to protect the U.S. Capitol. Pelosi never made such a decision. She had no power to summon U.S. soldiers.
..... What really happens is that Trump's acting defense secretary, Christopher Miller, stood in the way of calling in solders to protect the Capitol. What's more, it remains to be seen whether Trump seriously pushed for U.S. soldiers to be assigned to the Capitol. What ever the case, Miller later told investigation "there is absolutely no way I was putting U.S. military forces at the Capitol." Miller felt that such a show of force might result in "the greatest constitutional crisis probably since the Civil War."
..... Such facts are relatively easy to verify. But far too many right-wing journalists - and Trump supporters - avoided such inconvenient troths. (I still receive emails from Trump supporters blaming Pelosi for the January 6 [2021] attack.)
..... Another falsehood, promoted by right-wing media, is that members of the uber-liberal "antifa" coalition and even the FBI conspired to stir up the Capitol attack. None of this has been proven true. But if you follow right-wing media, such stories eyer staples.
..... So now, America faces a new Trump, presidency. Already, he has threatened to take control of the Panama Canal - possibly by force. And he hasn't ruled out suing force to take Greenland from Denmark, a NATO ally. And, yest, he has hinted he may pardon some of the 1,600 rioters who have pleaded guilty or have been convicted of crimes related to the storming of the U.S. Capitol on January 6. [2021]
..... As Trump's view of that day, one of his spokespeople said recently that the "mainstream media still refuses to report the truth about what happened."
..... Really?
.....
Welcome to another Trump presidency. It's a world of wonder, for sure. But it;s a wonder how America got to this point.
Email kellym@northjersey.com.