The real estate mogul and TV reality star launched his presidential campaign Tuesday, ending more than two decades of persistent flirtation with the idea of running for the Oval Office.
"So, ladies and gentlemen, I am officially running for president of the United States, and we are going to make our country great again," Trump told the crowd, in a lengthy and meandering speech that hit on his signature issues like currency manipulation from China and job creation, as well as taking shots at the President and his 2016 competitors.
"Sadly the American dream is dead," Trump said at the end of his speech, promising to bring it back to life with his run.
Just over four years after he came closer than ever to launching a campaign before bowing out, Trump made his announcement at the lavish Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue in New York, laying out a vision to match his incoming campaign slogan, "Make America Great Again."
The 68-story tower venue Trump used Tuesday is more than just the backdrop to Trump's presidential announcement, instead becoming a physical embodiment of what Trump is bringing to the table and the challenges he'll face as he formally entered politics.
Trump has already billed himself as the "most successful person ever to run for the presidency, by far," pointing out even that he owns a "Gucci store that's worth more than Romney."
On one hand, the guy is the epitome of American moneyball politics in 2015. America really does deserve this guy as President. On the other hand, I live in America and I'd rather it not become a smoking wasteland of Trump-style capitalism.
On the gripping hand, this is the joker who figured out how to mismanage casinos so badly that he bankrupted four of them, so he's perfect for Chief Executive of the United States.
Big winners: me, and every late-night comedy writer for the next 17 months. Losers: all the other GOP candidates, who will constantly be asked "Do you agree with Donald Trump's (horribly racist/sexist/insulting/stupid) position on X?"
This would be loads of fun, if it wasn't so serious.
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As I understand the story, trump was one of the early adopters of the modern style of corporate money management in which everything is about cash flow rather than about optimal allocation of resources. At one point he owned little more than a rack of suits and a mobile phone, but he was able to get his name on a "Trump Towers" construction project in Chicago - which had exactly nothing to do with him, except for those valuable naming rights - that kept the mystique alive and the money stream flowing.
In short, Trump has precisely the wrong background for a president and should be the last person ever to throw his hat into the ring. The fact that he has chosen to do so, albeit to a chorus of ridicule, is a sign of just how low our country has sunk.
I had a deeply disturbing conversation on just this topic, this very evening. At the interfaith council (Catholics, liberal Protestants, Jews, Moslems, and Buddhists) people were unanimous in decrying the laxity of the voting laws and shaking their heads in agreement to the idea that people are voting fraudulently and disrupting our beloved democracy. I reeled out the story, well rehearsed on my part, that this is a cynical Republican ploy to restrict participation by likely Democratic voters, but I could tell that I was getting no traction. I don't live in a battleground state so in the strictest sense this makes little difference, but I do believe in Zeitgeist (not Synchronicity, however) and this could be huge in Florida and Ohio.
Trump has already billed himself as the "most successful person ever to run for the presidency, by far," pointing out even that he owns a "Gucci store that's worth more than Romney."
Unstated that he's also not allowed to run it.
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