Trump: Turn All of America Into Another Atlantic City

Another Trump-branded property – Trump Taj Mahal Casino Resort in Atlantic City – is shutting its doors for good this September, some years after he skipped out on the struggling venture.

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s many corporate bankruptcies and debt renegotiations should be a clear enough warning sign to all Americans about his business skills and trustworthiness.

Best dealmaker or snake oil dealer?

Trump likes to assert that he is the world’s best dealmaker. The real genius of Trump is that, when it comes to laying on his snake oil dealer charm, he does not discriminate in terms of social class.

He proved adept at mesmerizing the casino and hotel workers and the small contractors who built the sites in Atlantic City. And he just as easily conned the supposedly much smarter Wall Street investors who lost their shirts in financing his deals.

The latter fact is great evidence that this industry, presumably relying on particularly big brains, ultimately runs at least as much on brawn and testosterone.

Trump as an equal-opportunity huckster

The reason why, based on his business record, voters in the United States should beware is that Donald Trump is little more than a flashy promiser and a chronic under-deliverer.

Not so coincidentally, that ability is what makes him such an adept presidential candidate. His biggest asset is that, in business as in politics, he displays all the charm of a snake-oil dealer.

He rolls into town, throws a hugely expensive and extravagant party to make the sale – and then quickly skips town. It is only over time that people, often hoping against hope, realize that what The Donald sold them didn’t add up — except for himself.

What is truly amazing is that he does all that with so much confidence that skeptical regulators and business partners — who should know better — accept it, often against their own better judgment.

The essence of the Trump brand, toxic as it is in terms of the results it begets others, is one that continues to draw people in. They seem unperturbed, even as Trump repeatedly leaves devastation – not just disappointment – in his wake.

Atlantic City as a precursor for the entire U.S.?

The legacy of Trump in Atlantic City is not merely one of promises that fell short or disappointed. It is one of making promises that were unsustainable from the get-go.

And even though that should be clear beforehand, he often plows ahead with the worst possible execution and then manages to leave others holding the bag. Quite an act.

His past business dealings are a tell-tale precursor for what lies ahead for the United States as a whole — if he were to become President. Let nobody say they weren’t properly forewarned.

As goes A.C., so goes America?

As goes Atlantic City, so goes the nation, so far in this election cycle. Donald Trump is a man who says entirely unbelievable, even crazy things and gets people to believe them.

He honed his habit of saying inflammatory stuff without a filter in the era when reality TV was on the rise. Before he would get caught, he was on to his next move — in business as in politics.

His attention-deficit disorder may have served him well, but it would be an unmitigated disaster for the United States as a whole come November.

Trump, an egomaniac whose name should have been dirt after his first or second failure in the business world, is now going after his biggest “deal” — the Oval Office. He treats it just like the launch of yet another reality TV show.

One has to ponder what kind of half-baked policies Trump could saddle the American people with as their president – while re-assuring them that they love it and him.