David Frum: Trump Has Just One Trick--And It's Not Working Anymore

[babylonsister]

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/05/north-korea-resumes-missile-testing-disregarding-trump/589081/


Trump Has Just One Trick—And It’s Not Working Anymore
The president has a single negotiating move: Take an aggressive position, and then retreat when the bluff is called.
9:23 AM ET
David Frum

snip//

The Times story of the tax returns showed how stock markets did just the same thing in the 1980s. From 1986 to 1989, Trump earned $67.3 million from short-term stock speculation. His method? He would acquire a substantial position in a company, then boast of his takeover intentions. Trump’s words would drive the stock price up. He would then sell at a profit.

The trick worked as long as Trump’s credibility lasted. Which was not long.

In September 1989, Trump tried that familiar trick once too often. He bought a large stake in American Airlines, talked takeover—and was jeered:

“I’m very skeptical of everything this man does,” Andrew Geller, then an airline analyst at Provident National Bank in Philadelphia, told The Associated Press.

Mr. Trump was rebuffed, and the stock price fell sharply. Though at the time his losses were reported to be modest, the new tax return figures show that in 1990, the year he sold his American Airlines stake, Mr. Trump lost $34.9 million on short-term trades, wiping out half his gains from the previous four years.

In the 1980s, Trump was burning through his own money. As president, he’s playing with the wealth and lives of nations. That greater responsibility has not in any way improved his behavior. Greater power has also only temporarily restored his credit. The North Koreans see through him on missile testing. Now the Chinese seem to be doing the same on his trade threats. Trump’s current round of trade threats is failing to elicit trade concessions.

snip//

The world is absorbing the lesson that Wall Street learned in the 1980s. Trump has only one negotiating move: Take an aggressive position, try to deceive others and maybe yourself about your own strength, issue threats you cannot fulfill, and then retreat amid losses if the bluff is called.

But whereas once those losses were denominated in the millions, today they rise to the hundreds of billions. Where once he troubled only those investors credulous enough to take seriously his tycoon image, today he troubles the peace of the world.

[lunatica]

1. He can only do that as long as his tactics are unknown.

It was easy for him to pull the wool over people’s eyes when he could keep secrets. He figured he could use the same tactics as President, but didn’t count on the scrutiny he and his family would get. So now he is being exposed again and again and people are getting it.

[Maven]

2. I still don't understand how that kind of stock market manipulation could be legal.

Just one more fraudulent scheme by Trump that probably should have been prosecuted years ago, but wasn't. Because rich white male.

[Skittles]

6. how is it so many people knew what a con man / crook Trump is

yet he was still able to be INSTALLED INTO THE WHITE HOUSE

[Maven]

11. We New Yorkers certainly knew, Skittles

It's really amazing how many times he was allowed to slide or given the benefit of the doubt despite obvious criminality. For decades! AND media outlets STILL go out of their way to be generous in their reporting so as not to ascribe malice or dishonesty to his actions when he has made it so clear, so many times, that he is nothing but a malevolent, lying lowlife whose only motivations are to hurt people he doesn't like and to line his own pockets.

He is a walking talking caricature of hetero white male privilege.

[cstanleytech]

17. "He is a walking talking caricature of hetero white male privilege." More like for the wealthy.

If I did even a tenth of what he has done without that wealth I would be in jail probably.

[Skittles]

20. my mum, gone for years now, commenting on Trump

"He's a pompous twit." She nailed him.

[lagomorph777]

24. Twitter was invented for pompous Twits like Trump.

It's just a cesspool.

[Raster]

26. I spent a lot time in NYC in the 90's and tRump* was a joke, even then...

...it is no wonder that NYC voted AGAINST tRump* almost 10-1.

[rurallib]

8. From what I understand it isn't. Known as a "pump 'n' dump."

but from what I understand it is hard to prove.

I am no expert on this at all.

[lagomorph777]

25. Wow, I was so confused. I thought "pump 'n' dump" was Trump's strategy with women.

[erronis]

32. Or as the newly installed SCOTUS "judge" would say: FFFF

[VMA131Marine]

29. The laws have changed since the dot com bust of 2000-2001

What he did then would not be legal now. Elon Musk was assessed a $44 million fine for just tweeting about taking Tesla private only a few months ago.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

3. Frum: "Reminder Trump's competency not deal-making, it is duping gullible victims"

Title paraphrased, exact tweet below:

Link to tweet

Regular reminder that Donald Trump’s core competency is not dealmaking with powerful counter-parties. It is duping gullible victims.

[lindysalsagal]

4. Right. He's fooled his idiot base, but not the rest of the world.

[Arger68]

5. The biggest difference is that

when he was just a crappy New York businessman his losses mostly affected just him. Now they potentially affect hundreds of millions of people. If his stupidity starts a world war it would affect billions.

[unblock]

10. there's a list a mile long of suppliers and banks and investors and customers who he's screwed over

i get your point, it wasn't the whole planet or even the whole country. but his screw-ups were not entirely just bad stock market investing, where mostly his bad decisions would have made other people money.

much of his way of doing business involves paying other people as little as possible, burning suppliers, but knowing that there's a line of suckers around the corner eager to business with a famous person....

[Xipe Totec]

7. Old Jedi mind trick

[salin]

9. Frum seemed to wake just prior to (our around the time of) the advent of the Tea Party

I follow his twitter feed, it's pretty insightful for the world view of never trumpers at different stages of wokeness.

I also recommend his book Trumpocracy.

[Honeycombe8]

13. I'll check out that book.

Yes, Frum is a very intelligent man. So it's helpful that he saw through Trump early on, and began doing pointed articles, interviews, and tweets. I follow him on Twitter, too.

[Honeycombe8]

12. One of the best articles on what's going on w/Trump's M.O. and Presidency

Besides the Russia infiltration of our govt through him and his family and cohorts, this is one of the best articles I've seen about what Trump has been doing for over two years....and getting away with.

Excellent.

[Mc Mike]

14. I was gonna guess his one trick was to blubber.

[czarjak]

15. Vlad said he'd love to help...

[keithbvadu2]

16. Investing in Trump was the best investment Vlad ever made.

[coeur_de_lion]

21. Possibly the only time in his life

He delivered on his promise to an investor.

[VMA131Marine]

30. Trump probably doesn't have a choice.

[uponit7771]

19. +1

[playaseeker]

18. We get the politicians we deserve

Take all Americans, add up their intellect, their interest in governance, their morality and we get what we deserve. People don't vote, that's on us. People are dumb enough to get scammed, again, that one is on America. Trump is a massive indictment of what America has become.

[Hortensis]

23. :) Really have to decline the role. We have many good people.

You can claim to be the average of yourself and crowds of trumpsters, hypocritical zealots, and feckless shirkers if that pleases you, but I'd advise against it. I'm part of the majority who chose Obama twice and our first woman president once.

Of course agree that in a just world all who refused to stand against what the Republican Party has become would get what they're doing to others. If only.

[True Blue American]

28. Count me in on that Majority.

From the time I first heard of Trump I knew he was a fowl mouthed Grifter.

[Blue Owl]

22. The Magabluffer

n/t

[demigoddess]

27. playground bully technique. Doesn't work with smart people

[Hortensis]

31. Frum also once said, "The battle for power is enormous."

No one should be fooled that our national emergency is all about Trump. It's not, though he is a threat also. But in the big picture, poisonous and dangerous as he is in his current position, he's not even the tip of the RW threat's iceberg, merely the guano that's accumulated on it.

[WyattKansas]

33. I remember only thinking in the 80s that he was just a wannabe Gordon Gekko.

I have never understood why people fawned over the sleazy used car salesman that he really is.

Nothing has ever changed my opinion of him since the 80s, even after his so called 'success' or con games over the years since.