Trump is a moron fixated by fabric swatches.

[Kid Berwyn]

Trump, the billion-dollar loser — I was his ghostwriter and saw it happen

Charles Leerhson
Yahoo.com, May 9, 2019

EXCERPT...

I tend to see my time with him — the first part of it, anyway, before things started going bad in a hurry — as his “King Midas” period. I never said this to him; if I had, he probably would have thought I was suggesting he enter the muffler business. But there was a stretch of months when everything he touched turned into a deal. The banks seemed to accept the version of him depicted in his first book, “The Art of the Deal,” which we now know from his previous ghostwriter, Tony Schwartz, was entirely invented. They believed it over what they saw on his balance sheets or heard coming out of his mouth, and they never said no to his requests for more money. Often they came up with things he could say yes to before he could think of them himself. As a result, a failing real estate developer who had little idea of what he was doing and less interest in doing it once he’d held the all-important press conference wound up owning three New Jersey hotel-casinos, the Plaza Hotel, the Eastern Airlines Shuttle and a 281-foot yacht.

A real go-getter, right? But Trump’s portfolio did not jibe with what I saw each day — which to a surprisingly large extent was him looking at fabric swatches. Indeed, flipping through fabric swatches seemed at times to be his main occupation. Some days he would do it for hours, then take me in what he always called his “French military helicopter” to Atlantic City — where he looked at more fabric swatches or sometimes small samples of wood paneling. It was true that the carpets and drapes at his properties needed to be refreshed frequently, and the seats on the renamed Trump Shuttle required occasional reupholstering. But the main thing about fabric swatches was that they were within his comfort zone — whereas, for example, the management of hotels and airlines clearly wasn’t. One of his aides once told me that every room at the Plaza could be filled at the “rack rate” (list price) every night, and the revenue still wouldn’t cover the monthly payment of the loan he’d taken out to buy the place. In other words, he’d made a ridiculous deal. Neither he nor the banks had done the math beforehand. Or perhaps Trump knew it because someone had told him, but didn’t want to think about it. The one thing he is above-average at is compartmentalization.

Source:

https://news.yahoo.com/trump-the-billiondollar-loser-his-ghostwriter-recalls-the-king-midas-years-090000640.html

[Faux pas]

1. Kicketty Kickin'

[Kid Berwyn]

3. Hours flipping through textile swatches. Sometimes, wood.

Imagine what he would be now if he could read?

[nolabear]

2. I figured he'd be obsessed with matching carpets and drapes.

I couldn’t stop myself.

[Kid Berwyn]

6. Ha!

?itok=Y5zH38JT

Source: The Madness of Materialism

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/out-the-darkness/201203/the-madness-materialism

[nolabear]

20. Great article. And right on point as to what the con is doing.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

4. Maybe we should send him fabric swatches and wallpaper samples

to keep him out of trouble and occupied, like a golden retriever with a pile of tennis balls.

[Kid Berwyn]

14. Overwhelmed by choices might freeze his Twitter.

Great idea! Good for the nation and planet.

[DemocracyMouse]

19. Those are a terrible set of pattern choices!

And evidently, so were Trump's favorite fabrics. If he had been good at it, maybe he could have broken even by attracting more people to his establishments.

Don't knock aesthetics unless you want your own operations to tank. One reason Starbucks took off, DESPITE lousy coffee, was the interior design and lighting. The truth is, Trump had no soul and therefore ZERO sense of beauty.

Don't mock the monster for having anything to do with good design. Mock Trump for his LACK of skill in fabric choices, not to mention inability to delegate that job to a professional designer.

But if you all keep mocking fabrics you will be visited by dragons 🐉.... and the ghosts of thousands of years of textile guilds.

Where did you all go to school? The USA?

[Kid Berwyn]

23. Outstanding analysis.

Design is a very important component of our world’s aesthetic.

Components of aesthetic experience: aesthetic fascination, aesthetic appraisal, and aesthetic emotion

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3485814/

Spot-on about those swatches above, too. They are dreadful.

[Blue Owl]

5. Functioning at a Fisher-Price level

n/t

[Kid Berwyn]

16. Normal children are curious.

This guy seems deranged in ways that seem beyond our science.

[DemocracyMouse]

21. It's not so mysterious. He was spoiled. Spoiled rich kids with a chip on their shoulder are...

...the worst.

What was Trump's insecurity? He was the son of an immigrant and the son of parents who were unable to give love. They only bought tokens of love.

[rusty fender]

7. Even back in the '90s, when he still had most of his

faculties, he was uninterested in the actual mechanics of running a business. All he cared about was getting the credit for any success, cared only about veneers; as shallow as a sidewalk puddle

[mopinko]

8. i'm not sure he still had it in the 90's. cocaine is a hell of a drug.

at the very least, this is the point where his brain so clearly started to atrophy.
i saw this and realized this is why there was NEVER going to be a pivot. his brain is too rigid to pivot.

[rusty fender]

9. I was going to write, "supposedly had all his faculties"

I opted to give him the benefit of the doubt, but he doesn’t deserve it.

Thanks for pointing that out

[brush]

10. "...as shallow as a sidewalk puddle."

Hahahahahahahahaha! What a great line, and so accurate.

[rusty fender]

13. Thanks!

I couldn’t think of anything shallower

[brush]

15. You have a gift for turning a phrase. Are you a writer

[rusty fender]

40. No

You are too kind

[Kid Berwyn]

38. "As shallow as a sidewalk puddle."

Absolutely true and deep. And today the demented imbecile is president of the United States, driving the nation to total ruin like one of his bankrupted Atlantic City casinos.

[CatMor]

11. I want him to keep his hands off changing ...

our White House. I still get furious with the thought of him and his grifter family in the White House. It seems unreal that it happened.

[Kid Berwyn]

39. Surreality that has yet to set in.

It’s like we’re all Gregor Samsa now.

[Harker]

12. The swatches hold his folded face to the floor

and every day the decorator brings more...

[nolabear]

22. Now he's in MY head.

[Harker]

37. Mine, too...

but I'm getting the eviction papers ready.

[SWBTATTReg]

17. The biggest loser indeed...nt

[yaesu]

18. and he's fixated on grabbing stuff to. nt

[Bernardo de La Paz]

24. All style, no substance. All hat, no cattle. . . . nt

[pdsimdars]

25. You had me at "Trump is a moron" . . .

[Vinca]

26. He's probably still looking at fabric swatches by the hour -

in between tweeting on the toilet and picking his nose.

[sprinkleeninow]

32. He pickin' swatches an' other stuff...🤤

[sprinkleeninow]

27. It's low of me. Why did seats need continual re-upholstering?

Stains not coming out? 🤔

Stains were coming out alright. 😧🤣

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

29. I'll bet the chair behind the Resolute desk needs reupholstering on a daily basis.

[sprinkleeninow]

31. Icky poo-poo. 😷

🤣

[sprinkleeninow]

33. 'Resolute'. I like that term.

But it's resisting/repelling this ********.

[dewsgirl]

28. When he first moved into the WH, I remember something

About him showing everyone that came through different interior decorating options, he was very happy and proud.

[Wounded Bear]

30. Our "President" is a frustrated interior decorator?

[TheBlackAdder]

34. Welcome to DU!

[UTUSN]

35. K&R

[TheBlackAdder]

36. Donald Trump -- The Original Swatch Watch