Why Lying Is So Easy for Trump
Political pundits, staggered by Donald Trumps exaggerated boasts, false promises, and outright lies, have offered various theories for whats wrong with him. Does he suffer from mental illness? Is he experiencing early-onset dementia? Andrew Sullivan recently argued in New York magazine that Trumps chronic, stubborn dishonestyunlike normal political fibbingis delusional and deranged, a frightening sign that the president is living in an alternative universe. There is no anchor any more, Sullivan writes. At the core of the administration of the most powerful country on earth, there is, instead, madness.
But such dramatic theories miss the simplest explanation for Trumps lying: Hes a real estate developer from New York City. Lying isnt a personal failure. Its a business model.
New York real estate, where Trump first learned the art of the con, is a line of work thats built on chicanery. Under state law, real estate developers have a de facto legal license to lie, and they use it with abandon. The marketing materials for a luxury condo might advertise top-flight amenitieson-site SoulCycle, say, or valet stroller parkingbut buyers have no legal recourse after they move in and discover they have to haul their strollers up six flights like a tenement-dweller; as a matter of New York law, only the final sales contract is binding. And with land values so high and profit margins so slim, developers have every incentive to hype the sales pitch. Real estate investors sell their productand in the process, they promise it will have benefits that may not ever be realized, says Thomas Angotti, a professor of urban planning at Hunter College and author of New York For Sale. Or as one real estate broker and property manager in New York puts it: Everybody in this business is a fucking liar.
Bait-and-switch tactics are an everyday practice in Trumps industry. The real estate mogul Bruce Ratner dangled star architect Frank Gehry before city officials when seeking approval for the arena that would anchor his enormous Atlantic Yards development in downtown Brooklyn. Once the deal was in place, however, Gehry was booted off the project and a cheaper design was swapped in. And more than four years after the arena opened, local residents are still waiting for the eight acres of parks that Ratner pledged to create. To win approval for taller luxury high-rises, developers frequently agree to provide courtyards or other amenities for the public to enjoy. Then they save money by cutting corners on construction, making the spaces so inaccessible or unwelcoming that no one wants to use them.
https://newrepublic.com/article/140973/lying-easy-trump
Two takeaways: 1) New York needs to outlaw real estate developers' license to lie to clients and 2) Governing ain't real estate hustlin'.
beachbum bob
(10,437 posts)narcissist...
Sculpin Beauregard
(1,046 posts)Portland_Anni
(164 posts)A whole new reality of being the Chief Executive Officer of the United States of America cannot operate the way he wants to do things. If he can't change, he will go. Period.
If this happens I won't mind to see that happen at all. I can live with the serendipity of a renewed awareness not to take things for granted and that fighting for what one believes in is worth fighting for.
Portland_Anni
(164 posts)dubyadiprecession
(5,711 posts)Portland_Anni
(164 posts)....a big truck, he will rue the day he failed to see that riding the tiger of Presidential leadership included the danger of winding up consumed as it's next meal. I believe JFK used that metaphor in his Inaugural address. I sure miss having an adult in that job.
joeybee12
(56,177 posts)PoindexterOglethorpe
(25,861 posts)It's very frustrating to me when people try to blame his lies on dementia, when it's clear he does not have any dementia, but does live in a kind of fantasy world, one in which if he says something then it must be true.