The pledge to “make America great again” is not an economic project. It’s an exercise in mass psychology. The idea is to get people to displace their anger and frustration onto groups that (in Trump’s view) have eroded America’s “greatness” — Mexicans, Muslims, the Chinese, political and financial elites, and “the media.” The Trump treatment is to peddle hatred and resentment for his political gain.

As an election strategy, this might succeed if enough people subscribe to his self-serving stereotypes. But as economic policy, it’s mostly a dud. It won’t change most people’s objective circumstances. In some cases, it may protect them from imports. But for most, it won’t provide jobs, and any income gains from tax cuts are skewed toward the rich. Sooner or later, people will recognize that they’ve been had.

Trump’s serious deficiencies are of character, not intellect. He is a salesman whose favorite product is himself. His moral code is defined by what works. What works to build his popularity is legitimate, even if it’s untrue, tasteless, personally cruel or inconsistent with what he has said before. What doesn’t work is useless, even if it involves inconvertible truths, important policies or common courtesies.

DONALD TRUMP promises to run the country the way he has run his businesses. Recent reporting on Mr. Trump’s financial dealings makes that promise sound more like a threat.

Mr. Trump refuses to release much of the documentation that would shed light on the business background he says qualifies him to lead the nation — including, most glaringly, his tax returns. So it has been up to members of the media to piece together the puzzle of the candidate’s business record. Post reporter Drew Harwell and the New York Times’ Russ Buettner and Charles V. Bagli are the latest to shine some light on that record.

The emerging picture is an ugly one. In Atlantic City, Mr. Trump’s casinos failed even when the rest of the town continued to thrive. Along the way, Mr.?Trump used company money to pay off personally guaranteed loans, and — after the 1995 creation of the public company Trump Hotels and Casino Resorts — publicly traded funds to bail out privately held casinos. The company has filed for bankruptcy five times.

Mr. Trump is running for president on the platform that he is an extraordinary executive. Because most of his business empire is privately held, the public must look to Trump Casinos and Resorts to evaluate these claims to competency. So far, they seem about as solid as Mr. Trump’s reputation as a borrower. Additional characterizations of Mr. Trump as an imperial CEO — ignoring and even firing advisers who disagreed with him — deflate arguments such as that of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who says that Mr.?Trump would defer to his “White House counsel,” or to other members of his staff and Cabinet.

I’ve been covering Donald Trump off and on for more than 25 years, and what has always struck me is his lack of impulse control. It was his biggest problem when I first started dealing with him in the 1980s, and it’s his biggest problem now.

Plenty of financial and real estate players got carried away in the go-go 1980s. But Trump was in a class by himself.

He ended up presiding over six — count ’em, six — bankruptcies because he kept making business decisions with his gut rather than with his brain.

Trump’s less-than-stellar business history has been well documented by The Washington Post and other newspapers, magazines and online publications, as has his lack of self-control in his personal life. But what has not been fully explored is the impulsiveness — actually, total recklessness — that was at the root of the pivotal decisions that tanked his businesses.That same impulsiveness is at the root of Trump’s self-inflicted political and business problems today.

I’ve been covering Donald Trump off and on for more than 25 years, and what has always struck me is his lack of impulse control. It was his biggest problem when I first started dealing with him in the 1980s, and it’s his biggest problem now.

Plenty of financial and real estate players got carried away in the go-go 1980s. But Trump was in a class by himself.

He ended up presiding over six — count ’em, six — bankruptcies because he kept making business decisions with his gut rather than with his brain.

Trump’s less-than-stellar business history has been well documented by The Washington Post and other newspapers, magazines and online publications, as has his lack of self-control in his personal life. But what has not been fully explored is the impulsiveness — actually, total recklessness — that was at the root of the pivotal decisions that tanked his businesses.That same impulsiveness is at the root of Trump’s self-inflicted political and business problems today.

Oddly enough, Trump is thinking about starting a #NeverPence movement.

Newt is sad that he'll be spending the rest of his life making foolish, racist, hypocritical comments from the sidelines.