PJMcK
PJMcK's JournalOf course, Donald Trump cheats at golf
He cheats at everything else so why would anyone expect his golf claims to be true?
Golf is a curious sport with unique components not found in most other activities. One of the most striking elements is that, in general, there isn't a referee adjudicating every stroke. It's a game of honor where the players are required to enforce the rules on themselves. There are times when an official ruling must be determined in competitive play but that doesn't happen often and almost never in most recreational play.
There are two basic approaches to the game: keep a strict adherence to the rules and keep score mercilessly OR go out and have fun and don't fret over the rules or the scores. If a player keeps an official handicap with the USGA, it is understood that they will play strictly by the rules and post every score they shoot for calculating their official handicap index.
Since Mr. Trump cheats, (and in addition to Alice Cooper there are others who've observed Mr. Trump's casual approach to the rules) his claimed handicap is suspect. The false equivalency of Bill Clinton's liberal use of mulligans illustrates that Mr. Clinton plays for fun, that is, he doesn't claim that he's a single-digit player, (for non-golfers, that's an amazingly difficult achievement requiring hours of training every week). Here's an interesting article about Mr. Clinton's golf game:
http://www.golftoday.co.uk/news/yeartodate/news00/clinton.html
Conversely, Donald Trump makes outlandish claims about his abilities. In New York, there's a public course that's managed by Mr. Trump's golf company. It's ridiculously expensive but it's quite beautiful with panoramic views of the NYC skyline and the upper East River. On a par-3 hole, there's a big brass plaque alleging that in the inaugural round, Mr. Trump got a hole-in-one. It sounds to me like a claim Kim Jong-Il would make, and I just don't believe it. That's because Mr. Trump always lies and his arrogance knows no limits.
I cannot imagine spending four hours playing a round with Donald Trump. That would be hellacious. And I hate it when someone cheats and thinks I don't notice it. It's insulting because only one of two things can be true: the cheater thinks I'm too unobservant to see the cheating OR the cheater thinks I'm stupid.
It's the same with Mr. Trump's campaign. He thinks we'll not see his blatant lies and contradictions OR he thinks he's so much smarter than we are that he can gaslight us with his lies.
Donald Trump is an idiot.
Trump TV won't happen
The reasons are simple:
- It's incredibly expensive to start a TV network from scratch. Where is Donald Trump going to get the money? American banks won't lend to him. We know he won't spend his own money. Will it come from Russians? Don't count on that.
- Which cable company will accept Trump TV on their service? Time-Warner? Comcast? Optimum? There is already a plethora of news on their systems. The controversy of distributing Trump TV would hurt their over-all business models. By the way, cable operators are not required to carry any and all programming that comes their way.
- The base of supporters that Mr. Trump enjoys is probably not large enough to sustain the 24/7 programming a new channel would have. In order for the channel to work economically, it would have to be a premium channel. Would enough of his supporters pay an additional monthly charge for Trump TV?
- Far too many corporations have shunned Donald Trump because of his extremism and bigotry. The list is long and includes Macy's, NBCUniversal, the PGA and many others. Where would the big money advertisers come from? Mr. Trump is toxic to so many Americans that the corporations will not want to associate with such a divisive man. The ads on a Trump TV would end up mirroring old-time late-night broadcast television. There's not enough money there to sustain a business that way.
- Where will Trump TV get its programming? An important point to consider is that Roger Ailes will not be able to assist a nascent Trump TV because of his severance deal from Fox News. But who is going to create the shows? Donald Trump is not a producer and it's very difficult to come up with 168 hours a week of programming. It's also expensive.
- A review of other attempts by right-wing individuals demonstrates the fragility of such programming. Sarah Palin's shows were failures so were Glen Beck's. Even Rush Limbaugh's programs (and their advertising dollars) have diminished in recent years. An entire network of such programming would be exceedingly difficult to execute.
- Donald Trump is going to be the thing he hates the most: a loser. He's trashed his own brand so thoroughly that it's hard to see how he could establish a consistent audience. In addition, Mr. Trump is going to be facing something else he hates: scrutiny. His legal problems are just beginning and he's going to find himself in a lot of courtrooms in the next couple of years. Does he really have the focus and business model to make a network successful? He doesn't seem to ever put in the hard work for any of his endeavors.
- The Financial Times article about Jared Kushner's informal talks with Aryeh Bourkoff also points out some of what I've written above. More importantly, the article doesn't indicate that anything concrete came of those talks. The article is speculative, at best.
Even if Trump TV gets off the ground, history has repeatedly demonstrated that Donald Trump's endeavors have an extremely high rate of failure. One analysis showed that only 25%-30% of his businesses made money.
Donald Trump is in a swirling vortex of personal, business, financial and legal troubles that will finally take him down. I won't watch Trump TV (if it happens) but I'll certainly enjoy the shows and news detailing his demise.
We are witnessing the beginning of the end of Trump
Throughout his life, Donald Trump has exaggerated everything he's been involved with. Given all of his obvious psychological problems, each step of his existence has to exceed the last. In the drug culture, it's called "chasing the dragon" because the user keeps grasping for a higher high. This need is the same in Mr. Trump and it could be more catastrophic than anything we've seen in the public sphere.
I believe we are going to witness a piece of cultural history as one by one, Donald Trump's (leveraged) Houses Of Cards collapse. Here's my scenario.
First, he loses the election. He'll bitch and moan and come up with a thousand conspiracies and excuses but none of it will matter and Hillary Clinton will be sworn in as president. This will humiliate him in front of the world, something he's never experienced. It will affect him profoundly.
Next, his fraud cases regarding Trump University will go to trial at the end of November. As the cases unfold, it will take more and more of his time. Ultimately he'll lose. I believe there are two cases, one is a class-action civil suit and the other is a RICO fraud case. I don't know if jail time is a possible punishment for the RICO case but there will be no way for Mr. Trump to spin his losses as wins.
Meanwhile the civil case against him for allegedly raping an underage girl years ago is ongoing. He could lose that one, too. Imagine the public humiliation he is going to be going through! With each loss, his supporters will dwindle and he'll lose his audience.
As if those issues weren't enough, the investigations into the Trump Foundation are going to result in some serious repercussions for Mr. Trump. The public scrutiny that this narcissist has willingly subjected himself to is yet another example of his unbelievable hubris.
Now, things get really interesting. Mr. Trump has bragged about how his company is so awesome with the most incredible assets around the world. But the value of these assets is flexible as Donald Trump himself has sworn in testimony.
The first problem is that the assets that he owns have been impacted by his divisive campaign. As two examples, bookings at his hotels are down and rounds of golf paid for at his courses are down.
The second problem is that a great many of his endeavors are licensing deals for the use of his name, that is, he doesn't have equity in many of his ventures, he only receives a fee for the Trump™ brand.
His campaign for president has seriously damaged this brand name. Consider the corporations and organizations that have severed their ties with him because of his bigoted and ignorant comments: Macy's, Univision, Televisa, NBCUniversal (home of his TV shows), Serta, ESPN, NASCAR (sort of), and even the Professional Golfers Association of America. There are more and these organizations do not want their brands associated with such a controversial buffoon as Donald Trump.
Specifically, his ugly campaign has tremendously limited his future businesses. His kids must freaking out about the old man.
There's been speculation that he wants to start Trump TV. There won't be enough of an audience; look at what happened to Sarah Palin's TV shows. There is no way that Mr. Trump could program enough material for a 24-hour cable channel and sell enough advertising to pay for it. Remember all of the corporations that do not want to work with him anymore. Such organizations seek to avoid controversies because it shrinks their customer base.
I think Donald Trump is accelerating wildly towards a crash of Fitzgeraldesque proportions. What a show we're in for!
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Gender: MaleHometown: New York City
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Current location: Catskill Mountains
Member since: Mon Jun 5, 2006, 04:16 PM
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