Response to The Night of the Shark

(See: Just Above Sunset: The Night of the Shark)

I feel the same way about the shark. We had a neighbor over to eat dinner and watch the debate last night, and she left about halfway through, complaining of a headache.

My wife went to bed early, too, so she didn't see the interview Donald Trump had with CNN's Chris Cuomo immediately after the debate . Cuomo asked Trump how he thought the debate went, and a fairly subdued Donald surprised me by saying, in just a few words, he thought everyone did quite well.

Cuomo seemed to be trying to get him to "go all Trump" on us, with the boasting and the unbelievable and truly incredible superlatives, but Trump wasn't having it. He answered with a gentle smile and was uncharacteristically kind about his rivals, and it was then that I remembered that, during the debate, often when he would be expected to take a shot, he instead said something nice, or at least something he thought was nice -- that he thought Carly Fiorina was beautiful, or that he had heard that Columba Bush was very pleasant or something -- as if he had decided to cut back on the usual nastiness, as if he realized his act was starting to work against him.

Oh, yes, he took the occasional shot, such as those aimed at Rand Paul, but I write them off as his wandering off script, his not being able to help himself, but mostly I noticed him making nice-nice with Jeb -- that low-five thing -- and something similar with Dr. Carson, and Hugh Hewitt, a man he had just last week or so called a "third-rate radio announcer", was now his new best friend, after Hewitt reportedly apologized to him.

So at breakfast, I said to my wife, "I guess the story today is that Donald Trump tried to play nice last night?", and her answer was, no, the story was that Donald Trump brought nothing to the debate, and fell flat -- to which I replied, "Oh. Well, maybe the story is, he tried to play nice, which caused him to fall flat?"

Maybe he is now at that inevitable fork in the road, where he realizes that, if he continues acting like the playground bully, picking on the smart kids, that he can't win. Then again, maybe if he takes that other road to normal, he will leave behind all those people who were attracted to him because he wasn't.

I think the reason I can't join in the popular celebration of Carly Fiorina's so-called "win" last night is because I just don't like her very much, and so I'm letting that bias color my judgement.

Yes, she's now impressing people with her articulate put-downs of Donald Trump, and even a little sound-bite where it sounded as if she actually knew something about foreign policy, but she still has essentially nothing going for her except a false history of what a great leader she was at HP, whereas very few of anyone else views her career as anything more than the destruction of what had been one of the best companies in the world to work for, the stock of which skyrocketed upward when they announced her resignation.

Hers is a self-delusion only matched by the dreamworld of his own creation surrounding the Donald himself. In fact, one of the highlights of the debate, for me, was hearing the two of them going at it about who was most right when criticizing the other -- he on her infamous flameouts in the business world, and she on his four bankruptcies -- with both of them being equally right! The truth is, both these business honchos (one being a honchette?) seemingly really go the distance in trying to cover their tracks.

Trump kept denying that he's ever gone bankrupt even once, much less four times, of course, but this is that typical Trumpy slight-of-hand that, had his supporters ever cared the slightest about the veracity of anything he says, would have killed his candidacy at birth. It's just that he has apparently never declared personal bankruptcy:

Four of Trump's businesses have declared Chapter 11 bankruptcy. According to a 2011 report by Forbes, these were due to over-leveraged hotel and casino businesses in Atlantic City: Trump’s Taj Mahal (1991), Trump Plaza Hotel (1992), Trump Hotels and Casino Resorts (2004), and Trump Entertainment Resorts (2009). Trump said "I've used the laws of this country to pare debt. ... We'll have the company. We'll throw it into a chapter. We'll negotiate with the banks. We'll make a fantastic deal. You know, it's like on 'The Apprentice'. It's not personal. It's just business." He indicated that other "great entrepreneurs" do the same.

And apparently those "great entrepreneurs" also got involved in some fascinating lawsuits:

Over the course of his career, Trump has initiated and been the target of "hundreds" of civil lawsuits, which Trump lawyer Alan Garten said in 2015 was "a natural part of doing business in this country". ... 

In March 1990, after an analyst at Janney Montgomery Scott said that Trump's Taj Mahal project would initially "break records" but would fail before the end of that year, Trump threatened to sue the firm unless the analyst recanted or was fired. The analyst refused to retract the statements, and was fired by his firm. 

Taj Mahal declared bankruptcy for the first time in November 1990. A defamation lawsuit by the analyst against Trump for $2 million was settled out of court. The analyst's statements regarding the Taj Mahal's prospects were later called "stunningly accurate".

At least one of the suits had nothing to do with a failing business, but is of interest nonetheless:

In 1973, the Justice Department unsuccessfully sued Trump Management Corporation for alleged racial discrimination, at which time Trump was the company's president. The federal government filed the lawsuit against his New York City real estate company for allegedly discriminating against potential black renters, which Trump never admitted. The case was settled out of court in 1975.

Which means we can't be sure what the settlement was, although it might have been just a misunderstanding that was cleared up once the feds realized Trump gets along very well with "the blacks".

But as for any contest between Fiorina and Trump over who is the more self-delusional, Trump has just been at it longer.

For one thing, exactly how tall is he, anyway?

If you watched the debate last night, you could see Jeb Bush, one podium over, towering above Trump, even though Fox News Insider says they're both 6' 3". And yeah, while that's what Trump once told the New York Times, various people, some who have seen him in person, estimate him to be, variously, 6' 2", 6' 1", 6 feet even, and even down to 5' 11". But Jeb is definitely several inches taller, so I wonder if this is another case of Trump exaggerating his size.

Speaking of which, there's always been some question of his personal wealth, of which he has said, "my net worth fluctuates, and it goes up and down with markets and with attitudes and with feelings — even my own feelings". True, that! I think maybe everything that Donald Trump says about Donald Trump fluctuates with his feelings.

To put his real wealth in perspective, at this writing, Forbes says Warren Buffet, at $65.2-billion, is the 4th richest human on earth, and it also says Donald Trump, at $4.1-billion, ties for the 405th richest, a position he shares with 12 other people.

Then again, according to Wikipedia:

In 2015, Forbes pegged it as $4 billion, while the Bloomberg Billionaires Index (which scrutinized Trump's FEC filings) estimated a net worth of $2.9 billion. On June 16, 2015, just prior to announcing his candidacy for president of the United States, Trump released to the media a one-page prepared financial disclosure statement "from a big accounting firm—one of the most respected", stating a net worth of $8,737,540,000. "I'm really rich", Trump said. 

Forbes called the nearly $9 billion figure a "100%" exaggeration. In July 2015, the Federal election regulators released new details of Trump's wealth and financial holdings when he became a Republican presidential candidate, reporting that his assets are worth above $1.4 billion...

So, if it's really only $1.4-billion, that would mean he's the 1,324th richest person in the world, a ranking he shares with 59 other billionaires. But please stay tuned, since his wealth apparently "fluctuates" with his mood.

In other words, if we all wait long enough, we just might find that, actually, he's only about as wealthy as you and me put together!