the Trumps’ house on Midland Parkway was distinct, if not for its size then for what it suggested about the wealth of its builder, Fred Trump.
“No one had individualized license plates in those days,” said Ann Rudovsky, who grew up nearby. “Everyone talked about the Trumps because of the house and the cars.”
.. Unlike most families in the neighborhood, the Trumps had a cook, a chauffeur and an intercom system.
..
Fred Trump, with his thick mustache and hair combed back, was a stern, formal man who insisted on wearing a tie and jacket at home. A conservative Republican who admired Barry Goldwater, Fred Trump and his wife forbade their children from cursing, calling each other by nicknames and wearing lipstick.
.. “Donald was known to be a bully, I was a little kid, and my parents didn’t want me beaten up,”
.. “He had a reputation for saying anything that came into his head,” said Donald Kass, 70, a retired agronomist who was a schoolmate. When Trump misidentified Rocca, the pro wrestler, Kass recalled, “We would laugh at him and tell him he was wrong, and he’d say he was right. The next time, he would make the same mistake, and it would be the same thing all over again.”
.. As a second-grader, he wrote, he “actually” gave his music teacher a black eye because “I didn’t think he knew anything about music, and I almost got expelled.”
.. Near the end of seventh grade, Fred discovered Donald’s knives and was infuriated to learn about his trips into the city. He decided his son’s behavior warranted a radical change. In the months before eighth grade, Fred Trump enrolled Donald at the New York Military Academy,
.. Fred Trump’s decision was “a very severe response to a kid who hadn’t gotten arrested and wasn’t involved in drinking and drugging. He was essentially a smart aleck.”
.. Dobias, who died recently, would smack his cadets with an open hand if they ignored him, students recalled. He set up a boxing ring and forced students with poor grades and disciplinary problems to fight each other.
.. Dobias said he recognized in Trump an innate drive: “He wanted to be number one. He wanted to be noticed. He wanted to be recognized. And he liked compliments.”
.. By senior year, Trump was known for bringing stylish women to campus and showing them around. “They were beautiful, gorgeous women, dressed out of Saks Fifth Avenue,” recalled classmate George White.
.. Amid the pageantry, Donald noticed that no one paid homage to the bridge’s 85-year-old Swedish designer, who had traveled from Europe for the occasion.
“I realized then and there that if you let people treat you how they want, you’ll be made a fool,” he later told a reporter. “I realized then and there something I would never forget: I don’t want to be made anybody’s sucker.”
A win-win strategy for Trump and the GOP
A financial inducement might help. Because the candidate will not release his tax returns or other relevant documents, we don’t know to what extent his candidacy may have been motivated by business troubles — by a desire to run up the value of his brand. But surely there is room for creativity in designing some long-term contracts between the Republican Party and Trump Hotels, Trump Steaks and Trump Vodka.
.. Anyone who has watched the candidate at a rally understands that what this campaign has really brought Trump is what he craves most: an audience.
.. Partly it might require giving him his own radio or television show. In fact, Rupert Murdoch might have to give him a television network.
What to Tell Donald Trump
We should tell Trump that the man who constantly invokes his popularity is the one who worries that he’s unlovable. The man who refers incessantly to his riches is the one who frets that he’s worthless.
Is there a needier billionaire on the planet?
.. We should tell him that, and we should add that he has practically collaborated with the enemy by playing into a narrative of Muslim persecution and a grand war between civilizations.
He has given the Islamic State and other barbarians a piece of propaganda as big as any of his resorts and as shimmering as any of his office towers.
.. So Ted Cruz reacts to the San Bernardino massacre by visiting a firing range and promising such extensive bombing of the Middle East that he’ll find out “if sand can glow in the dark.”
2016 Candidates Are Cursing More, and on Purpose
Such frequent, deliberate cursing by presidential candidates addressing campaign audiences in this election cycle seems to be without modern precedent. It is a striking departure for a party whose 2012 nominee, Mitt Romney, let fly expressions like “H-E-double-hockey-sticks” when he wanted to be puckish.
.. “He does it because he needs attention and can’t control himself,” Stuart Stevens, who was Mr. Romney’s chief strategist, said of Mr. Trump. “Both are not qualities in demand in a president.”
.. Even the now-mellowed Mr. Carson has participated, gingerly.
“This is a bunch of crap,” he said at the debate in Boulder, Colo., last month, discussing government regulations.
.. The language has posed a complication, though, for news organizations. Generally, style guidelines dictate that obscenities should not be printed unless the precise words are newsworthy.