Donald Trump, Con Artist?

Underlying most any con is the desire for power—for control over other people’s lives. That power can take the form of reputation, adulation, or the thrill of knowing oneself to be the orchestrator of others’ fates—of being a sort of mini-god. The path to that end is entirely secondary. Ferdinand Waldo Demara, one of the greatest con men in history, was known as the Great Imposter. He never finished high school but impersonated everyone from a professor to a surgeon to a prison warden. Demara was often penniless, despite his scams—but he found ways to enjoy the admiration of multitudes and to exert power over the lives of others (very concretely, in the case of surgery). The racket itself mattered less than those ultimate goals.

If Trump were a con artist, he would be interested in politics only as a means to some other end. He wouldn’t believe in his political opinions; instead, he would see those opinions as convenient tools for gaining what he actually desires. Insofar as he believed in any of the policies he espoused, that belief would be purely incidental. Con artists aren’t true believers; they are opportunists. Trump, as a con artist, would give up on politics the moment that it stopped serving his purposes, moving on to the next thing that gave him the same level of attention and adulation.

.. Another thing that differentiates con artists from ordinary liars is their nuanced and targeted use of flattery. Confidence men know that the best way to achieve their desires is to tell people what they want to hear rather than what is true. The quickest way to gain a mark’s trust is to sell him a vision of the world as he wants, or believes, it to be.

.. Inasmuch as con artists are peddlers of hope who tell us what we want to hear, many politicians have taken a page from the grifter’s playbook.

.. It’s not a case of misrepresenting one’s policies, but of not actually having a policy.

.. “As the recent Ponzi-scheme scandals involving onetime financial luminaries like Bernard Madoff and Allen Stanford demonstrate, victims of con artists often sing the praises of their victimizers until the moment they realize they have been fleeced,” she wrote.

.. If Trump is indeed a con artist, and if he is, in the end, elected, we may end up not wanting to admit that we were scammed.

The Theology of Donald Trump

Let me suggest that the slender thread connecting Trump to the church is his occasional holiday appearances at Marble Collegiate Church, made famous by its pastor for 52 years, Norman Vincent Peale. Blending pop-psychology and spirituality, Peale’s The Power of Positive Thinking (1952) remained on The New York Times bestsellers list for 186 weeks.

.. Trump’s parents attended Peale’s sermons each week with the family in tow, and Donald often recalls the impact on his life. He and his sisters were married by Peale.

.. A more recent exponent of a feel-good gospel, Joel Osteen, has called Donald Trump “a friend of our ministry” and “a good man.” Trump has previously tweeted, “Being associated with Joel is my great honor—he’s a fantastic man!”

The Hypocritical Anti-Trump Outrage Mob

The Christian literary genre Apocalypse means to “unveil things previously hidden.” The advent of Donald Trump’s political rise serves as an unveiling of the hidden violence and vulgarity of the state.

.. He turns the lights on during their fantasy programming, so they scapegoat him for their own sins.

Hating Trump isn’t about his platform; all the other candidates are just as violent or worse. It’s about keeping up with appearances. Social status.

.. We’re more scared of associating with people who shop at Wal-Mart than hiring officials that carry out mass murder in our name.

.. What the Serious Adult voters righteously freaking out about Trump don’t seem to get is that that right there is called satire. Trump is mocking pandering itself.

.. Nietzsche is often cited as saying the sacred is whatever you’re not allowed to laugh at in a culture.

.. Scapegoating Trump will not erase our shame. Hiding state violence under the cover of politically correct speech codes will not, either. We need only to desire collective repentance – a changing of our minds – for the violence we commit against our neighbors.