IF your very candidacy and identity rest on your supposed talent for victory, can you survive a defeat?
.. Neither his image nor his ego leaves any room for a setback, any allowance for second place. And as Iowa draws near and several polls suggest the strong possibility that Ted Cruz will finish ahead of him there, it’s time to talk about what that would mean for a self-enamored emperor who pretty much insists on his own perfection — and who has built his brand on it.
At that point, Trump would no longer be a brilliant exception to the laws of political gravity. He’d be someone whose lax management of his Iowa operation was laid bare, whose basic competence was in dispute
.. Challenged on his policies (which don’t really exist) or his credentials (which are dubiously applicable to the presidency), he whips out his poll numbers as proof of his worthiness. Sometimes he whips them out just for fun. And as he holds them high, he makes the argument that he must have good ideas, good sense and good preparation. After all, he’s winning!
What Donald Trump’s Plaza Deal Reveals About His White House Bid
What does this prowess look like up close? In the Plaza tale, Mr. Trump demonstrated both strengths (an ability to charm or strong-arm, as the occasion required) and weaknesses (a kind of hungry impatience that left him searching for new trophies as soon as one had been acquired). His methods as a political candidate mirror his methods as an executive, say those who have dealt with the latter and seen the former. In fact, the more you know about Mr. Trump’s past, the more his run for high office looks like an effort to close the biggest deal of his life.
.. “He has the ability to imagine what the other party wants him to be and then be that person,” said Michael D’Antonio, author of “Never Enough: Donald Trump and the Pursuit of Success.” “He presents the Trump that will work in the moment.”
Four quotes from the sixth GOP presidential debate, explained by experts
When you look at the “line of migration, you see no women. Where are the women? I see no women… I see strong, powerful men.” – Donald Trump
But the consensus among scholars of immigration and crime is that immigrants commit significantly less crime, per capita, than the native-born.
One way to understand Trump’s obsession with immigrants is with pacification theory. Drawing attention to a demonized “other” creates solidarity against that group, conveniently diverting the public’s attention away from contentious issues such as the impact of deregulation and tax breaks for the wealthy on the middle and working class.
.. In response, Cruz denied the facts of the case, used differentiation to explain the circumstances of the loan on his own grounds, and used bolstering to shift blame to despised figures such as Hillary Clinton and The New York Times. Here’s how he did it:
.. It was not, as had been reported in the “hit piece,” corruption, duplictious or hypocrisy. Rather, by placing the loan within this new context, it was brave.
What Donald Trump’s Plaza Deal Reveals About His White House Bid
The banks could have easily toppled Mr. Trump into personal bankruptcy, “but we all agreed that he’d be better alive than dead,” said Alan Pomerantz, then head of the real estate department at Weil. “We needed him to help sell all of his assets, and the deal was that as he sold off more, we’d reduce his personal guarantee.”
In effect, the banks allowed Mr. Trump to remain solvent so that they could get the benefit of his gift for salesmanship.
.. An increasing share of his wealth would come in the future from licensing his name, not just to builders but sellers of suits, cologne, chandeliers, mattresses and more.