Donald John Trump rose to fame by knowing how to use the media to get people to like
him.
Adept at marketing, he inherited a real estate empire from his father, Fred Trump, and used
the wealth from that empire to turn his last name into a household name.
Born in the borough of Queens in New York City, Trump looked up to his workaholic father,
in many ways a ruthless businessman, who cut corners and avoided paying taxes whenever
possible.
As a kid, he went to the New York Military Academy and later graduated from the Wharton
School of Finance and Commerce at the University of Pennsylvania.
Similar to 42nd president Bill Clinton, he received several draft deferments in college
to avoid serving in the Vietnam War.
By the time he graduated college, he was already working for his dad’s firm and receiving
the equivalent of $1 million a year in gifts.
He then invested $70,000 in a Broadway comedy called Paris Is Out!
While he didn’t make any money off the venture, Trump spent much of the rest of his career
fascinated by show business.
By the time he was 25, Donald had already taken over his father’s real estate firm,
renaming it the Trump Organization.
By 1973, the Trump Organization oversaw 14,000 apartments across New York.
In addition to residential buildings, under Donald’s leadership it invested heavily
in hotels, resorts, casinos, golf courses, and other types of large-scale commercial
buildings all around the world.
In these early years, associates of Trump described him as charismatic and very easy
to work with.
He also loved attention, seizing any opportunity he could to make media appearances and turning
every opening of a new hotel into a huge media event.
In 1977, Trump married a Czech model named Ivana Zelníčková, and the couple soon became
tabloid figures in New York society.
Ivana became active in the Trump Organization, holding important managerial positions.
By the end of the 1980s, Donald Trump was a billionaire, and, at least on paper, one
of the richest people in the world.
With the money he earned in real estate, he continued to invest in other ventures, including
a professional football league, a professional cycling race, boxing matches, and beauty pageants.
However, the New York Times later reported that Trump rarely actually made money in any
given year.
In 1990 and 1991 alone, he lost more than $250 million each year.
However, the majority of the American public had no idea.
Trump continued to portray himself as a billionaire and financial wizard even while most of his
core businesses were failing.
Much of this was due to how Trump promoted himself.
In fact, whenever he was selling himself as a brand, he did make money.
The Art of the Deal, a self-help book that also hyped up Trump’s life, sold more than
a million copies.
The author of the book, Tony Schwartz, later admitted that many of the details in the book
were fabricated.
By then, it was too late.
The myth that Trump was a genius businessman had been created.
Throughout the 1990s, Trump continued to demand attention wherever he went, and always stood
out with his unique hairstyle.
He went on to be a regular guest on the nationally syndicated Howard Stern show, made several
cameo appearances in films and TV shows, and even got involved with professional wrestling.
Meanwhile, he was regularly outspoken on political matters, taking out full-page advertisements
in major newspapers for things like advocating peace in Central America and the reduction
of the federal deficit.
In 2000, Trump briefly ran for President, seeking the Reform Party’s nomination, running
on issues such as fair trade and implementing universal healthcare.
However, after polling poorly against opponents George W. Bush and Al Gore, Trump decided
to drop out of the race.
In 2003, Trump became much more famous after co-producing and starring in the successful
reality TV show The Apprentice.
In it, contestants competed for a year of employment at the Trump Organization, completing
business-related tasks for the prize of a $250,000 contract to promote one of Trump’s
properties.
After the show’s success, Trump continued to invest in more side ventures, including
founding a university and licensing his name for various products.
In 2015, Trump decided to make another run for President, this time with the Republican
Party.
He had been one of Barack Obama’s most vocal critics during Obama’s Presidency, even
going so far as to widely promote the debunked conspiracy theory that Obama was not born
in the United States.
Trump’s platform of choice was Twitter, and he naturally excelled at getting attention
on the platform, as well as other social media outlets.
Initially, many political pundits did not take Trump’s presidential campaign seriously,
dismissing his ideas of closing down the borders to immigrants as too radical.
However, news outlets spent much more time covering his campaign than other candidates,
as he often helped their ratings go up, and soon Trump was the frontrunner in a crowded
field for the Republican nomination.
Running under the slogan “America First,” Trump ran as a populist, calling for tighter
border security, more protectionism, and less influence of special interests and lobbyists
in Washington, D.C.
On the campaign trail, Trump was unpolished and controversial.
He often spoke off the cuff, never apologizing for harshly making fun of his opponents.
He was the opposite of “politically correct,” and this proved very popular with his supporters.
These were people who were tired of elitist DC politicians which, to them, had seemed
to forget about Americans in rural areas and those who didn’t live along the coasts.
Despite a Never Trump coalition within the Republican Party, Trump won the nomination,
beating out over a dozen more experienced and polished rivals.
Trump’s main opponent in the 2016 presidential election was Hillary Clinton, the former U.S.
Secretary of State and U.S. Senator, as well as wife to former President Bill Clinton.
To many American voters, Clinton, despite being the first woman to be nominated for
President by a major political party, was just another establishment, status-quo type
candidate, and Trump, despite being a billionaire, was the underdog, an outsider who could challenge
what they viewed as an inherently corrupt system.
Even though the majority of the country feared a Trump Presidency, Trump enticed enough new
voters to the polls to win the presidency, despite getting nearly three million fewer
votes than Clinton.
His victory was considered a political upset, as many forecasters predicted a Clinton victory.
In addition to being the oldest person to ever be elected to a first presidential term,
Trump was also the first president who had not held any government office nor served
in the military prior to taking office.
Once inaugurated, Trump had many friends and family members join him as advisors, including
his daughter Ivanka and son-in-law Jared Kushner.
While he promised to reduce lobbyist influence in DC, his cabinet ended up appointing four
times as many lobbyists as Obama did.
Although many assumed he would tone down his rhetoric on Twitter, instead he ramped it
up.
To Trump, this was the absolute best way to communicate directly to the American people,
especially his supporters.
While many Republicans grew weary of his provocative tweets, fearing that some could even lead
to national security concerns, his advocates seemed to support him even more passionately
through the platform.
As President, Trump spent much of his time trying to undo most of what Obama had accomplished
in the previous eight years.
He signed executive orders attempting to repeal parts of the Affordable Care Act, also known
as “Obamacare.”
These were not successful in repealing the law.
He withdrew the United States from the Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations and the Paris Agreement,
a global treaty which sought to mitigate the damaging effects of climate change.
He also formally withdrew the United States from the Iran nuclear deal framework.
Even though he wanted to be known as the “anti-Obama” President, he kept Obama’s foreign policy
in place, maintaining and even extending the so-called War on Terrorism.
Ultimately, the four biggest priorities for the Trump administration were border security,
keeping production domestic, deregulation, and lowering taxes.
Regarding border security, he demanded more funding from Congress for the extension of
a border wall along the United States-Mexico border.
Due to Congress not wanting to cover the costs, Trump was only able to redirect sufficient
funds to get about 80 miles of new barriers built where there were none before.
He also implemented a controversial family separation policy for migrants illegally crossing
the United States-Mexico border.
As for keeping production domestic, Trump mainly sought additional tariffs on imports
as part of his “America First” economic policy to reduce the trade deficit.
This angered trading partners like China, who implemented retaliatory tariffs on U.S.
goods.
The trade war with China harmed diplomatic relations between the two countries.
Most of the Trump administration’s deregulation involved environmental protections, and many
were challenged by environmental groups in courts and ultimately struck down.
One of Trump’s most significant actions was signing into law the Tax Cuts and Jobs
Act of 2017, which was the biggest overhaul of the tax code since the Reagan administration.
While the law lowered taxes for all Americans, most of the benefits went to the wealthy,
the banks, and other corporations, due to significant tax cuts to corporate profits,
investment income, and estates.
Most economists today argue that there is little evidence that Trump’s tariffs, deregulation,
and lowering of taxes substantially helped the American economy.
Nevertheless, during the Trump years, the economy continued to grow.
In fact, it was the height of the longest economic expansion in American history going
all the way back to the Great Recession.
More importantly, wages finally began to increase slightly.
Other priorities for Trump included making as many federal judicial appointments as possible,
reducing the cost of prescription drugs, improving healthcare for veterans, and criminal justice
reform.
Of all his priorities, Trump was most successful in these four areas.
His biggest criminal justice reform accomplishment was the signing of the First Step Act, which
meant to decrease the federal inmate population and reduce harsh sentencing laws for nonviolent
drug offenders.
Accomplishments aside, the Trump presidency was consistently marked by scandal and controversy.
He was the most unpopular American President of the modern era.
Despite the consistent and loud support from his diehard fans, his approval rating rarely
got over 42%.
Often, he seemed uninterested in the job, and instead of reading daily briefings, he
preferred to watch Fox News for hours each day.
According to multiple media outlets, Trump made more false and misleading statements
than any President before him.
Due to news outlets consistently calling him out when he lied, Trump grew to distrust the
media which he once so loved, turning on that which was largely responsible for his success
as a celebrity and politician, referring to any unfavorable coverage as “fake news”.
The Trump administration also had a higher turnover rate in its first two and a half
years than the five previous presidents did over their entire terms.
After an investigation concluded that Russia helped get Trump elected in 2016, there was
no evidence that the Trump campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government.
However, Trump later allegedly attempted to pressure Ukraine to announce investigations
into his political rival Joe Biden, which led to him being only the third President
ever to be impeached, the others being Bill Clinton in 1998 and Andrew Johnson in 1868.
The House of Representatives adopted two articles of impeachment: abuse of power and obstruction
of Congress.
However, the Senate acquitted Trump of these charges.
In his last year in office, Trump reacted slowly to the COVID-19 pandemic, the most
devastating pandemic since the Spanish flu from a century prior.
He often ignored or downplayed recommendations from top health experts and even actively
promoted misinformation.
As hundreds of thousands of Americans died from the virus, many people directed their
anger toward him.
In addition, the country found itself in its worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.
All of this culminated with the presidential election of 2020.
This time Trump’s main opponent was Joe Biden, the senator from Delaware and former
Vice President to Barack Obama.
The two went on national television to debate, and it was chaotic, with both yelling over
each other and barely getting their points across.
At one point, Biden called Trump “the worst president America has ever had.”
It was a clear cut sign of how divided the nation still was, despite a pandemic that
should have brough unification.
In fact, COVID-19 had become a political issue during the campaign.
There wouldn’t be a second debate as Trump had contracted the coronavirus himself, apparently
nearly dying from it.
Despite the conditions, it was the highest turnout for a presidential election since
that of 1900.
Although results were slow to manifest due to the counting of millions of mail-in ballots,
Biden won the election, demonstrating that the majority of Americans felt they’d had
enough of Trumpism, especially with a struggling economy and a worsening pandemic.
Despite clear evidence that the 2020 election was the most secure election in American history,
Trump refused to admit that he lost, falsely claiming electoral fraud.
He pressured government officials and attempted to overturn the results.
On January 6th, 2021, Trump led a rally in Washington, D.C., in which he urged his supporters
to march to the U.S. Capitol building, where the electoral votes were being certified that
day.
A mob of hundreds of Trump supporters stormed the Capitol, interrupting the vote count and
threatening the lives of members of Congress and even the Vice President, Mike Pence, who
led the ceremony to certify the election results.
Tragically, 5 people died, including 1 police officer, and many dozens were injured.
The rioters occupied, vandalized, and looted the Capitol for hours before the National
Guard finally came in to eject them and make arrests.
Many criticized Trump for inciting the violence and not doing anything to protect the Capitol.
The House of Representatives impeached him for incitement of insurrection on January
13th, 2021, making him the only president in American history to be impeached twice.
The Republican majority Senate, however, acquitted him for a second time on February 13th.
But in retribution for the Capitol attack, Trump lost nearly all of his social media
accounts, including his beloved Twitter.
It was then much more difficult for him to control the zeitgeist as he was no longer
part of the Twittersphere.
While Donald Trump rose to fame by knowing how to use the media to gain favor, his actions
at the height of his influence cost him his access to those very same tools.
The Trump presidency marked a time when the country was as divided as it ever had been
since the Civil War.
Though it is still too early to fully analyze the legacy of Trump and Trumpism in general,
his presidency undoubtedly marked a shift toward populism amongst American citizens.
It also, unfortunately, only further divided
the country.