They make money no matter what happens.
Good
Morning America
This
is a message from a Canadian resident of a small city of your
northern neighbour, Canada. As with any good neighbour, we need to
have a chat.
Speaking
to the Press Club in Washington D.C. In 1969 then Canadian Prime
Minister Pierre Trudeau, father of Canada’s current Prime Minister,
said:
“Living next to you [referring to the U.S.A.] is in some ways like sleeping with an elephant. No matter how friendly and even-tempered is the beast, if I can call it that, one is affected by every twitch and grunt. ”
What
has changed since 1969? The elephant is no longer as friendly. Nor
is it even tempered. We see a country often at odds with itself
thrashing about – and elephants thrashing about do not conjure good
images – nor do they make good neighbours.
From
whence came this change?
Of
course the obvious answer to the question is Donald J. Trump. But he
did not come from nowhere. He was aided and abetted, moulding him
into a figure that millions could vote for, by distorting the truth
about who he was, and giving him a national podium to become a
nationally known figure.
Let’s
start with the ‘star’ system in the U.S. Entertainment personalities
are a preoccupation of many Americans. It is no wonder we find media
stars splattered across the American political landscape – Jesse
Ventura, Shirley Temple,
Arnold
Schwarzenegger
, Ronald Reagan and your latest gift to the world, Donald Trump. To
have a name that is known, is a significant part of the battle for
office. In the social mind, we confuse the characters they play with
their true character. It would be nearly impossible for an actor who
portrayed devious villains to be elected. The sad element that
escapes many voters is – they are ACTING.
ETHICS
AT NBC
Prior
to becoming an NBC TV personality on the apprentice, Donald Trump was
a showman, very much like the hucksters at your state fair or local
exhibition of 60 years ago. Snake oil, wondrous cures and ‘almost’
free stuff they were giving away – for a very small price. In
other words lots of lying, persuading, rewriting and distorting
reality.
In
2004 Trump began hosting The Apprentice. Trump was already known as
an opportunist, and a con man who reneged on his debts, avoided the
draft, and was truly a racist and misogynist. Concerning misogyny,
one defense has been he comes from a different generation. Sorry, I
come from that generation and we had a lot of education about how to
deal with the traditional pattern of male privilege. Was Donald
Trump not alive in the 1960s. In other words, this is a lie rather
than a defense.
At
the time of signing with NBC his behaviour with women was already
well known. Author Harry Hurt in his book “Lost
Tycoon: The Many Lives of Donald J. Trump,”cited an incident that
occurred with Ivana Trump in 1989 Hurt obtained a copy of Ivan
Trump’s sworn divorce deposition, from 1990, in which she stated
that, the previous year, her husband had raped her in a fit of rage.
In Hurt’s account, Trump was furious that a “scalp reduction”
operation he’d undergone to eliminate a bald spot had been
unexpectedly painful. Ivana had recommended the plastic surgeon. In
retaliation, Hurt wrote, Trump yanked out a handful of his wife’s
hair, and then forced himself on her sexually.
[-
New Yorker – October 16, 2016, Author Jane Mayer.]
According to a report by the New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement, which examined the divorce records, Trump invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination approximately a hundred times when Ivana’s lawyers asked him about adulterous relations with other women. [dailykos.com – October 18, 2016]
In
1993 Trump was his former business partner in one of his children’s
bedrooms at Mara Lago. According to her, he groped her breasts and
grabbed her genitals. This was cited in an 1997 lawsuit. [The
Guardian – July 20, 2016]. Then there were alleged incidents in
1997 [three incidents], 1998, 2000, 2001, 2003, 2005 [three
incidents], 2006 [three incidents] and 2007. [The Guardian June 24,
2019]
Currently
there are twenty four women who have accused your president of sexual
misconduct [ABC News June 25, 2019.]
But
that seems to have been okay with NBC because it was all about NBC
making money. The program made Trump a national figure and laid
important ground work for his rise on the national political stage.
A soulless character for a soulless media.
It
is ironic that Trump initially resisted joining The Apprentice,
because in his view, reality television was for bottom feeders. It
now seems a perfect match given his personality disorder and lack of
ethics. Also perhaps he realized that bottom feeders are easier to
fool.
Trump’s
cheating small contractors, and other persons is well known.
Jennifer McGovern, a former employee of Trump Mortgage, brokered a
$26,500,000 financing, for which she earned more than $500,000 in
commissions for Trump Mortgage. Trump Mortgage collected the
commission, but stiffed McGovern, who filed a lawsuit.
In 2009, McGovern obtained a judgment of $298,274 against Trump
Mortgage. As of March 2016, the judgment remained unsatisfied.
In
1984, Trump opened Harrah’s at Trump Plaza. According to ‘This
Week’, in an article, ‘A
brief history of Trump’s small-time swindles’, Jeff Spross tells the
story of Trump refusing to make the final payment to a cabinet maker.
That cabinet maker subsequently went bankrupt. In Trump’s business
history there is a list of lawsuits. These include a suit from a
painter for an upaid bill, unpaid. It also includes unpaid bills
from servers at functions, a drapery supplier, toilet partition
installers, a chandelier company and previous law firms he dealt
with. Over the years over 3500 law suits have been made by
contractors, women and financial institutions.
Once
on the air, according to Allen Salkin and Aaron Short in their book
The Method to the Madness, Season 1 came down to two possible
winners, one black, one white. Trump as further corroboration that
he is a racist according to the authors said:
According
to Pruitt, during the huddle, “Trump says, ‘But will America buy
a Nigger (Pruitt would not repeat but did confirm Trump’s use of
the word) — ‘winning?’ He’s staring right at Carolyn, who is
standing in silence. Her alabaster skin turned a deep shade of red.
We were hanging on her words, and she says nothing. Carolyn was
standing, leaning two hands on the table supporting her. And she says
nothing.”
-from
USA Today, July 8, 2019
But
his history had no apparent effect on NBC’s decision making. Or
perhaps made him more enticing. After all, eyeballs are everything
because they translate into revenue. Ethics appear to have been
tossed out the window, if they were ever there in the first place.
Try
Googling how much money NBC made from the Apprentice. What we get is
a listing of how much money Trump did or did not make [there are
claims he exaggerated his paycheck]. What is stunningly absent is
how much NBC made from the show.
NBC
received and continues to receive a double dividend from Trump. Not
only did they presumably make money from the original show, now that
they promoted a huckster they derive profit from eyes glued to MSNBC
outlining what a criminal president he is. Good work if you can find
it, although at a significant cost to American democracy.
Anyone who has in the past hired staff, knows one factor we look at is ‘personal suitability’. Personal suitability encompasses a number of factors but clearly a bully and a misogynist would would rule out an applicant for most companies. It appears the sole issue for NBC in hiring Trump was audience size and revenue. That is a familiar refrain when criticizing Trump, that he is obsessed with audience size and popularity. It is those same values that NBC sought and then propelled Trump to the national and international stage.
Is it not time for Americans looked into what is left of their souls and ask questions about what kind of values they and their media cultivate for profit at any cost?