Many capitalist icons in our country obtained their wealth by having rather selective vision when it came to morality. Joseph Kennedy was a bootlegger. As Noah Cross said in Chinatown "Course I'm respectable. I'm old. Politicians, public buildings, and whores all get respectable if they last long enough." Old money can lose the stench of its origin, as the Kennedys, Carnegies and the Rockefellers will affirm. When you hear "Alfred Nobel", do you think 'Nobel Prize' or 'Inventor of dynamite'?
But that process of making bad new money old respectable money is emphatically NOT the path of Donald Trump. Donald Trump is a narcissist and his money is second generation. HE will not kowtow to the powers that be. The way he knows how to win is the zero-sum game, which can be a business model, but is is a rotten government model. There is a very real tension at the center of Donald Trump. He has a strong id and a weak superego.
Trump wrote:“We got more money, we got more brains, we got better houses and apartments, we got nicer boats, we’re smarter than they are and they say they’re the elite. You’re the elite, we’re the elite,” he said, branding the elite “stone cold losers” and adding: “Let’s call ourselves, from now on, the super elite.”
Talk about a zero sum game! I think this speaks volumes for the way Trump views the world, which is (charitably) not very egalitarian. EVERYTHING is both a competition and a comparison. The man who dies with the most toys wins. The conqueror is afforded young females as his trophies:
...and sometimes the not so young...
I think some Americans are really taken in by the glitz and the glamour. Trump's show is as old as a carnival barker's. Promise the moon ('see the one-eyed monster!' becomes 'we will build a wall and Mexico will pay for it!'). When the deal is closed you move on to the next deal. (Sorry kid, no refunds', becomes 'I never said Mexico would write us a check!') But Trump can't move on. There are no more deals. He cannot parlay being the President of the United States into the next big deal.
The carnival barker can move on to the next town. The real estate promoter can have a tax write-off, stiff his suppliers, and move on to the next market. Donald Trump pretended to do the long con (running for President) when most of his interest was in the short con (burnishing his branding image). He wanted a world-wide branding empire. He ended up with the Mueller investigation.
He's a little like the Title Character of Mel Brook's The Producers, Max Bialystock. Max devises a scheme for becoming rich by selling more than 100% of the show's profits. The only way it works is if the show is a stinker and fails, and Max finds what he thinks is the ultimate doomsday device: a musical called Springtime for Hitler.
...but the show is SO SO bad that it becomes a camp hit. So poor Max is ruined by his own success, as everyone stands in line to be paid.
Well everyone is now standing in line to be paid by Donald Trump. We will build a wall and Mexico will pay for it! The Generals don't know what they're doing! Obama plays too much golf! I will run this country like a great corporation! I hire the best people! I will negotiate trade deals that benefit all Americans!
Springtime for Hitler and Germany
Winter for Poland and France
Becomes
Springtime for White Men's Aristocracy
Winter for Poor Immigrants
Randy Rainbow has to do this as a musical number.