WHILE THE SPECTACLES of impeachment, daily scandal, and the democratic primary distracted voters from almost everything else, the 2019 Federal deficit accelerated to nearly a trillion. The interest alone  got to 380 billion per year.  In 2015, Obama only needed 485 billion for the whole year.

Let me see…1) stock market is right on top of a new high, 2) unemployment is extremely low, 3) countries are supposed to use extended booms (ten years now) to pay down debt, and 4) the GOP—especially the “tea partiers”—have, prior to Trump, represented themselves as deficit/budget hawks.

What’s wrong with this picture?

There’s no mystery; it’s what Trump has always done: borrow big, promote shamelessly, get paid no matter what, and never use much of your own money. Six bankruptcy filings–count ’em:  mostly casinos, hotels and resorts (The Trump Taj cost 1.2 billion and sold for 50 million).

Looks like a pattern. –Actually, a “you’re fired” Trump White House staffer, Rick Wilson, wrote a book about his experience in the administration.  The title was Everything Trump Touches Dies. I read it. Scathing.

On one of the few episodes of the Apprentice I watched, they showed part of his penthouse. Everything was made of gold, plated with gold, or painted with gold.

Who does that? –Maybe dictators. Obsession with gold is not healthy: it emits the color of the moon—second-hand light.

By the way, one thing about his reality show made no sense to me back then.: his “valued advisors” didn’t seem very shrewd. Of course, now I know why: you only have to show absolute loyalty to him. Sycophancy is the only requirement in the job description.

So while the House and the SDNY court and others look for dirt based on high crimes, campaign finance and tax laws, voters might look at the track record and the pattern of ruin as a businessman and wonder why he is directing a $20 trillion economy.

If we considered him as star of the “World Leader Reality TV Show,” he’s got human history’s highest ratings. But that’s probably because they didn’t have, satellites, cable news, and Twitter while some of history’s other great Masters of Ruin were alive.

WRH