Donald Trump the Man: Summarized in One Tale
On This Day In 2020
Everything you need to know about Trump is revealed in today's tale: Incompetence! Lies! Broken promises! Corruption! Failure! Environmental damage! Bullying! Vindictiveness!
Let’s say you and your Family own a golf course in the UK. And, like dozens of your other businesses, your golf course is losing millions of dollars every year. You need to drum up a little extra business for yourselves. How can you do so?
Well, you could sell nicer shirts in your gift shop. Publicize your club tournaments. Raise prices. Maybe improve your driving range a bit so more people will come?
But if you’re the President of the United States, you and your Family start to think a little differently. You think … Hmm, there are four major men’s golf tournaments held annually around the world. And the British Open has been around since 1860, and it generates untold millions of dollars and a worldwide TV audience. And, wouldn’t you know it, WE own a golf course in Scotland! Maybe there can be a connection here!
So, as the wheels in your head keep spinning, you think… hey, we’d like a cut of that action. Why shouldn’t we start pocketing those untold millions? Why shouldn’t millions of eyeballs around the world be watching our golf course instead?
So, naturally, what do you do? You can’t just call up the British Open and say “Hey, we need you to throw your golf tournament at our club.” That would be...unseemly. Not presidential. And, frankly, it'd be a large conflict of interest because Donald is the president and has important political dealings with Britain. (Many of which he seems to have, separately, screwed up.)
But…because you’re Donald Trump…you go ahead and do that anyway. And because you have considerable experience operating like a mob boss, you get one of your underlings to do your dirty work for you. Hey, the United States employs some Ambassador to the UK, right? He works for Donald, so let’s have THAT guy make the request for us.
And that’s how it came to be that the hapless U.S. Ambassador Robert Wood Johnson IV was forced to approach the Secretary of State for Scotland and ask that his country do a little…favor…for the Trump Family.
Spoiler alert…the UK said “no.” This came as no surprise to Wood’s deputy, longtime State Department official Lewis Lukens. Lukens had advised Wood that it would be a bad idea to ask on Trump’s behalf and cautioned him not to do so.
The NYT reported the details OTDI 2020. In a typically Trumpian move: Ambassador Wood, perhaps a little embarrassed that he couldn’t come through for the Boss’ Family, decided to make himself feel better by … firing poor Lukens.
2024 update: Btw, how did it come to be that Donald Trump built a course in Scotland in the first place? Well, he made all sorts of grandiose promises about what his course could do for the local economy if they let him build it. He said he'd spend £1 billion. Did this end up happening? OF COURSE NOT. Did you forget the Trump Family lies about everything?
And as a bonus, the construction of Trump’s course was damaging. As the BBC reports, “after the course was built, Scotland's countryside watchdog ruled they had lost their special status as a nationally-important protected environment.”
In the end, the project director at the course, Neil Hobday, admitted he felt "hoodwinked and ashamed that I fell for it and Scotland fell for it.”
Mr. Hobday, now you know how America feels.
Dive Deeper
The New York Times covered the saga
Bloomberg reported on the millions of dollars the Trump Family is losing at their courses. Includes pic above from Andrew Milligan/PA Wire
The 2024 update is covered by the BBC