He's a huckster.
There's a difference.
I'm making the con man/huckster distinction.
He's not like Bernie Madoff. He's more like Hugh Hefner or Ron Popeil. Meade and I were talking about this idea and he challenged me to name someone else who fit my idea of Trump as the huckster. It took me a while, but I came up with Hugh Hefner. Then he revealed the name he had in mind: Ron Popeil.
Notice how both of those men put their brand on products and promoted them and — through their personality — made people feel an extra boost of positivity about products that were varied and real.
March 10, 2016
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You mean like the Clinton Global Initiative?
Althouse wrote: It took me a while, but I came up with Hugh Hefner.
That's revealing in view of the tacit revulsion many women feel for Trump. The flip side is the revulsion many men feel for Hillary.
Maybe it's variance without a difference! You want a good job (Trump) and hot chicks (Hefner), even though individual product lines may vary...
This is a nice distinction.
I suppose I'm a typical male in the sense that there are acceptable trade-offs when it comes to certain things although the testosterone purge of a Hillary Clinton talk is not one of them.
huckster - "petty merchant, peddler" (often contemptuous)
etymonline.com
confidence - from confidentem (nominative confidens) "firmly trusting, bold," present participle of confidere "to have full trust or reliance," from com-, intensive prefix (see com-), + fidere "to trust" (see faith). For sense of "swindle" see con (adj.)
Trump is not a huckster. He is a confidence man. With temporal progress, he may be exposed as a con man or liberal (i.e. variant, selective).
I don't think so.
He's a fighter.
Look- I'm sure that your Meade has spent decades moaning and groaning about PC.
The PC monolith has real and actual policy implications & became most deadly when it became entrenched in the GOP.
Even more than Obama, Dubya entrenched PC in policy and politics.
And all it does is give undeserved victory after victory to the left, even when the GOP do win.
Because it's ever-changing and the Judges who decided what's fair and what's foul in it, are all on the Left.
It's a fool's game that despite Dubya's et al valiant attempts, can never be won by the center or the right.
To expect the fight back against PC to be sweet and lovely and oh so polite is just so stupid.
It's going to be loud and messy and garish and ribald and etc.
Because this fight back says "We don't acknowledge the legitimacy of your illiberal game, so we're not playing" but it also means that processes and systems and ways of communicating sans PC are being developed ad-hoc.
PC began using the guise of 'politeness' but became something very, very illiberal, arbitrary, political, and damaging.
Read C. Paglia's latest piece, Trump is not a huckster, he's a liberal fighting for freedom in ways that Meade, stuck in his circa 1998 Club for Growth brochures, just doesn't get.
Millennials are responding well to Milo & Breitbart & et al, not Paul Ryan & blah blah blah about "If only we could pass a Balanced Budget Amendment & respect federalism, then we'd win back the culture!"
And that is why even in left-wing LA, there are a lot of (privately) Entertainment people who will be voting for Trump.
They too see the real issue in this country, the PC monolith.
Which if left to fester, will eat us all.
And again, the fight-back is going to be messy.
Mostly, but Trump University was still a con job, and Trump is morally unfit for the presidency, or anything else that requires honesty and trust.
Gerorge Forman and his grill?
How about "charlatan", he's selling a product (himself) of dubious quality with loud talk and promises.
"That's revealing in view of the tacit revulsion many women feel for Trump. The flip side is the revulsion many men feel for Hillary."
It was in your head that the idea of revulsion happened. Own it.
If you want to know what I think of Hugh Hefner, click my Hefner tag.
I also thought about the fashion designers who started putting their name on sheets and household items back in the 1970s.
Ralph Lauren.
Jimmy Carter was a huckster. He sold and promoted peanuts. One of the worst presidents of the 20th century.
Salesmen usually sell something, whether it is the good, the bad or the ugly. Misrepresenting the product as snake oil that is proven to do what only a Messiah can actually do is what Religions usually market for sale.
So Trump is selling us a FDR style Happy Day Are Here Again religion with Pope Trump as our Leader.
The red hat with the word GREAT on it is our religious gear. Our Temples have TRUMP written across them.
The only con man is Obama.
Yep; somebody beat me to the "Trump University" question. As I learn about the NY AG civil fraud case, it seems to turn a lot on the representation that came from practically everybody in the "university's" administration, that Donald Trump would be hand-picking the lecturers and presenters.
And in the deposition testimony of the people in charge of the lectures and presentations, Trump had no role in picking the lecturers and presenters, and knew almost none of them personally.
I have also seen critics of Trump's Tuesday night product-fest gripe about how Trump was hawking those products. And that misses the point.
The real point on Trump's part was to try to rebut Mitt Romney. And Trump didn't just fail to do that; Trump drilled Romney's point ever-more effectively. Trump showed off a "magazine" from one of his resort rooms, and called it a Trump magazine. But that's a lie. That standard resort magazine isn't produced by Trump, and it isn't either one of the two Trump magazines that failed and went out of business because Donald Trump just isn't that good at running a magazine operation. Ditto Trump water, Trump Airlines and the phoniest thing of the night, Trump steaks, which were Bush Brothers brand steaks pulled out of the club's kitchen. You can't buy a Trump Steak if you wanted to. They aren't being made/sold anymore.
So yes, professor; there is "con man" (which applies to Trump University), there is "huckster" (which applies to much of what Trump does, particularly on Trump television shows) and then there is "liar", which is what Trump is now doing as a politician, in debating his personal business history.
Disagree.
With Hef and Ron Popeil you knew what you were buying. With Trump, voters have no clue what deals he will make and what his real policies will be. Also he has a long history of duping people. He owned casinos! Havens for the poorly educated and the deluded dreamers. And he failed at that great business four times! The House always wins except when Trump is the House. How many unsecured creditors and shareholders has he stiffed over the years? Hef and Ron were winners!
Damp old runt.
Own it
Link
David Ragsdale moaned and groaned...
"Look- I'm sure that your Meade has spent decades moaning and groaning about PC."
"Trump" steaks are not Trumps steaks...they buy and repackage meat
He sells confidence that your are buying the highest quality meat...con man.
What will Trump do when he loses?
The nomination, or the election.
What will he do?
His actions would tell you something about the man.
"Notice how both of those men put their brand on products and promoted them and — through their personality — made people feel an extra boost of positivity about products that were varied and real."
Then isn't Obama a huckster too? "Hope and Change" was part of his brand. Everyone recognizes his iconic logo; the media fawned over his charismatic personality; and his products were definitely varied, but perhaps not so real.
Next to Mick the commenter, Trump was the #1 huckster of Obama birtherism.
Now Barack Obama is a con man.
Bob Ellison said...
"What will Trump do when he loses?"
I predict it will look very similar to what he did when he lost his birtherism crusade.
Where was the comparison to the "Clinton Global Initiative University" that is going to hold sessions at Berkeley and is lining up college students to attend? It's not a university by the same standards that Trump University is being judged a fraud.
David Begley said...
"Disagree."
The two (or more) things are not mutually exclusive. Trump can be (and is) both a huckster and a cheat.
PB said...
"Now Barack Obama is a con man."
Then we agree.
Meade: I'm going to sue you. --Donald Trump
Bob: I'm gonna sue you for that. --Donald Trump
Trump: Give me a minute. This will be the biggest thing you've ever seen. Let me just...give me a minute.
Trump main brand is a quality product though he sells it in a huckster like way.
He' s a flim-flam man! There used to be lots of colorful names for characters like this that roamed the country selling dreams.
I haven't seen it for years, but there was a George C. Scott movie with that name, 70's I think.
Rush had his line of power ties, and has about Trump's taste in design of website crap.
Huckster doesn't quite fit. It's larger-than-life persona working for Rush and Trump, more than products.
Which is self-deprecating humor, at bottom.
Best Trump quote/lie so far:
"I can be the most politically correct person you've ever seen."
Ann Althouse said...
I also thought about the fashion designers who started putting their name on sheets and household items back in the 1970s.
Ralph Lauren.
I completely agree. And the cheap labor used is shameful, and petty.
But with Trump, everybody is talking about steaks, whine, and Trump University. These are fringe businesses. They're like Walter Payton's MVP Caffeine pills.
When the Trump Tower when up on the Chicago River everyone was awed. It is an impressive structure on arguably Chicago's most prime piece of real estate. I'm not sure a huckster could pull that off.
Meade
Aren't all hucksters a lesser version of a con artist? At least a huckster isn't engaging in fraud and Trump University was a high level fraud.
Trump is a huckster, Hillary's husband is a con man.
@David,
I don't think so. Hucksters can be legit. My point is Trump is a legitimate huckster, sure, but he is also a liar/cheat/fraud.
"Trump is a huckster, Hillary's husband is a con man."
The three are thick as thieves.
No, he's also a con man. Trump lies and encourages others to rely on his lies as they part with their money. He's a fraudster, a schemer ... a crook. You can call him a huckster if you like, but huckster only tells part of the story.
Gusty Winds, how much money does Trump really control (as in, actually own and have control over, not how much his craptastic businesses are worth according to how happy he feels about his net worth today)?
At what interest rate could a real businessperson like Michael Bloomberg or Warren Buffet buy out Trump's strange enterprises? How much would Trump be worth at the end?
I always thought that Trump was closer to a "P. T. Barnum"
I'm sorry, but Trump's building on the Chicago River is as big as...his hands.
huckster - "petty merchant, peddler". I don't think it fits.
There are real jobs that were created in building that tower, and real jobs created to maintain and service it. Tangible jobs. Not Iphone Apps.
Take Trump's policy statements as statements of preference. He's being over the top. It's his thing.
It defeats PC, among other things, which is what's wanted.
Hillary Clinton is not a huckster. But she's still a liar, a cheat, a traitor, and a fraud.
Donald Trump is a huckster. Plus, he's a liar, a cheat, a traitor, and a fraud.
Hugh Hefner is a weak comparison, in my opinion. He's a doddering old man who embodies American freewheeling sexuality (or at least an earlier version of it). The Hefner comparison actually sanitizes Trump because Hefner is just an amiable figurehead for the publishing empire run his family members (notably the women). It's pretty harmless stuff; I do not recall any Playboy financial frauds or hearing Hefner brag about bribing politicians and mobsters to enrich his business interests.
@Meade, no one, not even Donald Trump, is in Hillary Clinton's league for lying, cheating, and fraudulent behavior.
Hillary Clinton lies even when she doesn't have to. That's mendacity raised to its highest level.
Gusty Winds blew hot air...
"huckster - 'petty merchant, peddler'. I don't think it fits."
Trump is a petty merchant and peddler of ties, steaks, and now walls.
Someone built those buildings. Trump did not.
This could be a learning experience for America.
The framer, the electrician, and the finisher do good work, and earn money.
...but they might do good work and lose money.
The guy whose name is at the top of the tower didn't do a lick of work, and deserves none of the attention. If he demands the attention, then he deserves all of the scorn.
"Hillary Clinton lies even when she doesn't have to. That's mendacity raised to its highest level."
Trump's wall of mendacity just got 10 feet higher.
Can we talk about the greatest con job in the history of the world? Global warming.
Obama talks like it is real and not a fake prediction about what MAY happen in 100 years. A complete fraud.
@Meade, if Hillary Clinton says that the sky is blue then it's time to look out the window because if Hillary says the sky is blue then it must be some other color.
If Hillary says she has a vagina, it's time for a delegation of doctors to inspect her lady parts because if she says she has one, then she doesn't really have it.
Bob Ellison said...how much money does Trump really control (as in, actually own and have control over, not how much his craptastic businesses are worth according to how happy he feels about his net worth today)?
Trump was the developer and his company owns and operates the Hotel on site, but does has no ownership in the tower's residences.
The building houses some of Chicago's most wealthy residents. One condo sold for $17 Mil a few years ago. I'd imagine the owners are paying real property taxes to a City that is thirsty for property taxes. I don't think that's fake huckster money. It's probably quite real.
And I'd imagine the Hotel and other services and businesses operating in the building are generating jobs, tax revenue, and all the things that come from successful development. Prior to Trump tower it was the location of the Sun-Times building; a dying entity that wasn't generating anything.
""Trump" steaks are not Trumps steaks...they buy and repackage meat. He sells confidence that your are buying the highest quality meat...con man."
I disagree. It's branding. It's the same meat you might buy under a different brand, but you choose to buy it because the brand gives you some extra feeling that actually makes the pleasure of consumption greater. Like buying Ralph Lauren towels.
In a con, you're tricked into putting your money somewhere and then you lose it. A confidence game.
Trump steaks... you get the steaks. You might be paying to much or imagining the flavor to be better because of the brand, but you get your steaks.
Ever read about blind taste tests for wine? Do you think the whole wine industry is a fraud?
Looking at Trump's tweet of the Honolulu shoreline, I asked myself immediately, "Where's the Reef Hotel?"
I was standing in the lobby of it watching the first moon landing coverage on TV, along with a modest beach crowd.
A decent hotel, stayed overnight there many times.
We don't know if the sky is blue yet. It might be grue.
The evidence isn't definitive.
"Man Walks on Moo"
As the folded Honolulu paper said.
Interesting that Bob Ellison should say that Trump did not do a lick of work to build those buildings etc. The men who labored at the construction work, the guys at the steel mill (probably most of them speaking Chinese) who did the girders, the people at the glass factory, the copper wiring factory etc. actually built the building. I'll give Bob Ellison all that.
But then I'll ask Bob--unless Trump or one of his associates assembled the pieces of land on which the building was built, and then secured the construction financing to build the building; and once the building was completed negotiated and secured the leases with tenants (and thus the income stream to pay for the building), would the building ever have been built?
And the answer is no--the building would not have been built. Oh it might have if someone else not named Trump had put the development package together. But regardless--without the developer, the building doesn't get built.
The Del Webbs, the Sam Zells, the Bill Zeckendorfs, and yes the Donald Trumps of this country are plungers and risk takers when it comes to developing office buildings and commercial properties in major cities in this country. And most of them, Trump included, have been through bankruptcy a time or two. A lot of their success comes from their connections and "friendships" with the various political regulators and zoning administrators in the cities where they build. Some might, quite properly, suspect that a bit of sleaziness and corruption is the price of doing political business in those situations.
But without the developer swimming through the municipal swamp to get the project approved, and then getting financing to actually build the project, Bob Ellison's noble workingman who builds the building with the sweat of his brow is just SOL--and jobless.
If I hear one more liberal say "you didn't build that"-----aargh!
rhhardin said...
"Man Walks on Moo"
Cow jumps ove.
Trump's a huckster to some degree, I guess, but I don't think people acknowledge the high degree of irony in the man. He's a little like Mohammed Ali, a self-promoter but genuinely nice guy.
huckster - "petty merchant, peddler" (often contemptuous)
The "huckster" is what my grandparents called the peddler who came by in his wagon every week.
Not pejoratively, of course.
Meade said...
Gusty Winds blew hot air...
I will vote for Kasich in the Wisconsin Primary if he is still around. But I refuse to hop on the Trump righteous indignation train. He's not Hitler. He's not a huckster. And I will happily vote for him over Hillary if those are the remaining choices.
Trump is no more a huckster than modern University Administrators peddling debt and worthless pieces of paper to today's thirsty youth, or a person that charges $250K to give speeches at those Universities.
Everyone else is a huckster but me!!! Yeah, right.
@Meade, is your spouse aware that you're taking a position contrary to Camille Paglia's current view of Trump?
Maybe Zeus will let you stay in his doghouse tonight.
I didn't "get" the Ron Pompeil reference.
First image to pop into my head was the ShamWow guy.
So...point taken.
Like buying Ralph Lauren towels.
Which we will never do in our house again, given how quickly they fall apart on you. Cheap towels from Penney's may be less fluffy but last forever.
Didn't Althouse have a post about Professor Harald Hill of the Music Man? The town does get the instruments, but what he was really selling were the dreams of the kids being trained musicians. It's the actual work involved in training and practicing that he doesn't emphasize. Hill was going to skip town before the instruments arrive, but he falls in love and has to deal with the reality. If Trump is elected will he follow through with his promises? The country will have to fall in love with him and make him stay.
Ann Althouse said...
It's branding. It's the same meat you might buy under a different brand, but you choose to buy it because the brand gives you some extra feeling that actually makes the pleasure of consumption greater. Like buying Ralph Lauren towels.
In a con, you're tricked into putting your money somewhere and then you lose it. A confidence game.
I'm catching on. It's branding. Like when a 23 year old TA teaches Freshman and Sophomore classes at UW. You just pretend the steak you paid for was cooked by a real professor.
Or, like American Colleges that try to increase tuition by going after the prestige market rather than improving the actual education, or lowering its cost to a level of affordability.
It's branding. University of Wisconsin = Trump University. What's the difference?
Gusty Winds:
Debt, paper, and even worthless knowledge. The engineers alone would have standing to file a class action lawsuit citing the expense and frivolity of the liberal arts. And there is also the diluted value of a teaching to the lowest common denominator, discrimination through class diversity policies (e.g. racism, sexism), inflation through [federal] debt, conflation of cult and state (e.g. female chauvinist lectures; anti-native, human, really, propaganda).
3/10/16. Althouse finally trumps the shark.
Reason Magazine hucksters in email today
The Foundation for Economic Education (FEE) is offering 10 life-changing 3-day summer seminars for high school and college students as well as graduates under 27-years-old, where you can learn the power of economic thinking. Applications are open through March 31.
Watch Trump speak in the "debates" or at a rally. Watch Obama campaign events from 2008. The vocabulary and mannerisms are different - short-fingered vulgarian and erudite scholar, The message is the same: Trust Me! I will solve all problems. I am the Great Healer. Just Believe.
Left unmentioned are any specifics of HOW all problems will be solved.
Someone else had the same idea: "Trump as Billy Mays"
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/432613/donald-trump-billy-mays-politics
Then isn't Obama a huckster too? "Hope and Change" was part of his brand. Everyone recognizes his iconic logo; the media fawned over his charismatic personality; and his products were definitely varied, but perhaps not so real.
I think that Ann is right about the difference between being a huckster and a con. Dinesh D'Souza in his book "Stealing America" asserts that one of the big things that Saul Alinsky taught his acolytes was how to run a con in the public sphere. And, two of his most successful followers are Obama and Hillary. D'Souza distinguished the two by asserting that Obama was a master of the small con, while Hillary engages in the big con. And, that is really why she and her husband have managed to skim better than a hundred million dollars personally, and a half a billion for their family foundation. She sold American foreign policy for cash, and, is likely to do the same at a higher level if she becomes President. Why is someone with her sort of wealth willing to put in the work it takes to become President? I think because it is the best way for her and her family to join Trump in the elite billionaires club.
Good recall, dustbunny.
For Ann - Follow your blog from Madtown and love it. Thanks for your efforts and keep up the good work.
Dustbunny's comment above beat me to the punch. Have been calling "The Donald" by his real character name "Mordecai C. Trump" for weeks. He truly is the Flim Flam Man portrayed so well by George C. Scott. A con man for sure.
A lonely conservative drowning is a sea of progressives.
The art of the deal is the art of the possible.
What we would get with a Trump presidency will largely depend on the kind of Congress we elect for him to deal with.
This is different from Obama, who pretty much has put Congress out of commission and has just proceeded to run the administration his way.
It was our seasoned veteran fellow commenter, tim in vermont.
Bob Ellison said...
The guy whose name is at the top of the tower didn't do a lick of work, and deserves none of the attention. If he demands the attention, then he deserves all of the scorn.
3/10/16, 10:21 AM
Oh Okay, Barack. Here's a guy who has no idea what goes into building, from houses to high-rises and everything in between. After the "you didn't build that" lecture comes the whining about the "1% not paying their fair share".
I worked decades in the construction trade. You know what's plentiful in the trade? Tradesman. You know what's not so plentiful? Competent and successful contractors. If it was easy to be a builder there would as many contractors as there are carpenters. Many, many were the workers complaining about the builder, his easy life and his money. Almost none of those workers choose to try that life, and of the few who do, fewer still succeed.
The developer is the "rainmaker;" without him nothing happens.
I'm curious to understand Althouse's obsession with all things Trump and her cruel indifference to Hillary Clinton's criminality.
About 5 years ago I wanted to put a steel building up. I had to drive to two different cities to get the necessary paper work to start the job. A land use permit ($150) and a building permit ($50). I can't imagine what Trump has to go through, and what he has to spend to build anything in a big city. The unassembled Menards steel building cost $2,281 delivered. Myself and a friend put it up.
Professor Althouse, I reject your putting a fine point on what it means to be a "Trump Steak."
"Trump Steaks," be they special, or not special, or re-packaged, or anything else, DO NOT EXIST. You can't buy a "Trump Steak" now, in any kind of packaging. "Trump Steaks" are out of business.
And the bald-faced lie -- I don't care if anybody thinks it was a "con," -- was Trump's suggestion to the assembled press that Romney was wrong, and Trump is right. That the press can see Trump's steaks for themselves and so everybody should be laughing at Mitt Romney.
That is either a comedy sketch (where Trump would rightly be the butt of the joke) or it is mendacity on a DSM scale.
That dog-and-pony show demonstrated for me, much more clearly than anything else I had seen for a while, just what sick son of a bitch Donald Trump really is.
"That dog-and-pony show demonstrated for me, much more clearly than anything else I had seen for a while, just what sick son of a bitch Donald Trump really is."
So, what is your REAL problem with Trump? Afraid he'll cut into your income if elected? Are you a lobbyist? A campaign worker for Rubio or Cruz?
Your attacks on Trump have become so hysterical and Over the top, I can only think that's the reason or you're mentally disturbed.
Snake oil salesman with shades of a sober Elmer Gantry.
Well, here again we have some dishonesty. Donald Trump is far more than a con man. But this con man accusation got made because of Trump University, which was a con, and a few other things, like a condo project. All of that, though, came relatively late, after about 2005.
And just now - he tried to claim that Trump steaks still exists. It doesn't. Or that trump Magazine still exists. It's not the same magazine.
To too many people, active in politics I guess, accusations need to be simplified.
So Trump is a racist, rather than a countryisy who thinks this is a dog-eat-dog world and David Duke is Klansman and not a neo-Nazi. And Trump imitating Ed Koch, in getting voters to hold up their right hand and swear to vote for him, is a sign of incipient fascism, instead of...copying Ed Koch. I don't think that was good when Ed Koch did it, either.
Gusty Winds said...3/10/16, 10:56 AM
University of Wisconsin = Trump University. What's the difference?
The Unoversity of Wisconsin is not sold to people - or at least not the University of Wisconsin specifically - as a means to get rich quick.
And there may be some value in the job market, but a Trump University certificate wasn't worth anything, and they weren't selling certificates, unlike the University of Wisconsin, which does sell diplomas - which may even have some value, too. Law School diplomas, maybe not so, anymore. There is also, hopefully, something actually taught in the University of Wisconsin.
Sammy Finkelman said...
The University of Wisconsin is not sold to people - or at least not the University of Wisconsin specifically - as a means to get rich quick.
The most valuable thing you learn in college is not to do a bong hit after drinking a twelve pack. It'll give you the spins and wreck your night.
Don't be a pansy, Gusty Winds.
The spins are fun!!
Your attacks on Trump have become so hysterical and Over the top, I can only think that's the reason or you're mentally disturbed.
Actually Chuck's attacks on Trump have been factual and specific.
He's more like Professor Harold Hill in the Music Man. He stokes fear and sells solutions.
@ Prof. Althouse:
There are not "Trump Steaks." That operation, which retailed through the Sharper Image, has been closed for years.
The steaks displayed at his "press conference" were from, believe it or not, a company called Bush Bros..
You, and everyone else who believed that lie, haven't just been the victim of hyperbole or salesmanship. You've been conned. And no, after people waste their votes on the con-man, they can't get the vote back -- it's gone.
He's a con man. There's no meaningful distinction between him & Bernie Maidoff when you analyze them as prospective presidents. I will concede that Maidoff's crimes have been adjudicated, whereas Trump has managed to cover most of his up (with several conspicuous exceptions, e.g., his daddy's $3.5M casino chip purchase or the $1M fine for using illegal alien workers on Trump Tower).
Isn't "huckster" synonymous with "politician"?
Two more suggestions for hucksters:
PT Barnum (who later was a member of the Connecticut state legislature)
Vince McMahon.
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