The rise and rise of Donald Trump
Who is the president-elect? And how did he get to where he is today?
Is he really a “blue collar” guy?
No. His grandfather Friedrich Drumpf, a German immigrant, made a small fortune running restaurants – and, it’s alleged, brothels – for miners during the Klondike gold rush. But he died of flu in 1918, and Trump’s father, Fred, started work in New York as a builder in his teens. Wildly successful, Fred built first houses, then – with federal subsidies – apartment blocks, and finally entire neighbourhoods in the city’s outer boroughs. Fred was often accused of profiteering and other dodgy dealings – he was arrested at a Ku Klux Klan rally in 1927 – but nothing stuck. He was a demanding father who told his children that only the strong survive, often repeating the words: “You have to be a killer if you want to be a king.”
What kind of childhood did Donald have?
His mother Mary, born to crofters on the Isle of Lewis, Scotland, raised her children in the church of Norman Vincent Peale, a minister who preached that ambition was godly. “Learn to pray big prayers,” he said. “God will rate you according to the size of your prayers.” Donald, the fourth of five children, was a difficult child. He punched a music teacher “because I didn’t think he knew anything about music”, and was sent to a military boarding school. This gave him the feeling that he “was in the military in a true sense”, although he actually avoided the Vietnam draft, first to study real estate at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of business, and then on medical grounds; he had “bone spurs” on his heels, which healed up “over a period of time”.
How did he start in business?
After dabbling in his own projects, he was groomed to take over the family business (his older brother Fred Jr chose to be a pilot, and died from alcoholism at 43; Donald doesn’t drink). In 1971, he took control of his father’s vast portfolio of residential housing units in Brooklyn and Queens. Trump greatly admired his father, but wanted “to try something grander, more glamorous and more exciting” (he inherited his “sense of showmanship” from his mother, he said). In 1978, he developed the Grand Hyatt hotel next to Grand Central station in Manhattan. Between 1979 and 1984, he built the 58-storey skyscraper that has been central to his business career: Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue. This still houses both his own 53-room penthouse, described as a sumptuous “mini Versailles”, and the headquarters of his business – which he renamed The Trump Organisation.
How has he fared since?
The Economist divides his career up into three parts. First, there were the years of debt-fuelled expansion, up to 1990, when he acquired the bulk of his Manhattan property empire – the Trump Tower, the Trump Plaza, Trump Place, etc – and branched out into hotels and casinos in Atlantic City, New Jersey. The 1990s, though, were the “era of humiliation”: his casinos went bankrupt, destabilising
his entire business. But he hung on, and by the early 2000s was doing deals again. Then, though still rooted in property, his business pivoted towards the media and PR: he starred in the US version of The Apprentice; he bought a share in Miss Universe and other beauty pageants; and he relied heavily on the “Trump brand”.
How does the Trump brand work?
Trump realised early on that his life could be used as an advertisement for his work. The lifestyle, the women, the yacht (though he hates sailing), the outrageous claims, even his hair, all created attention and hard cash (his 1987 book The Art of the Deal was a huge bestseller). Many property developers around the world have paid him to be the public face of their buildings, in return for a cut of the profits. You can also buy Trump energy drinks, Trump menswear and Success by Trump, an aftershave that “captures the spirit of the driven man”. “It’s not even a question of ego,” he explained. “It’s just that my name makes everything more successful.”
How rich is he?
His empire is privately owned, opaque and contested. Trump usually says he’s worth in excess of $10bn, but has added: “My net worth fluctuates, and it goes up and down with markets and with attitudes and with feelings – even my own feelings.” Forbes magazine thinks he’s worth $3.7bn, making him the 156th wealthiest person in the US. Bloomberg puts it at nearer $3bn.
How good a businessman is he?
In his early days, he made some brilliant property deals. However, his overall record is very mixed. There have been a succession of failures: the casinos, the Trump Shuttle airline, an American football team, Trump steaks, Trump timeshares; some $5bn of investors’ cash has been lost in all. Trump University, which offered real estate and wealth creation courses, is facing a class action alleging that it “preyed upon the elderly and uneducated to separate them from their money”. Trump’s judgement has often been questioned; he is said to have a “nuclear temper”. And the National Journal calculated that if he’d put his father’s money into a stock tracker fund and spent his career finger painting, he’d be worth $8bn – twice his estimated fortune.
When did he get into politics?
Trump supported Ronald Reagan in the 1980s, and expressed an interest in running for office then. In 2000, he stood briefly as a candidate for Ross Perot’s Reform Party. From 2001 to 2008, he was a registered Democrat. In 2011, he returned definitively to the Republicans; the same year, he became one of the most outspoken members of the “Birther Movement”, which claimed that Barack Obama was born outside the US. This year he conceded that Obama was in fact born in Hawaii, but took credit for forcing the president to release his birth certificate. In June 2015, Trump announced his entrance into the Republican race for the White House.