I just read 8 Trump books. Here’s what I learned.
Sitting down with the collected works of Donald J. Trump is unlike any literary experience I’ve ever had or could ever imagine. I spent this past week reading eight of his books — three memoirs, three business-advice titles and his two political books, all published between 1987 and 2011 — hoping to develop a unified theory of the man, or at least find a method in the Trumpness.
Instead, I found … well, is there a single word that combines revulsion, amusement, respect and confusion? That is how it feels, sometimes by turns, often all at once, to binge on Trump’s writings. Over the course of 2,000 pages, I encountered a world where bragging is breathing and insulting is talking, where repetition and contradiction come standard, where vengefulness and insecurity erupt at random.
Elsewhere, such qualities might get in the way of the story. With Trump, they are the story. There is little else. He writes about his real estate dealings, his television show, his country, but after a while that all feels like an excuse. The one deal Trump has been pitching his entire career — the one that now culminates in his play for that most coveted piece of property, at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. — is himself.
“We need a leader that wrote ‘The Art of the Deal,’ ” Trump declared during his presidential campaign announcement in June, and he has repeatedly cited that 1987 book in other appearances. In it, Trump, then 41, explains the power of psychology and deception — he calls it “bravado” or “truthful hyperbole” — in his early real estate acquisi-
tions. Before he was a brand name, he had to convince people that he was worth their time. It was small things here and there. Like asking his architect to gussy up the sketches for a hotel so it seemed like they spent huge sums on the plans, boosting interest in his proposal. Or having a construction crew drive machinery back and forth on a site in Atlantic City so that the visiting board of directors would be duped into thinking the work was far along. “If necessary,” he instructed a supervisor, “have the bulldozers dig up dirt on one side of the site and dump it on the other.”
“I play to people’s fantasies,” Trump explains. “It’s an innocent form of exaggeration — and a very effective form of promotion.” Perception is reality, he writes, and achieving an “aura” (a recurring word in his writings) around his projects, his ideas and himself is essential.
Trump has been mocked for emblazoning his name on every building, plane, boat or company he touches. “Mostly it’s a marketing strategy,” he writes. “Trump buildings get higher rents.” But this is more than branding. Trump writes of his buildings as if they were living beings — friends or even lovers. “My relationship with 40 Wall Street began as a young man,” he writes in “The Art of the Comeback,” published in 1997. “From the moment I laid eyes on it, I was mesmerized by its beauty and its splendor.” Or, referring to his 110,000-square-foot private club in Palm Beach, Fla., Trump writes: “My love affair with Mar-a-Lago began in 1985.” Or, of one of his longeststanding properties: “Trump Tower, like a good friend, was there when I needed it.”
These relationships seem no less meaningful, and are certainly far more lasting, than those with, say, his two former wives. For all the gushing over his properties, Trump is hard-headed when it comes to married life, one of the few arenas he cannot fully control, where it is by definition not all about him. “My marriage, it seemed, was the only area of my life in which I was willing to accept something less than perfection,” he writes in “Surviving at the Top,” released in 1990. He reflects at length in several books on the necessity of prenuptial agreements, which he says served him well with Ivana Trump, his first wife, and Marla Maples, his second.
To be fair, it is not just his wives, not just women — it’s everyone. Trump’s books are sprayed with insults, like he’s trying to make sure we’re still paying attention. He trashes a former Miss Universe for gaining weight. When he meets a one-star general, he asks, “How come you’re only a one-star?” The Rolling Stones are “a bunch of major jerks.” Trump also slams complete unknowns — random banking executives or real estate types, lawyers or community activists, anyone who dared cross or disappoint him. “If someone screws you,” he writes, “screw them back.”
Trump’s world is binary, divided into class acts and total losers. He even details how physically unattractive he finds particular reporters, for no reason that I can fathom other than that it crossed his mind. The discipline of book writing does not dilute Trump; it renders him in concentrated form. Restraint is for losers.
Trump’s books tend to blur together, with anecdotes and achievements enhanced with each retelling.
I’m no billionaire, but much of the advice usually falls between obvious and useless. Stay focused, he says. Hire a great assistant. Think big.
Yes, Trump has a pretty serious savior complex, a common affliction for presidential hopefuls. “Look, I do deals — big deals — all the time,” he writes in “Time to Get Tough” ( 2011).
But judging from these books, I’m not sure how badly he really wants the presidency. To win it — yes, I think he’d love to close that deal and, of course, write another book about it. But to actually be president, day to day?