Do You Know Anything About the “Real Donald Trump?”

I’m sure that between 75 and 80 percent of voters who cast their ballots for Trump pay no attention to what happens in Washington, and know nothing about the “real Donald Trump.”

I begin with yesterday. Trump does not honor our fallen soldiers on Veterans Day. He openly calls them “suckers” and “losers,” asking, “what was in it for them?” On January 20, 2025, he will once again become their Commander-in-Chief.

In 2017 Trump had transcripts of his time at a military boarding school and Wharton Business College sealed. Why? Just listen to him speak. He is virtually illiterate, lacking the mental ability to pass his courses. His degree, like his military deferments, were bought and paid for by daddy Fred. It is a well-known fact that he cannot read a document with complete comprehension, including the all important Presidents Daily Brief.

After leaving Wharton, he went to work with his father in his New York apartment business. As a rental agent, his orders, which he eagerly accepted, were to ensure that all Black applicants received a large, red, “C” on the first page of their applications. A life of white supremacy had begun.

A short time later, Fred Trump gave his son approximately 413 million dollars to begin his own real estate business. The money came from multiple tax dodges. Within a few years Trump had lost every penny. During the 2016 campaign, he claimed the amount was just one-million dollars. Another of his thousands and thousands of lies.

Another lie he repeated frequently was that he did not know Vladimir Putin, claiming that “I have never met the man.”

Fact: in 1987, Trump and his first of three wives, Ivana, were invited to Moscow by the KGB. They accepted. In the latter part of the 1980’s, Putin was a powerful and high-ranking member of the spy organization. They met again in 2013 when the Miss Universe Pageant was held in Moscow.

Trump filed for bankruptcy four times: The Atlantic City casino, Taj Mahal, in 1991, the Trump Plaza Hotel in 1992, Trump Hotels and Casinos Resorts in 2004, and Trump Entertainment Resorts in 2009. Knowing this, who would believe that he could be successful with the economy of what politicians claim is “the richest nation in the world?” After policies implemented by Barack Obama expired, the U.S. economy began to collapse in 2019. Over four years Trump’s failed fiscal policy added $8,000,000,000,000 to the national debt and 300,000 Americans lost their jobs. Russian oligarchs and the Saudi Royal Family bought Trump’s loyalty with bailouts which saved his “empire.”

Although it is a fact that our corrupt government knew that Putin was interfering in our 2016 election, and one of the prime reasons why he won the Electoral College, they denied the fact until 2022. In October of 2016 our leaders committed a “lie of omission” by refusing to inform American voters that Putin was spending millions of dollars aiding Trump in his bid for the presidency. They won and America lost.

Trump’s 2024 campaign was a composition of lies and conspiracy theories. It mirrored his life of negativity and insecurity.

Meanwhile, Kamala Harris waged a campaign composed of hope and ideas for our nation’s future. The result: fear, anger, hatred, and lies won while the truth was still tying its shoes.

If I thought a second Trump presidency would be worse than the first, I was underestimating Putin’s Puppet. The names he offered the media for positions on his staff and cabinet contain individuals without qualifications, and in some instances are opposed to the agencies they will lead. Sound familiar?

Only in America could a traitor to his own nation become its leader. Only in America do we find the least informed citizens in the world. The United States has become a nation of people who only think about themselves and ignore the future of more than 330 million people. Although the Rosenbergs were executed for violating the Espionage Act in 1953. Trump remains a free man for violating the same law and will take the oath of office as your president next year.

Only in America. We are always the nation who maintains leadership in the most vile and moronic ways. Trump is proof that America has never been a “great nation,” and never will be.

Op-ed by James Turnage