Very good write up Yuri. I never watched it. In fact, I loathed the Donald assuming he was a grifter of sorts. In 2015 I didn’t know exactly what to make of him. It didn’t take me long to realize that he was the man for the job of POTUS.
The ONLY reason I believed that was because of his plain speak to the media. NO ONE ELSE could have pulled it off. And we were all prisoners because of it. Most people seem to forget just how thick the level of political correctness was in circa 2014 after 8 years of Obama. In The prior 8 with GW he (Bush) was completely cowed by the media. So much so that when DT mentioned that he wanted to build a wall I thought “game over.” So for those with short memories DT said a lot of shit that would have been a death sentence for all other conservative politicians.
And this is why I knew we had to take our chances with him. I lost some faith in him circa 2021/22. Once again, I didn’t know what to make of him. The bullet to the ear cast aside all dispersions. I don’t believe that I was the only one who felt that way. I shudder to think where we would be right now had the Gods seen fit to let it part his skull.
So…..he is no doubt the man for the times. To put it simply; I have no choice but to get behind him (on most issues) because the alternative is UNTHINKABLE. Donald Trump was not the only one to dodge a bullet last July.
I first became acquainted with Donald Trump via 'The Late Show with David Letterman' circa 1986. My memory is that of Letterman pulling up a desk phone and calling Trump to ask him if he would please take over the renovation of the Wollman Skating Rink in Central Park. Trump agreed. This deal may have already been in the works but it was a plausible & entertaining schtick.
Months later my remembrance is hearing about how Trump got the job done ahead of schedule & under budget. He was a man who got things done & I've been a fan ever since.
The Wollman Skating Rink:
"In 1980 the rink was closed for renovations when its concrete base cracked and buckled. A renovation was expected to cost up to $4.9 million dollars and take 2 years. The typical bidding nightmare took place, work was started but flooding problems and renovation problems soon developed. Are you ready for this? By May of 1986 the project STILL wasn’t done. $12.9 million had been spent, with an additional $2 to $3 million estimated to complete the work by the winter of 1987!!
"Along comes Donald Trump who offered mayor Ed Koch to rebuild Wollman Rink at HIS expense WITHIN 6 MONTHS in return for the leases to operate the rink and an adjacent restaurant to recoup his costs. The final agreement was that the city would reimburse Trump for the costs up to the agreed limit and that he would donate the profits of rink and restaurant to charity and public works. Trump asked his contractors to also do the work WITHOUT MAKING A PROFIT, promising them publicity but not mentioning their contributions to the press afterwards. The work was completed TWO MONTHS ahead of schedule and $750,000 under the estimated costs!!! As part of its agreement with the city, the Trump Organization donated most of the profit to public works, including $50,000 for the rink’s electricity costs, and to charity, among them United Cerebral Palsy, Partnership for the Homeless, and Gay Men’s Health Crisis. But you’ll NEVER hear about ANY OF THIS from the main stream media."
I certainly could be wrong about the David Letterman/phone bit but the essence of whatever connection those 2 had in relation to the skating rink stuck in my mind.
I also disliked him, and what I saw as his ill gotten fame, intensely, so I never watched the Apprentice. However, I didn't really start to appreciate him until late on election night, 2020. I didn't yet entirely realize Bernie had berned his followers more than anyone else. He wasted our time and our money on a fake revolution. His erratic and absurd condemnations of certain billionaires now, despite Gates, Soros, Bezos, etc. having their hands behind the curtain for years, only cements my suspicions that he was 'sheep-dogging', or attempting to sheepdog, people for the DNC, into Hillary's corrupt embrace.
Watch any recent brutal BLM roundup of supposedly protected wild mustangs and burros and you can see how the DNC treated Bernie supporters, especially during the Nevada caucus. Anyone who watched it on telescope knew that accusations of violence against Bernie supporters were projections from the DNC. Those who didn't automatically concede they would be "With Her" were hounded by metaphorical men on motorcycles and in helicopters, whether they broke their legs or ran themselves to death in their efforts to resist. We were labeled misogynists, bros, women only interested in getting laid, purity obsessed, morons who don't know that big banks are actually necessary for society to exist, sore losers and whatever other disparaging remarks they could toss. We were relegated to the deplorable bin with Trump supporters, so why not join him?
By the time Election Day 2016, rolled around, I disliked Hillary more than any candidate, past or present. After a replay of that, in 2020, I voted for Jill Stein, instead of Trump, as a protest vote, as I had in 2016. During Trump's first term, in which his kids ran rampant, I had not been impressed, and I could not bring myself to become a 'Trumper'.
And yet, something about that election did not sit right with me. I watched late into the night and it seemed inexorably to be going in the Trump direction, much like the Democratic primary in 2016 was strongly headed in favor of Bernie or the lead up to the 'hanging chads' fiasco in Florida in 2000 seemed to portend a Gore victory. Those impressions are not an endorsement of those candidates, in hindsight, just an observation. However much I may dislike any particular candidate, I value the strength in maintaining democratic principles to trump the pain of defeat. Losing well must be as much a part of democracy as winning without gloating.
Anyway, when I got up the next morning and heard that Biden had won, it was decidedly weird. I hadn't realized until that moment that I had been rooting for Trump. It was a surreal feeling. Now, that I see what he has been capable of this time around, I would absolutely have voted for him in 2020, not that it would have mattered. The mail in ballots, coupled with the shoddy electronic votings machines and the imposition of severe (and unnecessary) covid restrictions, all of which were deemed more important than election integrity, yet simultaneously touted as safeguards of democracy? In what fantasy universe?
That 2020 election was decidedly unsettling. If they had just let him win, or left him alone during Biden's tragic four years, the DNC reputation may not be in complete tatters. Democracy would have been served, instead of subverted, and many Democrats would still be Democrats. Watching them shred the Constitution to 'save Democracy' was the final straw for many, no doubt.
Those now protesting Trump and setting Teslas on fire smacks of the same weirdness, ie not entirely genuine. Some of them are likely misguided people who think they are fighting the good fight. They don't understand that they are hapless pawns.
I had another reply earlier from someone I assume was from the right. There’s a noticeable number of them out there who are just too pure to care. I was decidedly harsh as he kept up the “your vote doesn’t matter” “voting for the lesser of two evil” schtick. I was like no fucking shit asshole.
The Left scares the hell out of me. I don’t believe we would have made it another 4 years and even if we did the elections would be so fixed by then it wouldn’t have mattered. Trump’s win in 2024, like the bullet to the ear, seem to have had divine intervention. I am not a religious guy but it does give me pause. Anyhow those people who spout the stuff the person I mentioned really roil my mind. No Trump is not perfect but by God he’s not the same as the people who govern from the Left.
Though raised a Democrat, as an eleven year old, I took the libertarian quiz at a table outside a polling station when i went with my mom to vote. She would bring me into the booth and have me mark the ballot for her.
I told her libertarian seemed the most fair stance. She said that they do not the believe in laws or even stop signs. I replied that that seemed illogical and therefore unlikely. But, it being the 80s, and having little resources to explore their proposed policies, I dropped it.
In college, one of my lab managers was a staunch libertarian who repacked his own ammunition. I probably had a better education talking to this prepper while prepping samples than in many of my classes.
He was of the opinion Republicans were closer to Libertarians than Democrats. His opinion was that a bloated government apparatus that is built to help people can be hijacked for evil. The twin towers were hit not long after that and we were embroiled in a new spate of Republican driven military adventurism.
I was turned off politics entirely, as Republicans shouldered the mantle of evil for this round, as Democrats just went long with it, or were secretly driving it too.
Obama drew me back in, only to drive me away again, with being a worse warmonger and special interest tool (no bankers went to jail after 2008) than even the Dubya.
Without Bernie, I compromised my libertarian principles, as I thought, the bloated apparatus is there and likely not going anywhere. Better to put a ‘do-gooder’ in charge, rather than anyone else.
It wasn’t until I heard Bernie attacking RFK over CHD onesies and accusing him of the nonsense strawman moniker, antivaxxer, that the true impetus behind his medicare for all plan clicked for me.
If we have universal healthcare, the standard protocols pushed by insurance companies can be codified into law. This means pharmaceuticals can not only be purchased at an exorbitant rate, as medicare now pays 3x the market price of a vaccine dose, but they can become a requirement for treatment, as they already are them in many settings. Why would a covid vaccine be a prerequisite for an organ transplant? They never were in the past.
Each and every American becomes a captive product consumer, with pharmaceutical companies reaping the enormous profits from expanding their market from just those insured, to everyone.
My takeaway?
Now that we have seen under the voluminous skirts of the federal agencies, there are no do-gooders, with a desire to marshal a bloated bureaucracy, only an inexorable drive to tear them down.
In 2016 the only thing I knew about Trump was the phrase, "You're fired," from promos for "The Apprentice".
I was and am strongly pro-worker. Wage earners were and still are vastly underpaid compared to their productivity in this nation and this is largely because oligarchs have gamed congress to bring in vast numbers of foreigners and so that employment laws that should apply to engineers and associate attorneys and a myriad of other professionals do not, because of the loophole for managerial staff. The statistics from 1980 to present show the clear divergence between productivity (up) and wages (flat).
There is not and never has been a shortage of technical workers in the USA. H-1B visas are completely unnecessary. If these folks are the super geniuses of foreign countries, then employers shouldn't mind there being a $400,000 minimum annual salary for any worker brought in on an H-1B.
Anyway, I could never bring myself to vote for a person who seemed to enjoy firing employees with such relish. So "The Apprentice" worked against him in my case.
I strongly opposed Obama's personal mandate (if I'm unemployed I should have a choice how to spend my limited money and their claim that there's public support is BS for recently employed). And his Clean Air Plan was a verbatim copy from the anti-human NRDC which seeks to destroy civilization.
So, while I didn't vote for Trump (certainly didn't vote for Clinton) I was pretty happily oblivious during Trump's first term, because nothing was going wrong and some things got better. I voted for him the second time.
Then Biden happened. Oh my.
Trump became a life preserver in a storm tossed sea. And once I paid a bit more attention, he now seems like a pretty decent human being with some irritating quirks. Gee, he's human.
Not only did I never watch The apprentice, I never watched Sex in the City either. But I came to believe Trump is the real deal early in the 2016 campaign, and have continue to think so since. Without him our country would be circling the Marxist drain.
For those who have never watched this show, please understand it is a show and is marketed and at times you will HATE Trump for his choices. It's really frustrating when you think he is being an asshole. It is television after all. Still, Celebrity Apprentice used to make me so angry sometimes. 🤣
I never cared much for these shows back then. Preferred LOST or 24.
It’s like a time capsule. Trump is Trump. He’s the same as he is 20 years later. It’s remarkable. He was a celebrity back then and they turned him into a villain. It’s absolutely scandalous how poorly they’ve treated him.
Perhaps more scandalous is that reality shows used to have episodes that were mostly content, rather than rehashing and repeating the same dopey stuff six times per episode.
I never watched the original 'Apprentice' - I was more intrigued with 'Celebrity Apprentice'- but the video of his Season 1 opener is eye & ear catching. He is a masterful showman & businessman.
Very good write up Yuri. I never watched it. In fact, I loathed the Donald assuming he was a grifter of sorts. In 2015 I didn’t know exactly what to make of him. It didn’t take me long to realize that he was the man for the job of POTUS.
The ONLY reason I believed that was because of his plain speak to the media. NO ONE ELSE could have pulled it off. And we were all prisoners because of it. Most people seem to forget just how thick the level of political correctness was in circa 2014 after 8 years of Obama. In The prior 8 with GW he (Bush) was completely cowed by the media. So much so that when DT mentioned that he wanted to build a wall I thought “game over.” So for those with short memories DT said a lot of shit that would have been a death sentence for all other conservative politicians.
And this is why I knew we had to take our chances with him. I lost some faith in him circa 2021/22. Once again, I didn’t know what to make of him. The bullet to the ear cast aside all dispersions. I don’t believe that I was the only one who felt that way. I shudder to think where we would be right now had the Gods seen fit to let it part his skull.
So…..he is no doubt the man for the times. To put it simply; I have no choice but to get behind him (on most issues) because the alternative is UNTHINKABLE. Donald Trump was not the only one to dodge a bullet last July.
well said!
I first became acquainted with Donald Trump via 'The Late Show with David Letterman' circa 1986. My memory is that of Letterman pulling up a desk phone and calling Trump to ask him if he would please take over the renovation of the Wollman Skating Rink in Central Park. Trump agreed. This deal may have already been in the works but it was a plausible & entertaining schtick.
Months later my remembrance is hearing about how Trump got the job done ahead of schedule & under budget. He was a man who got things done & I've been a fan ever since.
The Wollman Skating Rink:
"In 1980 the rink was closed for renovations when its concrete base cracked and buckled. A renovation was expected to cost up to $4.9 million dollars and take 2 years. The typical bidding nightmare took place, work was started but flooding problems and renovation problems soon developed. Are you ready for this? By May of 1986 the project STILL wasn’t done. $12.9 million had been spent, with an additional $2 to $3 million estimated to complete the work by the winter of 1987!!
"Along comes Donald Trump who offered mayor Ed Koch to rebuild Wollman Rink at HIS expense WITHIN 6 MONTHS in return for the leases to operate the rink and an adjacent restaurant to recoup his costs. The final agreement was that the city would reimburse Trump for the costs up to the agreed limit and that he would donate the profits of rink and restaurant to charity and public works. Trump asked his contractors to also do the work WITHOUT MAKING A PROFIT, promising them publicity but not mentioning their contributions to the press afterwards. The work was completed TWO MONTHS ahead of schedule and $750,000 under the estimated costs!!! As part of its agreement with the city, the Trump Organization donated most of the profit to public works, including $50,000 for the rink’s electricity costs, and to charity, among them United Cerebral Palsy, Partnership for the Homeless, and Gay Men’s Health Crisis. But you’ll NEVER hear about ANY OF THIS from the main stream media."
https://drjonsicu.com/the-story-of-donald-trump-and-the-wollman-skating-rink/
Another source:
"Seeds of Donald Trump presidential bid were planted in 1980s ice rink episode"
https://www.heraldnet.com/news/seeds-of-donald-trump-presidential-bid-were-planted-in-1980s-ice-rink-episode/
I've been to that rink. Crazy. I never knew that backstory.
I certainly could be wrong about the David Letterman/phone bit but the essence of whatever connection those 2 had in relation to the skating rink stuck in my mind.
I also disliked him, and what I saw as his ill gotten fame, intensely, so I never watched the Apprentice. However, I didn't really start to appreciate him until late on election night, 2020. I didn't yet entirely realize Bernie had berned his followers more than anyone else. He wasted our time and our money on a fake revolution. His erratic and absurd condemnations of certain billionaires now, despite Gates, Soros, Bezos, etc. having their hands behind the curtain for years, only cements my suspicions that he was 'sheep-dogging', or attempting to sheepdog, people for the DNC, into Hillary's corrupt embrace.
Watch any recent brutal BLM roundup of supposedly protected wild mustangs and burros and you can see how the DNC treated Bernie supporters, especially during the Nevada caucus. Anyone who watched it on telescope knew that accusations of violence against Bernie supporters were projections from the DNC. Those who didn't automatically concede they would be "With Her" were hounded by metaphorical men on motorcycles and in helicopters, whether they broke their legs or ran themselves to death in their efforts to resist. We were labeled misogynists, bros, women only interested in getting laid, purity obsessed, morons who don't know that big banks are actually necessary for society to exist, sore losers and whatever other disparaging remarks they could toss. We were relegated to the deplorable bin with Trump supporters, so why not join him?
By the time Election Day 2016, rolled around, I disliked Hillary more than any candidate, past or present. After a replay of that, in 2020, I voted for Jill Stein, instead of Trump, as a protest vote, as I had in 2016. During Trump's first term, in which his kids ran rampant, I had not been impressed, and I could not bring myself to become a 'Trumper'.
And yet, something about that election did not sit right with me. I watched late into the night and it seemed inexorably to be going in the Trump direction, much like the Democratic primary in 2016 was strongly headed in favor of Bernie or the lead up to the 'hanging chads' fiasco in Florida in 2000 seemed to portend a Gore victory. Those impressions are not an endorsement of those candidates, in hindsight, just an observation. However much I may dislike any particular candidate, I value the strength in maintaining democratic principles to trump the pain of defeat. Losing well must be as much a part of democracy as winning without gloating.
Anyway, when I got up the next morning and heard that Biden had won, it was decidedly weird. I hadn't realized until that moment that I had been rooting for Trump. It was a surreal feeling. Now, that I see what he has been capable of this time around, I would absolutely have voted for him in 2020, not that it would have mattered. The mail in ballots, coupled with the shoddy electronic votings machines and the imposition of severe (and unnecessary) covid restrictions, all of which were deemed more important than election integrity, yet simultaneously touted as safeguards of democracy? In what fantasy universe?
That 2020 election was decidedly unsettling. If they had just let him win, or left him alone during Biden's tragic four years, the DNC reputation may not be in complete tatters. Democracy would have been served, instead of subverted, and many Democrats would still be Democrats. Watching them shred the Constitution to 'save Democracy' was the final straw for many, no doubt.
Those now protesting Trump and setting Teslas on fire smacks of the same weirdness, ie not entirely genuine. Some of them are likely misguided people who think they are fighting the good fight. They don't understand that they are hapless pawns.
The rest? Who knows?
Thank you for the reply Gadfly.
I had another reply earlier from someone I assume was from the right. There’s a noticeable number of them out there who are just too pure to care. I was decidedly harsh as he kept up the “your vote doesn’t matter” “voting for the lesser of two evil” schtick. I was like no fucking shit asshole.
The Left scares the hell out of me. I don’t believe we would have made it another 4 years and even if we did the elections would be so fixed by then it wouldn’t have mattered. Trump’s win in 2024, like the bullet to the ear, seem to have had divine intervention. I am not a religious guy but it does give me pause. Anyhow those people who spout the stuff the person I mentioned really roil my mind. No Trump is not perfect but by God he’s not the same as the people who govern from the Left.
Have a great weekend. Glad you made the switch!
Tl;dr
I agree. They are frightening on the left.
A bit of further background.
Though raised a Democrat, as an eleven year old, I took the libertarian quiz at a table outside a polling station when i went with my mom to vote. She would bring me into the booth and have me mark the ballot for her.
I told her libertarian seemed the most fair stance. She said that they do not the believe in laws or even stop signs. I replied that that seemed illogical and therefore unlikely. But, it being the 80s, and having little resources to explore their proposed policies, I dropped it.
In college, one of my lab managers was a staunch libertarian who repacked his own ammunition. I probably had a better education talking to this prepper while prepping samples than in many of my classes.
He was of the opinion Republicans were closer to Libertarians than Democrats. His opinion was that a bloated government apparatus that is built to help people can be hijacked for evil. The twin towers were hit not long after that and we were embroiled in a new spate of Republican driven military adventurism.
I was turned off politics entirely, as Republicans shouldered the mantle of evil for this round, as Democrats just went long with it, or were secretly driving it too.
Obama drew me back in, only to drive me away again, with being a worse warmonger and special interest tool (no bankers went to jail after 2008) than even the Dubya.
Without Bernie, I compromised my libertarian principles, as I thought, the bloated apparatus is there and likely not going anywhere. Better to put a ‘do-gooder’ in charge, rather than anyone else.
It wasn’t until I heard Bernie attacking RFK over CHD onesies and accusing him of the nonsense strawman moniker, antivaxxer, that the true impetus behind his medicare for all plan clicked for me.
If we have universal healthcare, the standard protocols pushed by insurance companies can be codified into law. This means pharmaceuticals can not only be purchased at an exorbitant rate, as medicare now pays 3x the market price of a vaccine dose, but they can become a requirement for treatment, as they already are them in many settings. Why would a covid vaccine be a prerequisite for an organ transplant? They never were in the past.
Each and every American becomes a captive product consumer, with pharmaceutical companies reaping the enormous profits from expanding their market from just those insured, to everyone.
My takeaway?
Now that we have seen under the voluminous skirts of the federal agencies, there are no do-gooders, with a desire to marshal a bloated bureaucracy, only an inexorable drive to tear them down.
I have never watched The Apprentice. But I did fire amazon prime.
I started college in 2004. It doesn't seem that long ago to me but watching this makes 2004 look like an entirely different world. And it was.
In 2016 the only thing I knew about Trump was the phrase, "You're fired," from promos for "The Apprentice".
I was and am strongly pro-worker. Wage earners were and still are vastly underpaid compared to their productivity in this nation and this is largely because oligarchs have gamed congress to bring in vast numbers of foreigners and so that employment laws that should apply to engineers and associate attorneys and a myriad of other professionals do not, because of the loophole for managerial staff. The statistics from 1980 to present show the clear divergence between productivity (up) and wages (flat).
There is not and never has been a shortage of technical workers in the USA. H-1B visas are completely unnecessary. If these folks are the super geniuses of foreign countries, then employers shouldn't mind there being a $400,000 minimum annual salary for any worker brought in on an H-1B.
Anyway, I could never bring myself to vote for a person who seemed to enjoy firing employees with such relish. So "The Apprentice" worked against him in my case.
I strongly opposed Obama's personal mandate (if I'm unemployed I should have a choice how to spend my limited money and their claim that there's public support is BS for recently employed). And his Clean Air Plan was a verbatim copy from the anti-human NRDC which seeks to destroy civilization.
So, while I didn't vote for Trump (certainly didn't vote for Clinton) I was pretty happily oblivious during Trump's first term, because nothing was going wrong and some things got better. I voted for him the second time.
Then Biden happened. Oh my.
Trump became a life preserver in a storm tossed sea. And once I paid a bit more attention, he now seems like a pretty decent human being with some irritating quirks. Gee, he's human.
Not only did I never watch The apprentice, I never watched Sex in the City either. But I came to believe Trump is the real deal early in the 2016 campaign, and have continue to think so since. Without him our country would be circling the Marxist drain.
For those who have never watched this show, please understand it is a show and is marketed and at times you will HATE Trump for his choices. It's really frustrating when you think he is being an asshole. It is television after all. Still, Celebrity Apprentice used to make me so angry sometimes. 🤣
hate the character, not the actor?
Hmm, good question
I never cared much for these shows back then. Preferred LOST or 24.
It’s like a time capsule. Trump is Trump. He’s the same as he is 20 years later. It’s remarkable. He was a celebrity back then and they turned him into a villain. It’s absolutely scandalous how poorly they’ve treated him.
Perhaps more scandalous is that reality shows used to have episodes that were mostly content, rather than rehashing and repeating the same dopey stuff six times per episode.
I never watched the original 'Apprentice' - I was more intrigued with 'Celebrity Apprentice'- but the video of his Season 1 opener is eye & ear catching. He is a masterful showman & businessman.