If You're Upset About Yesterday's Events, You Should Look Back At Trump's History Of Cons

By Susan Wright | 9:00 AM on May 05, 2017

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President Donald Trump gestures after speaking at the National Rifle Association-ILA Leadership Forum, Friday, April 28, 2017, in Atlanta. The NRA is holding its 146th annual meetings and exhibits forum at the Georgia World Congress Center. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)

So a healthcare bill was passed by the House yesterday that is little better than a whitewashed version of what it is supposed to replace – Obamacare – and Trump held a photo-op to make a big deal out of signing a religious liberties executive order that was so inconsequential that the ACLU passed up a chance to sue a Republican.

It’s like we’re dealing with one, massive con.

Well, “like” isn’t the right word. In fact, leave “like” out.

We’re dealing with one, massive con.

Had voters looked to the past, they’d have some idea of what kind of future we’d have with a Trump presidency.

An interesting anecdote was brought up on Twitter yesterday, taken from a Washington Post article from 2016.

At a Manhattan charity event in 1996, a ribbon-cutting ceremony was conducted by a charity called the Association to Benefit Children.

They were celebrating the opening of a new nursery school intended to benefit toddlers with AIDS.

Of the honored guests at the event were Frank and Kathy Lee Gifford, who were major donors to the project, the Mayor (at that time) Rudy Giuliani, the former mayor, David Dinkins, Abigail Disney, another donor, and a seat was saved for Steven Fisher, a developer who had also donated quite generously to help see the facility built.

And then Donald Trump crashed the party.

“Nobody knew he was coming,” said Abigail Disney, another donor sitting on the dais. “There’s this kind of ruckus at the door, and I don’t know what was going on, and in comes Donald Trump. [He] just gets up on the podium and sits down.”

Trump was not a major donor. He was not a donor, period. He’d never given a dollar to the nursery or the Association to Benefit Children, according to Gretchen Buchenholz, the charity’s executive director then and now.

Rather than make a scene, they kicked into the program, with little kids singing and photographers snapping pictures, and Donald Trump standing in a man’s spot who actually had given of his own funds to support the cause.

Afterward, Disney and Buchenholz recalled, Trump left without offering an explanation. Or a donation. Fisher was stuck in the audience. The charity spent months trying to repair its relationship with him.

“I mean, what’s wrong with you, man?” Disney recalled thinking of Trump, when it was over.

Then, as now, it’s all about the image. Trump needed people to believe he was a great philanthropist, just as he now wants people to believe he’s achieving all these wonderful things and keeping all his campaign promises.

Given the fiasco of yesterday, I’m wondering how many are coming to this slow realization of just how hollow Trump’s promises are, and thinking about all the stories of Trump’s past cons?

It should be a lot.