1) he is not an accomplished developer/owner of trophy properties. He IS the most accomplished deployer of the bankruptcy code of anyone I know of. The most accomplished screwer of stakeholders of anyone I know of. His one great, very public, development accomplishment was the Central Park Zoo 30+ years ago. He got accolades, which of course went to his head, and next thing you know he’s all over the place, including acquiring and bankrupting an airline, losing access to every bank not called Deutsche Bank, and his business teetered on collapse by the early 90s. He took a branding deal in desperation for cash flow. And thus began his career in branding trophy properties, which ties in directly to his real talent - self promotion.

2) your take on his reality tv accomplishments is spot on. Again, ties perfectly with his brilliance as a self promoter. That’s his talent. His only talent.

3) which ties in directly to his political success. He buried neither Bush nor Clinton. He never received popular majorities. But he is a brilliant demagogue, who knows how to employ populism to appeal to masses feeling threatened, and to exacerbate that by scapegoating and intensifying societal divisions. Which helped him win pluralities in ‘16. He’s never gotten a whiff of an electoral majority.

4) obviously you’re entitled to your view of his policies, but I disagree completely. I don’t view him as a conservative. He’s transactional on his policy positions. He’s not consistently for free markets. He’s a nationalist. Trumpism is it’s own form of nationalism - 0 sum, “I only win when everyone else loses”. Rising tides lifting all ships is foreign to it. It is the birthplace of “alternative facts”. It’s the reason that Trumpism widens fissures, domestically and abroad.

Among my disappointments with Biden is feedback from allies about lack of coordination, particularly in the exit from Afghanistan. So, I have more disappointments with than applause for the Biden Admin, that’s true. But my reasons for never being willing to vote for Trump, or probably any Trumpist candidate, are entirely about policy. I don’t wish Trump ill. I wish he’d fade away. I don’t relish criminal actions against him in the least. I kind of dread it.

That’s without even getting into the post 2020 election debacle. I know you’re pretty much on board with the Mollie Hemingway narrative, which I’m adamantly not, so I’ll table that for another thread.