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gulliver

(13,181 posts)
Fri Dec 23, 2022, 01:22 PM Dec 2022

The Final Campaign Inside Donald Trump's sad, lonely, thirsty, broken, basically pretend run...

Donald Trump was calling from Mar-a-Lago. It was a Monday afternoon in the middle of December. He was at his desk in what is known as 45 Office, a room on the second floor, above what is known as the Donald J. Trump Grand Ballroom, 20,000 square feet festooned with 16 sedan-size crystal chandeliers and what he claims to be $7 million of gold leaf.

Members of the Mar-a-Lago Club, who pay $200,000 initiation fees and annual fees of $14,000, may use the space, at an additional cost, for “important occasions that inspire, enchant, and exceed every expectation.” At the galas and bat mitzvahs and weekend weddings, Trump often wanders in. How could he resist a room like this? He smiles and waves. He joins groomsmen for photos. He steps onto the dance floor with the bride. Dark suit jacket, no tie, shirt unbuttoned, red MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN hat on his head. He tilts his face to the strobe lights and pumps his fists in the air. Sometimes he grabs a microphone and gives a speech. He knows what the people who show up here want.

It was in that optimistic spirit, 28 days ago, that the former president, impeached and voted out of office and impeached again, amid multiple state and federal investigations, under threat of indictment and arrest, on the verge of a congressional-committee verdict that would recommend four criminal charges to the Feds over his incitement of a mob that attacked the U.S. Capitol and threatened to hang his vice-president in a failed attempt to stop the certification of the 2020 election results, announced his third presidential campaign. Since then, he has barely set foot outside the perimeter of Mar-a-Lago. For 28 days, in fact, he has not left the state of Florida at all.

He is sensitive about this. He does not like what it suggests. So he does not accept the premise. “Sometimes I don’t even stay at Mar-a-Lago,” he told me. What do you mean you don’t stay there, I asked. Where do you stay? “I stay here,” he said, “but I am outside of Mar-a-Lago quite a bit. I’m always largely outside of Mar-a-Lago at meetings and various other things and events. I’m down in Miami. I go to Miami, I go to different places in Florida.”

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/donald-trump-running-for-president-2024.html

This is a long article, but a great read, imo. Full disclosure, I read it because Maggie Haberman pointed it out on Twitter.

Tidbit: I didn't know Kimberly Guilfoyle was once married to Gavin Newsom.

17 replies = new reply since forum marked as read
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The Final Campaign Inside Donald Trump's sad, lonely, thirsty, broken, basically pretend run... (Original Post) gulliver Dec 2022 OP
It's firewalled, unfortunately. Could you post a few paragraphs? Ocelot II Dec 2022 #1
Added the first four paragraphs gulliver Dec 2022 #3
Archived usonian Dec 2022 #2
Thanks! Ocelot II Dec 2022 #4
Dear Goddess, that was one ugly, depressing read. niyad Dec 2022 #12
You actually READ it? usonian Dec 2022 #13
It was so awful, I just kept reading. Rather like a novel that is so bad, you know niyad Dec 2022 #15
Your last paragraph!!!! dmr Dec 2022 #16
Thank you. niyad Dec 2022 #17
LOL, $7 million of gold leaf. Yeah, sure: tanyev Dec 2022 #5
Clearly A Made Up Number ProfessorGAC Dec 2022 #14
Mar-a-Lago, or Branson MO East gratuitous Dec 2022 #6
Brilliant writing by Olivia Nuzzi. Highly recommended. Florida Retiree experiences... Hekate Dec 2022 #7
I like NEWSOM's bite but marrying GILFOYLE raises a question of judgment. UTUSN Dec 2022 #8
I'd hate to be judged by my ex-spouse Hekate Dec 2022 #9
Me, too GenThePerservering Dec 2022 #11
Reality bites -- hard Hekate Dec 2022 #10

gulliver

(13,181 posts)
3. Added the first four paragraphs
Fri Dec 23, 2022, 01:45 PM
Dec 2022

I'm not a subscriber, so I must have just hit the soft paywall discussed in Post 2?

usonian

(9,810 posts)
2. Archived
Fri Dec 23, 2022, 01:32 PM
Dec 2022
https://archive.ph/sb0Mp

Some sites keep a "soft paywall" by storing cookies in your browser that let you see a few articles and then demand money. I use an extension on Firefox called "Bypass Paywalls Clean" (sp?) that clears cookies and so forth. YMMV
Right now, using Opera browser because it prints to pdf much nicer than Firefox (are you listening, Mozilla?). Has built-in ad-blocker and usable though not ultra-safe VPN.

niyad

(113,325 posts)
12. Dear Goddess, that was one ugly, depressing read.
Fri Dec 23, 2022, 08:22 PM
Dec 2022

Apart from the donald delusions. . melania beautiful? ivanka responsible for child tax credit?


I need a shower, and a drink. A BIG one!

usonian

(9,810 posts)
13. You actually READ it?
Fri Dec 23, 2022, 08:56 PM
Dec 2022

I just applied my computer knowledge to help a DU'er bypass a paywall.

"You know who" is on my trash/block list.

For unknown reasons, my trash list doesn't seem to work on the DU home page, so I go there when I feel like it. I may drop the trash filter when indictments come in (HINT! HINT!)

I don't use TV, and haven't even heard that whiney voice more than about 20 seconds EVER.

My strategy to prevent mind pollution.

My daughter was visiting and wanted to see the soccer final., so I found all the bits and pieces of the old TV, scattered around the home ( except for the remote ... ) I got it over the air from 30 miles away. ON FOX!

I had some rocket-propelled egg nog! Thanks for the suggestion.

niyad

(113,325 posts)
15. It was so awful, I just kept reading. Rather like a novel that is so bad, you know
Fri Dec 23, 2022, 10:40 PM
Dec 2022

you should just toss it, but keep hoping. SURELY it will get better. I mean, it was published!

Besides, how else would I have known that princess sparkle pony and their children were with plastic ken-doll in Qatar, before, apparently, princess took the daughter and went to Paris without plasticman?

ProfessorGAC

(65,058 posts)
14. Clearly A Made Up Number
Fri Dec 23, 2022, 09:20 PM
Dec 2022

Gold is trading at $1,800 per Troy ounce.
$7 million would be 3,888 ounces or nearly 325 pounds. (147kg)
Gold leaf is about 0.2mm thick. At 19.3g/ml it would take 10cm by 5cm to get 1ml, or that mass. 52 of these would be a kg.
So, 147kg would require 765 of these 10 by 5 rectangles.
This would be 76.5 meters by 38.25 meters.
235 feet by 117.5 feet or 26,000 square feet of gold leaf.
Even if the labor cost was 50%, it's still 13,000 square feet of gold leaf. Over 30% of an acre.
Those chandeliers may be big, but not that big. He just made that number up.

gratuitous

(82,849 posts)
6. Mar-a-Lago, or Branson MO East
Fri Dec 23, 2022, 02:21 PM
Dec 2022

"He knows what the people who show up here want." Another tired, recycled, flaccid performance of the justifiably forgotten greatest grievances.

Hekate

(90,708 posts)
7. Brilliant writing by Olivia Nuzzi. Highly recommended. Florida Retiree experiences...
Fri Dec 23, 2022, 03:40 PM
Dec 2022

…Death by a thousand paper-cuts, just waiting for the coup de grace with a letter-opener.

Absolutely pathetic.


Edited to add, from the article:

“He just goes, plays golf, comes back, and fucks off. He has retreated to the golf course and to Mar-a-Lago,” one adviser said. “His world has gotten much smaller. His world is so, so small.”

He is sensitive about smallness. His entire life, he has rejected smallness. Tall buildings, long ties, big head, big mouth, big swings, big league. “When he was in New York in 2016, the whole world was coming to him. Now we’ve got the Villages, and it shows,” the adviser said, referring to the famous Central Florida retirement community.

Hekate

(90,708 posts)
10. Reality bites -- hard
Fri Dec 23, 2022, 05:05 PM
Dec 2022
On the day he announced his candidacy this past November, the air was heavy with oleander and snipped greenery and sea mist colliding with mold and wood polish and hotel soap and the metallic vapor of Diet Coke and the alcoholic ferment of generations of cougars in Chanel No. 5. The floor was staged for something between a rally and a cocktail party. Rows of tables and chairs formed a press filing in the back, then the risers for the TV networks, then the red velvet rope. “The room was packed,” Trump told me. “Sold out.” Tickets were not sold at all. Guests were invited. The room was full, but it was not at capacity. Chairs remained empty, some more glaringly than others.

“There was a lot of media there. We maxed out,” Trump told me. “We had so many from the media we were not able to let them come into the room. They were outside on the lawn.” At MAGA rallies in recent years, and since the end of his presidency in particular, the press pen has been an odd sight. The identifiable faces from the major networks and mainstream publications show up here and there but not en masse as before. Still a zoo, different captives. The area behind the metal barricades is full of far-right celebrities. When Trump asks his fans to turn around and boo the fake news, they are yelling at themselves. In the Grand Ballroom, Sebastian Gorka stood tall on the press riser, his hair sprayed to the high heavens, arms outstretched, phone angled just so. He flashed a hideous grin and moved slowly in a circle. An epic panoramic selfie. A few feet away, Mike “the MyPillow Guy” Lindell filmed a stand-up.
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