Some time back in the late 1970s, author Barrett wrote in the Village Voice that he had got access to an NYC municipal office to review files about Donald Trump's recent dealings in city real estate. He had told no one he was going there; he thought the only person that knew he was there was the lady that had directed him to that office.
The single phone in the room rang, & a curious Barrett answered. "This is Donald Trump. I heard you're writing a book about me!"
Barrett later wrote that Trump did have some sixth sense (& a la Oscar Levant, Trump evidently lacked the other five) of what any opposition to him was doing & often before they it did it. But as harsh & incisive as The Greatest Show is, unlike so many would-be biographers, Barrett was never sued by Trump; Trump only offered Barrett a better apartment. Trump just could not comprehend why Barrett would want to live in Brownsville Brooklyn.
The latter move turns out to be maybe the real "secret" to Trump's "success": Always try to co-opt the opposition. Barrett's book, first published in 1999, when Trump was jockeying for a pole position in the Reform Party, is replete with accounts of Trump doing just that: Co-opting the opposition. Which turned out to have few but always important occasions for success. Trump was incapable of the faintest effort to understand an opposition: He was completely lost in the stuffy world of Upper West Side Manhattan community activism.
Barrett's is the fullest fountain of info on Trump. & If his questionable early dealings & later extraordinary losses remain unknown or no longer matter to Trump opponents & supporters, we are left with this still-shining legacy: Trump "was child of the moment, with neither a respect for the past nor an instinct for the future. All he knew was what he needed right then."
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