Jerry Kremer

Trump and Iran: grin and bear them

Posted

Like the miserable winter we suffered through, anticipating the warm weather, the latest challenges that we have to endure, at least for the next few months, are the candidacy of Donald Trump and the battle over the proposed nuclear agreement with Iran.

There’s no arguing that Trump is a successful businessman who has parlayed his name and his smarts into a major business empire. Love him or hate him, he has seduced many big-money people to invest in major projects that bear his name. Trump has become the real estate equivalent of McDonalds.

Making the most of his name and visibility, he has had his own television show, various products that bear his name, and a dozen other things that the public knows nothing about. As any successful business grows, the ego of the promoter grows with it. Not content to be just a well-known player in the financial world, Trump has now decided that he should be the next leader of the greatest country in the world.

There are good and bad things about his candidacy. Like it or not, he has forced the 15 other declared Republican presidential candidates to begin focusing on issues, which is what campaigns are supposed to be about. Up to now, the potential nominees have been sticking to meaningless platitudes and have been afraid to offend the Republican right wing. They have avoided saying anything about immigration, the Confederate flag, the economy and anything else controversial. Trump is right when he calls the group “wishy-washy,” because they really are paralyzed. So give him credit for stimulating some controversy in these very early stages of the campaign.

On the other side of the coin, I believe Trump is doing a lot of damage to the brand that he’s created for himself and his family. The worst thing that can happen to any public figure is going from being listened to and taken seriously to being the punchline of a joke.

Page 1 / 2