Trump's money man is Bob Mercer. Trump's entire populism shtick is the result of polling by Pat Caddell, the Democratic pollster who helped get Jimmy Carter elected. Mercer picked Trump to be his "Mr. Smith" and introduced him to Caddell.
Trump is a complete phony. He doesn't believe a word of what he says. It's just a sales pitch.
Bob has a $2.7 million model train in the basement of his estate on Long Island:
Robert Mercer's House (Google Maps). Robert Mercer is a computer scientist and CEO of Renaissance Technologies hedge fund. Mercer owns this home, called 'Owl's Nest'.
virtualglobetrotting.com
Bob owns a $90 million yacht ("Sea Owl") with a full time crew of 18. The "enchanting" design was inspired by Peter Pan:
View attachment 62890
Poor Bob, his "old" 43 meter yacht was just not big enough, so he had to have a new one built:
>>>
Soon after starting construction of their previous
Sea Owl (now
Shadowl), a 43m
Burger of which Winch Design designed the interior, the owners realised
the need for a bigger boat to accommodate their growing family . . .<<<
So, where was I going with this? Oh yeah, cognitive dissonance. For those who believe Trump is a great populist hero, try this on for size:
>>>Until Election Day in 2016, Mercer and Hanley—two of the richest men in America—paid Caddell [the democratic pollster who helped get Jimmy Carter elected] to keep collecting polling data that enabled them to exploit the public’s resentment of élites such as themselves. . . . In 2014, Caddell and two partners went public with what they called the Candidate Smith project, which promoted data suggesting that the public wanted a “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington” figure—an outsider—as President. . . .
“Pat Caddell is like an Old Testament prophet,” Bannon said. “He’s been talking about alienation of the voters for twenty-five years, and people didn’t pay attention—but he’s a brilliant guy, and he nailed it.” The political consultant and strategist Roger Stone, who is a longtime Trump confidant, was fascinated by the research, and he forwarded a memo about it to Trump. Caddell said that he spoke with Trump about “some of the data,” but noted, “With Trump, it’s all instinct—he is not exactly a deep-dive thinker.” . . .
The Mercers redirected their Cruz super
PAC to support Trump, and gave two million dollars to it. According to one Trump adviser, there were strings attached to the donation. He says that, two weeks before Cruz dropped out, Bannon urged the Trump campaign to talk to Alexander Nix, Cambridge Analytica’s C.E.O., about hiring the company. . . . Later that summer, Manafort was forced to resign, after the press reported his links to Ukrainian oligarchs.
In the vacuum, the Mercers soon established control over the Trump campaign. . . .
On December 3rd, the Mercer family hosted a victory celebration at Owl’s Nest—a costume party with a heroes-and-villains theme. . . .
Mercer made her influence felt. Her pick for national-security adviser was Michael Flynn, and Trump chose him for the job. (Flynn lasted only a month, after he lied about having spoken with the Russian Ambassador before taking office.) More important, several people to whom Mercer is very close—including Bannon and Conway—have become some of the most powerful figures in the world.<<<
The basic problem is that *ss-hats like Mercer have no stake in the well being of the country.
Trump is nothing more than a well-oiled con man. His "populism" is the result of polling, not some great belief in the average American.
