Grifting USA: Snake oil salespeople rule the stage at the RNC

[applegrove]

Grifting USA: Snake oil salespeople rule the stage at the RNC

by Amanda Marcotte at Salon

http://www.salon.com/2016/07/21/grifting_usa_snake_oil_salespeople_rule_the_stage_at_the_rnc/

"SNIP.............

Perhaps the reason is that three out of four of these people — more than the pundits, family members or career politicians otherwise populating the stage — represent the true heart and soul of the Trump campaign. With the exception of Collins — who didn’t endorse Trump — and whose presence simply makes no sense at all, what these speakers have in common is a certain affection for the hucksters and grifters of the world.

Ruffian is a casino owner, albeit a more successful one than his buddy, Trump. Bondi ostensibly has a respectable job, as the attorney general of Florida. But she is also in serious political trouble, as it came out months ago that she dropped a lawsuit against Trump University, one Trump’s most obnoxious scams, after Trump donated $25,000 to her campaign. And Van Etten is not really an entrepreneur. She’s a grifter who made her money running a multilevel marketing scam selling useless vitamin supplements.

Between these three, we get a full eyeball of what Trump means by making America “great” again, which apparently means making America safe for sleazy operators who would rather make their money through grifts and bribery than through a hard day’s work.

There’s something telling about the Trump campaign’s willingness to trot out the kind of bottom-feeders that most Republican politicians politely pretend are not the backbone of their party. Perhaps it is a sign of unawareness, a demonstration that Trump’s people have no idea that there’s something unsavory about being unsavory. Or perhaps it’s a savvy move, to populate the byways of a respectable institution of the RNC with snake oil salesman, in order to make their candidate seem normal instead of what he is, a lazy reality TV personality who is so bad at business that his various ventures have performed less well than putting his money in basic investment account.



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