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Trump’s election victory in 2016 came as a shock to most. Opinion polls predicted a clear victory for Hillary Clinton, who also received 3 million more votes, but still lost as a result of the American electoral system.
In January 2017, the 70-year-old was able to move into the White House. Half a year later, Melania Trump, 46, and Barron, the couple’s 10-year-old son, followed him.
On the campaign trail, Trump vowed to make “America great again,” but has come under fire for turning the country into a television show with his unbridled self-praise, fierce temper, unpredictable leadership style and easy handling of the truth.
Born for wealth
Donald John Trump was born on June 14, 1946 in Queens, New York. The father, wealthy real estate mogul Fred Trump, was the son of German immigrants, his mother Mary Anne MacLeod was born in Scotland.
Thanks to advances in inheritance and funds, he became a millionaire at age eight and lived a sheltered life in a home where his father was a dominant figure.
– That’s why I’m so “screwed up”, because I had a father who put a lot of pressure on me, Trump wrote in the book “Think Big” in 2007.
To force some discipline on 13-year-old Donald, his father sent him to the New York Military Academy.
He went on to study economics at the Wharton School of Business in Pennsylvania, where he finished with a bachelor’s degree. Trump’s attorney later threatened legal action if his ratings were published.
Military service avoided
While studying, he was called up for military service, but eventually got a health exemption.
From the beginning, Trump has painted a picture of himself as a successful and exceptionally skilled businessman.
After graduation, he joined his father’s real estate company and moved to Manhattan, where he quickly became a popular guest at the city’s nightclubs.
The real estate agency had a maximum of 14,000 rental homes in New York, but had problems and had to reach an agreement with the authorities when it was learned that they would not rent them to blacks.
Casinos and golf facilities
In 1974, Donald became president of the company and renamed it the Trump Organization, which eventually focused on hotels, casinos, and golf facilities.
Nine years later, the 58-story Trump Tower with luxury shops and apartments was completed in Manhattan, and the following year, the Trump Plaza hotel and casino in Atlantic City also opened. Trump eventually also built the Trump Taj Mahal, but both casinos eventually went bankrupt.
Trump also tried his hand at the entertainment industry early on, first on Broadway in the early 1970s, without success.
She later hosted the Miss USA and Miss Universe awards, but it was only when she got her own television show “The Apprentice” in 2004 that she truly became a familiar face to American viewers.
The show was about letting inexperienced entrepreneurial talents give it a try and then kicking everyone who fell short of Trump’s standard.
The acclaimed insults
Layoffs of employees have also come at a breakneck pace in the White House, where chiefs of staff and communications, security advisers, ministers and others have barely had time to sit down, before they have been sent to the door after a few minutes. months.
Trump himself has spent much of his time on his own golf course and has let the insults come from former employees, the media, political opponents, critics, Mexicans and Muslims in the form of a Twitter message stream.
Gave back the world
Surrounded by advisers like Steve Bannon, Roger Stone and John Bolton, he has also consulted with the outside world, withdrew the United States from the Iran nuclear deal amid protests from European allies, raised doubts about NATO cooperation, and withdrew the United States from the Paris Agreement.
He also cut all aid to the Palestinians, moved the US embassy to Jerusalem, recognized the Israeli occupation of the Golan Heights and presented a peace plan that does not take the Palestinians into account.
At the same time, Trump has waged a trade war against China, Europe, Mexico and Canada. He also withdrew support from the World Health Organization (WHO) amid the corona pandemic.
Silence at the gates
At the same time, he quietly entered the doors of Russian President Vladimir Putin, spoke warmly about North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un, and praised right-wing populist leaders such as Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines, Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil and Viktor Orbán of Hungary.
At home, Trump has followed a well-known conservative recipe and provided tax breaks for the wealthiest, as Republican Presidents like Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush have done before him.
Mass death
When the corona pandemic hit the United States in full force in the spring of 2020, Trump publicly dismissed it as a mild flu. The US health system was unable to cope with the crisis and Trump was reluctant to shut down the country to slow the spread of the infection.
In a few months, the United States became the most affected country in the world with more than 8 million infected and more than 240,000 deaths. Business after business had to close, the economy contracted dramatically, millions were thrown into unemployment, and Trump’s popularity waned.
Tax disclosure
When the New York Times snapped up its tax returns for the past 20 years, it emerged that Trump’s company was largely in deficit and struggling with huge debts, and that despite his self-proclaimed billionaire status, he has barely paid income tax.
Support also didn’t increase when he, after resorting to infection control measures and nearly intimidating Biden and others into wearing face masks, became infected with corona and ended up in the hospital.
Trump blamed China where the virus was first detected. He also tried to paint a picture of Biden and the Democrats as dangerous socialists who wanted to rob Americans of the last vestiges of freedom.
Black lives matter
The president’s apparent unwillingness to distance himself from America’s growing number of armed militias, right-wing extremist and racist groups, and conspiracy theories didn’t help give him four new years either.
Nor did it change its message of law and order when the United States in 2020 was rocked by new cases of police violence, which among other things resulted in a strong growth of the Black Lives Matter movement, mass demonstrations and riots in several American cities.
Now the voters have presented their verdict on the president and, unsurprisingly, he is protesting strongly.
His allegations of systematic voter fraud have been rejected by the United States Election Commission.