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Title: Trump is the white Don King
Source:
Politico
URL Source: http://www.politico.com/story/2016/ ... white-don-king-219601?lo=ut_a1
Published: Feb 22, 2016
Author: Glenn Thrush
Post Date: 2016-02-22 07:25:00 by Willie Green
Keywords: None
Views: 865
Comments: 6
There’s probably no man alive better suited to put Donald Trump on the couch than that other self-promoting “Bonfire of the Vanities” character who dominated the tabloids in the 1980s: Al Sharpton. The two men are very different politically, of course, but they are – to an extent both quietly admit to friends – salt-and-pepper, Queens-Brooklyn doppelgangers. Back in the 1980s, while Donald Trump was struggling with his casino business but prospering on the front pages of the Post and News, Sharpton was a 309-pound street preacher who wore velvet track suits, gold rope chains and a Trump-like ambition to eventually gain real power. At half his ‘80s weight and with tons less political baggage now, Sharpton has succeeded in reinventing himself as a TV personality and a first-among-equals African-American community leader with Barack Obama’s ear – and an iPhone full of emails this week from Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders supporters begging for his endorsement before the South Carolina primary. Sharpton has no intention of pulling the trigger immediately, though that could change if she blows out Sanders in South Carolina this week; he took his time in “backing” (but not officially endorsing) Obama in the primaries over Clinton eight years ago, claiming caustically that “Hillary Clinton has never done nothing for us” – a reference he says was meant only to refer to his organization, the Harlem-based National Action Network, but others interpreted as a broader rebuke of her attitude towards blacks. But he’s nothing if not acutely conscious of his leverage – and thinks it would be stupid (he uses the word “preemptive”) to throw away the influence he currently enjoys. Will I endorse sooner or later?” he says, “Yeah.” But as we sat in Sharpton’s small MSNBC office in Rockefeller Center for the latest edition of POLITICO’s “Off Message” podcast, the reverend’s mind was very much on Trump – whom he sees as a menace, but an amusing, familiar menace – a fellow outer-borough hustler who’s not quite a friend, but certainly not an enemy. “I think what he has said has been biased and bigoted, but I don’t know if Donald Trump is really a bigoted guy,” says Sharpton when asked about the reality star’s comments on Mexicans and Muslims. And Sharpton knows exactly who the GOP frontrunner reminds him of – and it’s not Benito Mussolini or Huey Long or George Wallace – it’s a black guy, a motor-mouthed, sprout-haired boxing promoter who befriended Sharpton and brought him into the glamorous, big-money world of Atlantic City prizefighting three decades ago. “The best way I can describe Donald Trump to friends is to say if Don King had been born white he’d be Donald Trump,” says Sharpton with a broadening smile. “Both of them are great self-promoters and great at just continuing to talk even if you’re not talking back at ‘em.” The 61-year-old civil rights leader then launches into a crazy story. King and Trump were friendly, and King suggested the brash developer court Sharpton, in part to improve his relationship with Mike Tyson, who was close to the preacher at the time. “Don King had me fly with him and Trump to Atlantic in Trump’s helicopter, and it was one of the most memorable things in my life to sit on that big, black Trump helicopter… both of them talking nonstop, not listening to each other,” he recalls. “And I'm sitting there. It was probably the longest ride… I ever was on. Both of them shut me up – I haven't been quiet since.” When I ask Sharpton if he actually likes Trump, he shrugs. “I mean, I don’t like what he’s doing. But I don’t dislike him. He’s the kind of personality that is hard to dislike – he’s entertaining, let's put it that way… You’d have to be a New Yorker to understand him.” And that’s when he gets to his keenest observation – the best assessment of Trump’s deepest motivations I’ve yet heard, and one that Beltway pundits who don’t understand the tangled psychological geography of the five boroughs miss: Trump may have been born with millions, and erected huge buildings that bear his name, but he still feels the resentment of a gaudy, new-money outsider who has decided to burn down a Yankee establishment that always viewed him as a garish, grasping joke. “Donald Trump was a Queens guy,” says Sharpton, who hails from Brooklyn’s Brownsville, the city’s toughest neighborhood, a collection of housing projects jammed hard between Queens and the Jamaica Bay swamps – and the scene of all-out crack war in the 1980s and 1990s. “His father was a successful real estate guy but they were Queens guys. They were outer borough [and] had to break in the big Manhattan aristocracy. He was an outsider, rich, but outsider. He was not part of the Manhattan elite. So, he always had this outsider feeling – us against them. So, in many ways, when I read people talk about, ‘Well, do you have a billionaire as a populist?’ He does feel like he’s one of the guys who was shut out.” Then, a hint of a kindred spirit: “On the other side of the coin, but I was shut out because of race. He was shut out because of geography and a number of other things. [It’s an] unforgiving environment and a city that could easily swallow you up. Easily.” Every time I write about Sharpton, many of my old friends in the New York press criticize me for not grilling him on the scandals of the past – the Tawana Brawley affair, his tax bills, allegations (which he denies) that he incited a deranged protester to start a deadly fire at Jewish-owned clothing store in Harlem. But Sharpton’s come a long way, and Obama has elevated him as the preeminent leader of the black community, a role that he’s played with obvious relish during the 2016 primaries. In the past couple of weeks, both Democratic candidates have met privately (and indecisively) with him. Sanders sat with Sharpton in a window seat at Harlem’s legendary soul-food eatery Sylvia’s, even though the reverend is on a ridiculously Spartan diet consisting of four wheat toast slices and fish a couple times a week; Clinton met with him, along with other civil rights leaders, at the offices of the National Urban League on Wall Street. People close to Sharpton say he likes Clinton, and is probably inclined to endorse her – but he doesn’t quite trust her, wants to see how her sputtering campaign performs, and is intent on exercising maximum leverage on the issues he cares most about: community policing, sentencing laws, urban economic development. When I turn the tape off, he says, “The minute you endorse you become a surrogate and I want to be an advocate.” Yet, as a black Brooklynite who grew up in the most racially combustible era in the city’s history, Sharpton is a little more skeptical of Sanders, who grew up in the same all-white, Jewish and Italian neighborhood in southern Brooklyn my family occupied for three generations. When I mention that I’ve been trying to get Sanders (thus far unsuccessfully) to talk on the podcast about how growing up in the neighborhood influenced his racial views, Sharpton nearly jumps out of his chair. “That conversation would tell me what he’s really — knows and is comfortable with about race … I think Sanders has a good background,” he says. “But coming from New York, again, I want to know where, at home, you can show me your sensitivity to the race in New York, where I know was a cesspool for bigotry, particularly in [those] years.” On one hand, he gives Sanders a pass for citing the Wall Street plutocracy as the source of racial evils, and thinks the Clinton campaign’s attack on the Vermont senator as a color-blind, single-issue candidate goes a little too far. “I think that it’s — I won’t say “manufactured,” but I think it’s exaggerated,” he says. “My argument to Sanders — which he has dealt with now — was that if you close all the big banks and everything is brought down, that still doesn’t make us equal, given the race gap in employment, given the race gap in wealth and property ownership. You’ve got to address race.” He’s far less forgiving of Sanders’ recent suggestion that Clinton has been “hugging” Obama in an effort to win over black voters. “I think that a lot of people resented that,” he said. “[Y]ou can't use certain terminologies without people saying, “Well, wait a minute, now. They were working together through some tight stuff.” When I ask him if Clinton “gets” race, he says, “I think she’s familiar with it. She worked for Marian Wright Edelman as he marched for Dr. King, and I think that her husband and his Arkansas background and living more with blacks, they were more ‘accultured.’ But comfort and culture is two different things.” Truth be told, Sharpton gets a little yawn-y when chatting about this pair of basically acceptable liberals who have been diligent about paying their due respects. Inevitably, the conversation swings back to Trump, and a recent chat the two had after the GOP front-runner spied Sharpton describing Trump’s comments about the Mexican government shipping America its rapists as racist. “He called me and said, ‘Why are you saying that?’” Sharpton told me. “I met with him, and I said with the birther stuff, the Mexican stuff is racist. ‘You're calling me a racist.’” Sharpton shot back by telling Trump he’s never hit him with that label, but added, “That’s what you’re running on, and you’re getting endorsements from outright hate groups.” The exchange was tense, but respectful, he says. Yet the very fact that Trump cared what Sharpton thought of him — coupled with the developer’s recently semi-softened rhetoric on health care (he’s vaguely promised to create a new system that would ensure nobody “dies on the street”) – is significant. And the reverend thinks Trump will ultimately ditch the wilder elements of his platform, just as he would say or do anything to get a building built of Mike Tyson fight booked. Trump, in Sharpton’s eyes, is “the kind of guy that adjusts and tries to deal with whatever he has to deal with, as he says, to make a deal. There’s no doubt in my mind, if he wins the nomination, that Trump will move to the center.”
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#1. To: Willie Green (#0)
Of course not. Trump is all about creating jobs and putting people back to work. If blacks get jobs and are able to take care of themselves, they don't need Al Sharpton hanging atound.
That's a fact of politics. All politicians move to the center in the general election. If Bernie wins the nomination, he'll move to the center.
Another fact of politics. The center constantly moves toward the Left. Eventually it will reach the "event horizon" and the USA as we've known it will cease to exist. Willie will be finally be happy. "Blessed is the nation whose God is the LORD . . . " ~Psalm 33:12a
Eventually it will reach the "event horizon" and the USA as we've known it will cease to exist. Willie will be finally be happy. " It's questionable if that will make him happy. Si vis pacem, para bellum Those who beat their swords into plowshares will plow for those who don't Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God. There are no Carthaginian terrorists. President Obama is the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people. --Clint Eastwood A friend will help you move ,But a good friend will help you move a body..
Ho hum. Another voice with nothing worth listening to.
#2. To: Willie Green (#0)
(Edited)
"When I ask Sharpton if he actually likes Trump, he shrugs. “I mean, I don’t like what he’s doing."
#3. To: Willie Green (#0)
"There’s no doubt in my mind, if he wins the nomination, that Trump will move to the center.”
#4. To: misterwhite, Willie Green (#3)
That's a fact of politics.
#5. To: Rufus T Firefly (#4)
" The center constantly moves toward the Left.
#6. To: Willie Green (#0)
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