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The Heir: Ivanka was always Trump's favorite. But Don Jr. is emerging as his natural successor.
Ivanka was always Trumps favorite. But Don Jr. is emerging as his natural successor.
The empire begins with a brothel. It stands, sturdy and square, at the heart of a gold-rush boomtown in northwest British Columbia, a monument to careful branding. The windows of the Arctic Restaurant have no signs offering access to prostituteseven in a lawless Yukon outpost in 1899, decorum rules out such truth in advertisingbut Friedrich Trump knows his clientele.
Curtained-off private boxes line the wall opposite the bar, inside of which are beds, and women, and scales to weigh gold powder, the preferred method of payment for services rendered. Word of the restaurants off-menu accommodations spreads fast. Respectable women are advised by The Yukon Sun to avoid the place, as they are liable to hear that which would be repugnant to their feelings. But among lonely prospectors, the Arctic is a hit. Before long, Friedrich is boasting, with a hereditary penchant for hyperbole, that his establishment serves more than 3,000 meals a day.
Its true that he has plenty of customers. A hundred thousand men have raced north in search of gold at the twilight of the 19th century, hypnotized by a shimmering mirage that Friedrich himself must have recognized. He was chasing a similar figment when he left his German hometown at 16, crossed the Atlantic in steerage, and disembarked on the shores of Manhattan, poor, dirty, and emanating the signature migrants stenchwidely known then as shipwhich would cling to him for days no matter how hard he scrubbed. He made a living for a while as a barber, but a living was not what hed come for. So when he heard about fortunes being made in the Pacific Northwest, he gathered his savings and boarded a train.
Friedrich sees that he can get rich in the Klondike not by digging for gold but by servicing the gold rushers themselves. This is its own kind of extractive businessmining the miners, his biographer, Gwenda Blair, will later call itand it requires a distinct skill set. Quiet and wiry, with a handlebar mustache, he bounces from boomtown to boomtown, conning his way onto scraps of land by pretending to find gold there. Once a claim is secured, he hustles to make as much cash as he can before the local bubble bursts and the miners move on.
A restaurant in Seattles red-light district. A boarding house in Monte Cristo, Washington. A trailside tent hawking horse meat and liquor to the men stampeding up Alaskas White Pass. Each venture turns a profit, but the brothel is the one that makes him rich enough to return home to Germany and have his pick of pretty, much younger brides.
Friedrich and his wife consider staying in their native country, but he is a draft dodgeror so the government saysand his petition for residency is denied. Indignant, he takes his new family and his new money back to New York City, where he is free to pursue that shape-shifting mirageis it starting to resemble respectability?without the weight of a past. By the time the Spanish flu takes him at age 49, hes amassed a modest fortunethe modern equivalent of half a million dollarsand a small portfolio of outer-borough properties. It isnt Rockefeller money, but its enough, just barely, to launch a dynasty.
To keep the family afloat, Friedrichs widow, Elizabeth, assigns each of her children a job in their fledgling real-estate business. But its Fred, the middle child, who has a knack for building, both houses and empires, and he takes charge shortly after high school.
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/10/trump-dynasty/596674/
The empire begins with a brothel. It stands, sturdy and square, at the heart of a gold-rush boomtown in northwest British Columbia, a monument to careful branding. The windows of the Arctic Restaurant have no signs offering access to prostituteseven in a lawless Yukon outpost in 1899, decorum rules out such truth in advertisingbut Friedrich Trump knows his clientele.
Curtained-off private boxes line the wall opposite the bar, inside of which are beds, and women, and scales to weigh gold powder, the preferred method of payment for services rendered. Word of the restaurants off-menu accommodations spreads fast. Respectable women are advised by The Yukon Sun to avoid the place, as they are liable to hear that which would be repugnant to their feelings. But among lonely prospectors, the Arctic is a hit. Before long, Friedrich is boasting, with a hereditary penchant for hyperbole, that his establishment serves more than 3,000 meals a day.
Its true that he has plenty of customers. A hundred thousand men have raced north in search of gold at the twilight of the 19th century, hypnotized by a shimmering mirage that Friedrich himself must have recognized. He was chasing a similar figment when he left his German hometown at 16, crossed the Atlantic in steerage, and disembarked on the shores of Manhattan, poor, dirty, and emanating the signature migrants stenchwidely known then as shipwhich would cling to him for days no matter how hard he scrubbed. He made a living for a while as a barber, but a living was not what hed come for. So when he heard about fortunes being made in the Pacific Northwest, he gathered his savings and boarded a train.
Friedrich sees that he can get rich in the Klondike not by digging for gold but by servicing the gold rushers themselves. This is its own kind of extractive businessmining the miners, his biographer, Gwenda Blair, will later call itand it requires a distinct skill set. Quiet and wiry, with a handlebar mustache, he bounces from boomtown to boomtown, conning his way onto scraps of land by pretending to find gold there. Once a claim is secured, he hustles to make as much cash as he can before the local bubble bursts and the miners move on.
A restaurant in Seattles red-light district. A boarding house in Monte Cristo, Washington. A trailside tent hawking horse meat and liquor to the men stampeding up Alaskas White Pass. Each venture turns a profit, but the brothel is the one that makes him rich enough to return home to Germany and have his pick of pretty, much younger brides.
Friedrich and his wife consider staying in their native country, but he is a draft dodgeror so the government saysand his petition for residency is denied. Indignant, he takes his new family and his new money back to New York City, where he is free to pursue that shape-shifting mirageis it starting to resemble respectability?without the weight of a past. By the time the Spanish flu takes him at age 49, hes amassed a modest fortunethe modern equivalent of half a million dollarsand a small portfolio of outer-borough properties. It isnt Rockefeller money, but its enough, just barely, to launch a dynasty.
To keep the family afloat, Friedrichs widow, Elizabeth, assigns each of her children a job in their fledgling real-estate business. But its Fred, the middle child, who has a knack for building, both houses and empires, and he takes charge shortly after high school.
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/10/trump-dynasty/596674/
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The Heir: Ivanka was always Trump's favorite. But Don Jr. is emerging as his natural successor. (Original Post)
demmiblue
Sep 2019
OP
Grasswire2
(13,565 posts)1. All the more reason to think about the Rosenberg remedy for treasonous acts.
After due process, of course.
kysrsoze
(6,019 posts)2. Maybe as world's biggest asshole. Certainly not President.
katmondoo
(6,454 posts)3. Will he campaign with the tail of the elephant he killed.
stonecutter357
(12,694 posts)4. Donald Trump is a racist pig !
Doreen
(11,686 posts)5. Ivanka is daddy's little sex object.
Junior has a thing that makes him better...a penis. As far we have seen over these last miserable years trump does not think woman are worth anything.
Zorro
(15,737 posts)6. Excellent read
Quite insightful.
Celerity
(43,281 posts)7. K & R for visibility