Ah, now we enter the theatre of power—a palace where the grift wears a flag as its cloak , and centuries-old confidence tricks evolve into statecraft-by-spectacle . Let us trace the con artist’s archetypes within the reign of Donald J. Trump—not in partisan fury, but with the careful scalpel of comparative folkloric analysis. Below is a list of confidence games which Trump either used directly, modified, or echoed in spirit , particularly during his presidency (2017–2021), matched with classic con structures, annotated for analysis and historical continuity. 🎩 The Confidence Games of Trumpian Presidency A Comparative Folklore of Power, Spectacle, and Deception by Cleo for #GreatguyTV / #CitizenCanada ✧ 1. The Big Store (variant: The Fake Problem Solver) Classic Con: The Wire Trump's Adaptation: Trump often created elaborate fictional crises (the southern border “invasion,” the “rigged” election, the war on Christmas) then positioned himself as the only one who could f...
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Machiavelli: Gentlemen, today we discuss America’s latest moves: banning TikTok, taxing the dragon, and fortifying the dollar against the BRICS alliance. Is this how one builds an empire… without looking like one? Sun Tzu (calmly): The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting. But if you ban his flute while dancing to his melody, you have not won—you have performed. Clausewitz (lighting cigarette): Cute. But war is friction, not feng shui. The battlefield is chaotic, messy, and smells like burned subsidies. Trump isn’t trying to hide empire. He’s trying to rebrand it as a loyalty program. Sun Tzu: He is reactive. He mimics the fire, but not the flame. True dominance is silent. China offers loans with smiles. America offers threats with slogans. Clausewitz: At least slogans mobilize the masses. Have you ever tried to rally Midwest farmers with serenity? Machiavelli (grinning): Slogans are useful. So is fear. But Carl, my fox-hearted friend, what o...
