The Long Con

In the criminal lexicon, a long con is a scam that goes on for an extended period of time. Bernie Madoff's scam is an excellent example of a long con.

Jonathan Chait is one of my favorite political columnists because his thinking many times so precisely matches mine. It's like he's doing a mind meld on me somehow.

I have long said that Donald Trump is a con artist. His checkered career is full of examples, with none better than the disgraceful Trump University, a scam that suckered countless millions out of innocent dupes, many of them veterans and senior citizens.

Chait published an excellent article on Friday in New York magazine (link here) with the title "The System Has Failed and a Con Artist Has Won."

This paragraph is simply brilliant: "The methods of a skilled con artist have worked just barely well enough to deliver the presidency to Trump. But what happens when his grandiose promises fail to materialize? And when the aspects of his program that he never mentioned in his speech — tax cuts for the rich, stripping away health insurance from millions, massive graft — do take place? A con artist who always escaped his old victims and found new ones has reached the maximal limits of his strategy. What happens when the marks are demanding that the promises he made be redeemed, and there is nowhere for him to go, and he commands the powers of the state?"

I urge you to read the whole article.

This will not end well.