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I think the conversation about “Art of the Deal” is more interesting than I can do justice in a fly-by culture war reply guy lore tour. But I think the book is “real” and a valid way to analyze Trump.
In short: ghostwriter Tony Schwartz clearly worked extensively with Trump and the book is Trump. Trump’s voice comes through clearly. The stories in the book are all derived from the working life of Donald Trump. (Chapter one is just a recitation of a week of Trump’s business calendar.) Stylistically the book is similar to its sequels, which were ghostwritten by different writers. And the book, fundamentally, presents keys to Trump’s personality and methods that match exactly what we see from Trump in public. It’s not as though Schwartz invented a new character completely unrelated to the man Donald Trump.
I think sometimes about Trump after the escalator up until the first Republican debate. When he would introduce himself to the public he wouldn’t call himself a real estate developer or a reality TV star. He lead by calling himself the author of “The Art of the Deal”. Obviously it was ghost-written so we can just dismiss that as braggadocio and move on if you like. But I think it’s interesting that out of all possible angles that that’s what Trump lead with. I think it’s because there’s something in “Deal” that matches exactly what Trump tries to portray himself as, it’s the most flattering mask. And consider that if you watch “The Apprentice” the show basically narratively portrays Trump as God.
Newt Gingrich, who has written several books about Trump now, concluded in an interview that Trump is aware that he’s playing a character, and that the character is Donald Trump. Newt said something like, Trump knows that he has to wake up every day and act like Donald Trump, or he doesn’t get to be Donald Trump. The image is the substance. This is in a way deeply in-line with Washington and Franklin as canny purveyors of their own public personae.
Anyways I think it’s apparent that “Deal” contains an explanation of Trump’s behavior in conducting negotiations that is much more complete than basically any other theory proffered in the public square. And it’s worth a lot more attention than dismissing it as ghostwritten.
It's amazing how trump is such a big public figure yet so little is known about him outside of that persona . What i have gathered is trump is lazy and delegates a lot, but this is not bad . He does the minimum needed , but this allows him to cover many areas, like being POTUS, media, and running his businesses. He does not care that much about the details of policy , compared to someone like Clinton. I think the only details trump truly cared about pertain to his real estate business.
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At this point, the book is older than me, to some extent didn't the interpretation of Trump through the book create or reify the Trumpian character. Trump may not have been the Trump of the book in the same way when the book was written, but he is now, in part because of the book.
Character is a very funny causal loop.
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The problem with using "Art of the Deal" to understand Trump's approach to dealmaking is that it doesn't cover the most interesting and important aspect of it, which is how he rats out of the deals after he makes them.
The surprising thing about Trump is that most of the people who have done substantial amounts of business with him, in a wide range of capacities and over multiple decades and four very different careers*, say that he is dishonest, that his dishonesty hurt them personally, and that other people should shun him. And yet somehow he keeps finding new marks willing to do business with him. "Art of the Deal" is a book about how he takes the sucker, and the interesting and difficult bit of running cons at scale is how you manage the flow of new suckers into the game and the flow of angry suckers out of it.
* GC in his father's org, real estate developer in his own right, reality TV star and politician. I acknowledge that he was spectacularly successful in three of his careers - my problem with the man is his base character, not his lack of ability.
Is it most? Or is it some, which is then fixated on by motivated reasoners? The bank he was fined a half a billion dollars for defrauding said they were happy with the business they did and would do it again. Disputes with contractors are normal and common; in my own limited experience I've seen both sides of it. Is there a fair-minded reason to think Trump is notably worse than average for the industry?
Compare that to Obama who supposedly stiffed workers on, er, 100% of his construction projects, his presidential library. A library whose workers are now unionizing to counter how badly they're being exploited and shortchanged. Is that a fair description of Barak Obama? Should that be the subject of 10k articles?
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