Long before he wreaked havoc across the United States and the world at large, Donald Trump inflicted his horrors on Atlantic City, New Jersey.
In that case it was a string of failed casinos financed with high-interest junk bonds that he was never going to be able to pay off. Their collapse and the tremendous ten-figure debt he took away from them in the early 1990s was, at the time, Donald Trump’s most public and embarrassing scandal.
It’s a record he has since broken on numerous occasions — losing reelection, allowing over 300,000 Americans to die of a virus that other countries successfully contained, being associated with Rudy Giuliani — but the scars of Trump’s early failure still mark Atlantic City. Where they haven’t been rebranded or demolished, his massive, shuttered buildings have stood disused and dilapidated.
For Donald Trump it may be enough to have his name scraped and scrubbed from these decrepit shells. But for the citizens of Atlantic City they stand as stark reminders of how one wealthy, arrogant man helped to topple the local economy.
The tower of the Trump Plaza Hotel has been a particular problem in recent years. In its disintegrating state it became a hazard to public safety, with chunks of its crumbling façade falling to the street below. There is a bright spot on the horizon, however.
Atlantic City’s Revenge: Blowing Up Trump’s Casino For Charity | The Beat With Ari Melber | MSNBC
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This year the city has finally begun demolition on this piece of Donald Trump’s legacy, with a pyrotechnic finale scheduled for February. The opportunity to push the button imploding the hotel’s stripped-bare tower is being offered in auction, with proceeds going to the Boys’ and Girls’ Club of Atlantic City.
Atlantic City Mayor Marty Small has said that he hopes to raise “at least a million dollars,” noting that he’s “a pretty ambitious guy.” Currently the bidding stands at around $60,000, but it will remain open until January 19th — one day before Trump will be forced to relinquish the presidency to Joe Biden. A live auction among the highest bidders will follow on the 29th.
But should the privilege of erasing this blight — and publicly humiliating Donald Trump — really belong to the wealthiest person with a grudge against the soon-to-be-former president? Surely there’s someone with a more legitimate claim to that honor.
That’s what former adult film star Zoe Britton thought when she heard about the auction last Thursday. Britton tweeted the suggestion to crowd-fund a bid for her friend Stephanie Clifford — AKA Stormy Daniels — to push the button that topples Trump Plaza Hotel. Daniels enthusiastically signed onto the idea, adding the detail that the button should be modeled after a toadstool — a reference to her infamous description of the president’s genitals.
@ejeancarroll @realDonaldTrump This is hands down the best idea ever! I also want to commission the button to be shaped like a toadstool ?— Stormy Daniels (@Stormy Daniels)1608415328.0
The concept has since become a reality with a GoFundMe campaign that has so far raised a little over $1,700 to award the responsibility for that symbolic implosion to Stormy Daniels. But is she really the most worthy candidate?
For anyone who has somehow remained unaware of Daniels’ history with Trump, the former adult film star had an (alleged) affair with Donald Trump in 2006. Back then he was merely the star of The Apprentice, and famous for being a rich assh**e and the basis for Biff Tannen’s arc in Back to the Future Part II, and reportedly invited Daniels to dine with him when the two met at a charity golf tournament.
What (allegedly) followed from there was a whirlwind romance involving Shark Week, a periodical spanking, a promised role on Celebrity Apprentice, and a grudging resignation to physical intimacy. But the real drama is in the aftermath.
Several years after their (alleged) affair ended, Daniels reportedly shared details of her relationship with Donald Trump with a gossip magazine. Contrary to his enthusiastic attitude toward previous tabloid affairs, Donald Trump apparently didn’t want his tryst with Daniels to be publicized. Michael Cohen, his personal lawyer at the time, intervened to squash the story — though rumors of the (alleged) affair were still published in Life & Style that October.
Not long after, Daniels reports that a man approached her in a parking lot with instructions to “leave Trump alone.” Daniels had her young daughter with her at the time, and recalls the man saying “That’s a beautiful little girl — it’d be a shame if something happened to her mom,” before leaving them. That was in 2011, but the fallout was far from over.
EXCLUSIVE – Stormy Daniels Details Sex with Donald Trump
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In October of 2016 — shortly before the 2016 election, and around the time of the infamous Hollywood Access “grab ’em by the p***y” tape — Fox News reporter Diana Falzone allegedly wrote an article on the affair that the outlet chose to shelve. Secretly Michael Cohen had arranged to pay Stormy Daniels $130,000 to keep her quiet — in violation of campaign finance law.
In January of 2018, rumors of the affair surfaced anyway. In the meantime, Donald Trump had become president. Stormy Daniels initially denied them — supposedly at the behest of her then-lawyer Keith Davidson, who may or may not have colluded with Michael Cohen to bury that story as well as the (alleged) Karen McDougal affair.
When Daniels eventually acknowledged the (alleged) affair and began sharing the sordid details, she became a target of Donald Trump’s most ardent and unhinged supporters. She has received numerous death threats and was even arrested on flimsy charges by some politically-minded police in Ohio.
In short, Stormy Daniels’ life was thrown into chaos by that brief, regrettable (alleged) affair with Donald Trump. And as a result of her coming forward, the scandal occupied America’s attention for perhaps as long as any in Trump’s tenure.
The legal issues that ensued eventually motivated Michael Cohen to renounce his longtime loyalty to Trump. He even went on to be a cooperating witness against Trump, offering congressional testimony that the president was a “con man” and a “racist” who had committed illegal acts of obstruction and self-dealing while in office.
In short, Stormy Daniels contributed perhaps as much as anyone in the last four years to the efforts to expose Donald Trump as the pathetic fraud that he is. And she has suffered for it.
On one hand, that seems like a strong case for letting Daniels push that momentous and possibly-toadstool-shaped button. But if she really wanted to, she could use some portion of the reported $800,000 advance on her memoir Full Disclosure to make a more serious bid.
On top of that, aren’t their others who might be more deserving? Others who have done more to take Trump down, or who have suffered more as a result of his cruelty?
The honor could go to one of contractors Trump has put out of work, or one of the family’s he tore apart at the border. It could go to any student who was bilked by Trump University, or any resident of Atlantic City who suffered the consequences of Donald Trump’s financial recklessness.
A child crying as a border official searches her mother in TexasJohn Moore
It could go to E. Jean Caroll or any of the dozens of other women who’ve accused the president of sexual misconduct, or to Stacey Abrams, Gretchen Whitmer, or Martin Gugino. Or It could go to any of the loved ones of the 318,000 Americans who have died of COVID so far this year…
In the end, the people who deserve the honor of destroying one of Donald Trump’s monuments to his own ego may outnumber even the numerous vanity projects on which he’s plastered his name. But the best way to honor all of them is not through some symbolic bit of dramatic catharsis. It’s by erasing the corrosive legacy Donald Trump has left on our government, our discourse, and our democratic institutions.
Unfortunately, that will take a lot more than the push of a button.
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