Guardian contributor Lloyd Green's "For all his bombast, Trump is plummeting – financially, legally and politically" explores the notion that the 45th president's spectacular veneer being humbled left and right parallels with the pretender anti-villain character Oz from L. Frank Baum's fantasy series where he submits "there is less there than meets the eye."
And with all the troubles facing former President Donald Trump, the attempt to fend off chinks in his armor is becoming tough.
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"To him, image is almost everything," he writes.
And Green summarizes some of former President Donald Trump's pitfalls of late — the DJT stock (parent company of the Truth Social app) is tanking, and his felony criminal fraud trial is likely not going to delay after he tried thrice to get it adjourned.
Then Green takes some swipes at the Don.
"If cover-up is the real crime, Trump’s hush-money charges have a Nixonian ring," he writes. "Trump is a guy whose businesses are no stranger to bankruptcy or allegations of fraud. He leaves wreckage in his wake.
"The spirit of Trump University remains alive. Like life in Oz, so much in Trump World is illusory."
Back in 2018, the ex-president paid a $25 million settlement owed to attendees of the series of real estate seminars called Trump University.
Trump's other issues involving his various bonds for civil fraud and defamation are also working against Trump's Teflon reputation.
"His assets are getting tied up, his liquidity ebbs," Green notes.
And then there's Trump's character.
"The last thing they need is a thrice-married libertine seventysomething with a penchant for adult film stars and Playboy models telling them how to raise their kids or meddling in their personal lives," according to Green, raising concerns over Trump's alleged affairs with Stormy Daniels and former Playboy playmate Karen McDougal. "When a guy who hawks Bibles for a side-hustle refuses to say whether any of his partners ever had an abortion, it’s time to roll your eyes and guard your wallet."
And for all of the mockery of his opponent, incumbent President Joe Biden, Green suggests it's Trump who is the one faltering, with his lead by a "microscopic two-10ths of 1%" and he believes proves the Oz ethos, writing, "Joe Biden is in the hunt and Donald Trump is looking like the old man behind the curtain."
