Donald Trump was born on third base, but claims he hit a triple.
Throughout history, we’ve had many “born on third base” presidential candidates, including Mitt Romney, George W. Bush and now Trump. These politicians trumpet their business acumen, but reveal little about their privileged head starts.
This twisted narrative is dangerously misleading.
Trump campaigns on his business prowess, but understates the tremendous advantage of inheriting his father’s real estate empire, with its existing assets and financial and political connections. Even without that million-dollar loan, Trump was set-up for success.
Similarly, George W. Bush built his oil business and baseball team with networks of investors who were friends of the Bush dynasty. Yet he attributed his success to “results and performance.”
And in 2012 presidential candidate Romney told supporters that he’d “inherited nothing,” saying “Everything that Ann and I have we earned the old-fashioned way, and that’s by hard work.” But this understates Romney’s extraordinary privileges.
I attended the same private prep school as Mitt Romney. At the time, his father was the governor of Michigan, after being CEO of American Motors. Ann Romney later explained that she and her husband weathered lean years by selling off stock inherited from Mitt’s father.
The stories that politicians tell us about their wealth and success have enormous implications for the kind of America they envision.
And so do their omissions.
Those who are born into advantage, but pretend their status is the result of the sweat of their own brow, typically don’t support policies that expand social opportunity.
Trump, Romney, and Bush, for example, all support the abolition of the estate tax for the superwealthy and deep cuts in investments that foster opportunity, such as college aid and homeownership.
In contrast, we’ve had the Kennedys and Roosevelts, who don’t deny their advantaged family heritage. I once heard Senator Ted Kennedy joke that, “his…