I'm so glad to see this story about Trump's Trump University scam. I've been saying (most recently on @Honestly_Tara) that the Trump U scam was the biggest story of 2016 because it directly contradicted Trump's hero narrative & showed he was a con. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/spin-deride-attack-how-trumps-handling-of-trump-university-presaged-his-presidency/2020/07/24/7d3a327a-bfb8-11ea-9fdd-b7ac6b051dc8_story.html

I write about it in my book, the Trump U play books were amazing. You can still buy Trump U crap on amazon--he's still making money off of this scam.

Here's a thread from when I was writing that chapter: https://twitter.com/jenmercieca/status/1050139691780067328

The takeaway from my story was about how Trump strategically used ad baculum (threats of force/intimidation) appeals when he needed them, then discarded them when he didn't. Not only is he a con, but he's also a con authoritarian. He used his followers' frustration as a wedge.

Trump isn't the hero his followers think he is, he is a con man.

Trump isn't the authoritarian tyrant* his opposition thinks he is either, he is a con man.

*BUT, he will be a tyrant, if he has to be. It's a strategy for him. He's America's authoritarian PT Barnum. Dangerous.

Anyway, that's the kind of thing I explain in my book. I hope it's useful!

Related to what I was saying about Trump being America's Authoritarian PT Barnum: "Welcome to the world of performative authoritarianism," @anneapplebaum: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/07/trump-putting-show-portland/614521/?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=share

And credit for the "authoritarian PT Barnum" line goes to @JTiloveTX. I use it all the time, you should know he wrote it.

one other thing about this since folks are interested: Trump distracted us from focusing on this story with an ad hominem attack (attacking the person) on the judge's credibility & ad baculum threats (threats of force/intimidation) against reporters.

All "ad" fallacies are distraction techniques. The word "ad" is Latin for "to" and these fallacies are used to re-route our attention from the central issue of debate TO the person or threat.