Ten Years on from the Gilded Escalator

Just as I start working on Book Three of my Trojan Horse Story, we hit the tenth anniversary of the moment it describes - Trump announcing his candidacy

By a weird quirk of fate, it’s exactly ten years today since Donald Trump descended his gilded elevator in Trump Tower and announced he would be a candidate for the Republican nomination in 2016. Here’s the photograph.

And here are a short few opening provisional stanzas of my Book Three of the Trojan Horse. You can find books One and Two here

The Trojan Horse: Book One - The Fifth Battlespace

The Trojan Horse: Book Two - The Troll Farm

The opening verses are followed by some of my research into Russian support for Trump, especially around the Moscow Trump Tower meetings of 2013. Sorry. I’ve put these behind a paywall, not for legal or copyright reasons, but simply because I haven’t fact-checked every element fully yet.

Opening of Book Three: The Gilded Escalator

The gold escalator he descended in 
Like the gilt mirrors of his golden lift
So brash, dazzled, burnished with vanity,
Made the media sick and cameras swoon.
For ten years on 'reality TV'
Donald Trump had turned fictions into factions.
The more brazen the lies, the more effective.
The bigger the selfish braggart the more he
Exposed the inauthenticity of the 
Political class. Obama, his first target,
Was named an impostor President. 
Playing to the 'birther' conspiracy
That this black man was not American,
Was Trump's first calling card. But behind all that
Was a deeper calling, an appeal to all those
Who felt neglected, cheated, and spurned 
By two decades of wage stagnation.
Global free flows of capital had led to
Developing countries developing
At the relative expense of the US. 
International mobility collided
With domestic social immobility,
With the state stepping in to save banking,
At the expense of the tax payer - socialism
For the rich - the Tea Party movement was born
By Steve Bannon tapping workers resentment.
The barbarians had breached the capitol.
Foreigners made America no longer great. 
And Trump, on his gilded escalator,
Rode in to harness this.  But with Russian help.

Background Research

For the reasons set out above, this research into the many years of Russia financially backing Donald Trump is paywalled

Trump’s Economic Reliance on Russia