John Ganz

The United States' relationship with the world is adversarial, and our so-called allies are trying to screw us.

Immigrants are sucking up our resources.

It's a very zero-sum, hostile, and paranoid attitude towards the world.

And, you know, insofar as a philosophical articulation, these guys do it.

But, you know, you can also just boil it down to certain instinctual or habitual behaviors and beliefs of Trump that he picked up through his life.

He also don't forget.

Trump experienced a near brush with ruin in the late 80s, early 90s.

I think that this intensified his paranoia and his attitude to the world as being an essentially hostile place.

He found his negotiations with the bankers, which ultimately came out quite favorable to him because they could have ruined him, to be very humiliating.

And he...

Wanted to take revenge against a lot of people we felt had not stuck with him through his hard times and turned on him.

The 80s was a great boom time for Trump.

That comes to an end at the end of the 80s.

And he sticks with a lot of the same ideas.

preoccupations, urban crime.

You know, urban crime is on the decline, but that's an obsession for Trump.

You know, if you go back to this era, this is the era where Japan, South Korea, and at that time, West Germany, their imports, you know, were very competitive with American manufacturers.

And there was a current of opinion, which Trump was, you know, shared, which is that, you know, we need to protect domestic industries.

And I think that basically Trump

is also in this kind of late Cold War period where those under our protective umbrella are now becoming our competitors.