A Brief Trump Family History Everyone Should Know

These appear to be simplistic attacks using the tags “racist,” “nazi” and “fascist” like modern day meta-tags or keywords. The truth is much more complicated, and to understand some of these complexities you need to look at the Trump family tree.

Trump’s grandfather Fred was a Bavarian immigrant who made the family’s first fortune in America’s Northwest at the end of the 19th century, operating saloons and brothels in Washington State during the gold rush. That era is well documented as a lawless time, and it is likely here that the family tendency to play by there own rules manifested itself.

Fred moved back to Bavaria at some point and is said to have deposited more than $500,000 dollars in a German bank upon arrival. By today’s measure, that is approximately $20,000,000 which is obviously quite substantial. His stay in Bavaria was short-lived however, and he returned to the United States when the government of Bavaria stripped him of his citizenship. His son Fred, who is Donald Trump’s father, was born in the Bronx in October of 1905.

It is dark fact of American history that much of white America was deeply racist in the timeframe that Fred Trump grew up. This is speculation, but one of Fred’s earliest memories might be the race riots that occurred after Jack Johnson defeated the original “Great White Hope” Jim Jeffries for the boxing world heavyweight title on July 4th, 1910 when he was five years old.

How racist was America back then? The now liberal New York Times wrote in an editorial before the fight:

“If the black man wins, thousands and thousands of his ignorant brothers will misinterpret his victory as justifying claims to much more than mere physical equality with their white neighbors.”

The riots after the fight resulted in more than two dozen deaths among blacks, some of them by lynching. Brawls caused hundreds of injuries.

In 1915, when Fred was 10 years old the film “The Birth of a Nation” that depicted the Ku Klux Klan as national heroes was released. Most modern Americans would be completely shocked by the extreme and blatant depiction of racism the film presents, and though there is no evidence Fred saw the film, it is hard to see how he could have avoided it’s colossal influence at the time.

Though there are little details, Fred Trump was arrested at a KKK rally in 1927, when he was 22 years old.

I mention these things because many of the claims of Donald Trump’s racism are based on Fred’s influence, i.e. that he was raised racist by a racist father.

What we do know about Fred Trump is that he started in real estate in the 1920’s and that by the time World War II ended, he owned more than 25,000 properties. Most of these were single family homes he rented to low income families, many of them black. This is the basis of Fred Trump being titled a “slum lord.”

In 1971, Donald Trump took over the family real estate business from Fred at the age of twenty five, and just two years later the U.S. government investigated the company for racial discrimination. In the 1960’s Fred was investigated for “profiteering” but none of those charges against either led to any meaningful court decisions that slowed the Trump train down. Though the inherent quality of playing the rules fast and loose was evidenced, the teflon quality Donald has also may be an inherited quality.

Few people know that in 1990, Donald Trump assisted Nelson Mandela when the future South African president came to the United States on a fund raising tour. Mandela was having trouble procuring an airplane for the nationwide tour and he approached Trump about using one of his airplanes. Though Trump made more than $100,000 from the transaction, it should be noted that he was the only person to step up and assist Mandela and he has not attempted to use the story in his favor while under fire as a “racist.”

Also in the 1990’s Trump sold the low income units (for a substantial profit) and set his eyes on bigger properties, expanding into hotels and casinos.

Those businesses have since employed thousands of blacks, and as someone who has done close to a dozen events in Trump owned casinos I saw first hand how immensely popular he was with the great majority of the employees there, many of whom were black.

Similarly, claims Trump is a “nazi” or a “fascist” go back to his family roots as German immigrants. Let’s talk about the nazi claims first.

His father is said to have supported Jewish causes during World War II, and though that may have been self interested in many ways (like a lot of Trump family behavior) there really is no basis for the use of the world nazi to describe either Trump. When Fred moved to Queens he chose Jamaica Estates, a wealthy neighborhood with a good sized population of Jews.

During Donald’s time at the New York Military Academy, he had at least one Jewish roommate and there doesn’t appear to be any proof of nazism or anti-semitism against Trump. I've spoken to that roommate personally, and though he votes Democrat, he doesn't call Donald a nazi.

More than likely, many people throwing around the word nazi are confusing it with fascist, or can’t tell the difference between the two words.

But the fascist label will be harder for Trump to shirk because he has made many statements where he shows he is not shy about leaning towards authoritarian rule. This is his own fault perhaps, but we know he will say anything to win an argument, there is little about the four years of actual proof we have of him in the Oval Office that showed fascist tendencies. Remember, he threatened to have Hillary Clinton thrown in jail? Well, that didn’t happen.

The January 6th situation is the greatest hint towards a lust for authoritarian power we have seen, and I agree it is a strong one. The man is a survivor, and I have a tendency to think that he did more to instigate the activities of that day than has been proven, but the fact is they didn’t get him on that.

If Hunter Biden is the first person thrown in jail, I’m not sure that means that we will be seeing his other enemies thrown out of windows soon after.

Joe Biden has promised a peaceful hand over of power, and that is a good thing. Perhaps giving him a chance rather than starting to prepare defenses against things Trump may never do would be an olive branch that Trump accepts.

Trump is a billionaire, he has led a fabled life, and I think at this point he is squarely fixated on his legacy. Improving the country and making it better would transcend his standing beyond where it is today and giving him a fair chance to do it may be the best bet. History shows taking Trump on head first doesn’t work.