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OUR VIEW: What we can do to honor 9/11 victims

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W-B city council chair promises to prevent personal attacks by speakers

For the first time ever, I agree with President Donald Trump&#8217;s campaign manager.Brad Parscale, who looks like an overzealous community theater understudy for the role of Lucifer, only creepier, said over the weekend he believes Trump and his family are &#8220;a dynasty that will last for decades.&#8221;That is accurate, though certainly not in the way Parscale intended.His full quote from a Republican Party meeting in California, per an Associated Press report, was: &#8220;The Trumps will be a dynasty that will last for decades, propelling the Republican Party into a new party. One that will adapt to changing cultures. One must continue to adapt while keeping the conservative values that we believe in.&#8221;That last bit is funny because the Trumps, at the end of the day, are about as conservative as I am. Trump himself became &#8220;conservative&#8221; only when he saw a political base that might be receptive to his con artistry.And boy was he right. The man has single-handedly convinced about 40% of the population that up is down, racism is okey dokie and the only voice they can trust is his.But that won&#8217;t lead the president and his various offspring to become a political dynasty. It&#8217;ll just lead to 40% of the population either realizing they got duped or continuing to exist in a perpetual state of aggrievement.And aggrievement, particularly the white kind, is where the money&#8217;s at, giving the Trumps a fine opportunity to forge a dynasty of opportunists leveraging the fear of a changing world, and the fear of ever being proven wrong, for profit.The art of the swindle was on full display last week after the president was rightfully criticized for showing a forecast map of Hurricane Dorian that had been sloppily doctored with a black marker, a lame attempt to reinforce the president&#8217;s incorrect claim that Alabama &#8220;will most likely be hit (much) harder than anticipated.&#8221;While it&#8217;s technically against the law to issue or publish &#8220;any counterfeit weather forecast or warning of weather conditions falsely representing such forecast,&#8221; Trump&#8217;s campaign manager used the whole dishonest mess to pimp &#8220;Official Donald Trump Fine Point Markers&#8221; for sale on the campaign&#8217;s website.Parscale wrote in a tweet: &#8220;Buy the official Trump marker, which is different than every other marker on the market, because this one has the special ability to drive @CNN and the rest of the fake news crazy! #KeepMarkersGreat&#8221;It was a classic Trumpian grift: Say something stupid and incorrect. Say the same thing over and over again, refusing to admit a simple mistake, giving your fans cover to believe in your infallibility. Find a way to make money off your fans by spinning your own stupidity into an &#8220;everyone&#8217;s out to get us&#8221; moment.Can you believe the media suggesting that I, Donald Trump, did something wrong? They all hate us! They&#8217;re all out to get us! I will never lie to you and I am always right! Now here&#8217;s an overpriced (the marker is $15) piece of crap you can buy to celebrate our shared moment of aggrievement!Trump has placed his wildly unqualified daughter, Ivanka Trump, on the world stage to raise her profile. He has done the same with his inept son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and has used his Tweedledum and Tweedledee sons Donald Jr. and Eric as regular campaign figures.Collectively, they&#8217;re barely qualified to drive a car from one end of a driveway to the other, much less negotiate peace in the Middle East or practice delicate international diplomacy.And that&#8217;s what makes them perfect for the coming Trump dynasty of aggrievement merchandising. Whether Trump loses the 2020 election or gets a second term to line his pockets with taxpayer money, his presidency will eventually end, and he&#8217;ll then find a way to make history&#8217;s judgment of him a horribly unjust conspiracy launched by elite liberal weirdos hellbent on destroying his supporters&#8217; way of life.What remains of his cultlike following will face a choice: Admit the orange emperor never had a stitch of clothes and swallow the pain of their own gullibility, or stand by their man to keep the pain of reality at bay.If they choose the latter, they&#8217;ll find that &#8220;supporting&#8221; the Trump dynasty means opening up their pocketbooks. Buying &#8220;Trump Was Right!&#8221; T-shirts and &#8220;Trump Those Libs!&#8221; bumper stickers. Staying at new Trump properties aimed at luring lower-end customers and fleecing them with overpriced buffets and gift shops packed with Trump trinkets (made in China) and bias-confirming knickknacks.You don&#8217;t convince millions of people to believe your thousands of lies, offering them an irresistible chance to think all their problems are somebody else&#8217;s fault, then simply cut them loose. You keep feeding them what they need to hear, and you keep squeezing them for all they&#8217;re worth.Parscale is right &#8212; the Trumps will be a dynasty that lasts for decades.A dynasty of grifters smart enough only to know you never drop a con that works.&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;ABOUT THE WRITER&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;(c)2019 Chicago TribuneVisit Chicago Tribune at <a href="http://www.chicagotribune.com">www.chicagotribune.com</a>Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;TO SUBSCRIBE TO THIS COLUMNThis column/content is for subscribers only. It is sold separately and is not included in your Tribune News Service subscription. To subscribe, please contact Rick DeChantal at Tribune Content Agency, (866) 280-5210 or <a href="mailto:rdechantal@tribpub.com">rdechantal@tribpub.com</a>, or you can purchase individual columns a la carte at <a href="http://www.tribunenewsservice.com">www.tribunenewsservice.com</a>.&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;PHOTO of Rex Huppke is available from the Columnist Mugs section of <a href="http://www.tribunenewsservice.com">www.tribunenewsservice.com</a>.KeyWords:: BC-HUPPKE-COLUMN:TB BC HUPPKE COLUMN TB<style>
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<div class="metaInfo"><bylineMeta>Rex Huppke</bylineMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><shirttailMeta>Rex Huppke is a Chicago Tribune columnist. Readers may send him email at <a href="mailto:rhuppke@chicagotribune.com">rhuppke@chicagotribune.com</a>.</shirttailMeta></div>

The Trumps will indeed be a dynasty that lasts for decades