Today Trump gave yet another insane speech. This time in front of thousands of cheering boy scouts at their jamboree. Trump brought out some of his greatest hits including my favorite, the red electoral map and the difficulty in winning the electoral college, and of course the fake news not reporting his real crowd size. There really were some jaw-dropping moments.
For me the most shocking part of the speech was his charming story about real estate developer William Levitt
“[My friend] sold his company for a tremendous amount of money,” Trump told the kids. “And he went out and bought a big yacht. And he had a very…interesting life.”
Trump really leaned into the “interesting” in “interesting life.”
“I won’t go into any more than that cause you’re Boy Scouts,” Trump said. “So I’m not going to tell you what he did.”
“Never quit, never give up, do something you love,” Trump told the scouts.
Trump spoke admiringly about Levitt’s meticulous nature as a developer, how he’d inspect and clean homes late into the night in order to leave them “spotless” in the morning.
Levitt ultimately sold his company for a “tremendous amount of money” and bought a “huge yacht,” Trump said. The developer missed working but could not return to his level of success, said Trump, who has transferred management of his own real estate empire to his two eldest sons as he serves in the White House.
Trump recalled seeing Levitt at a cocktail party hosted by fellow developer and Time Warner founder Steve Ross and asking Levitt, “What exactly happened? . . . You were one of the greats ever in this industry.”
Levitt responded, “Donald, I lost my momentum,” according to the president’s recollection.
So is this William Levitt that President Trump wants the boys in Boy Scouts of America to work had and aspire to be like? Newsday spends two sentences telling the reader all about him
Levitt, of Levitt & Sons, in the 1940s developed mass-produced, affordable houses for returning World War II veterans. Levittown is considered the country’s first modern suburban community.
That is an accurate description, but they left out some key details
Levitt refused to integrate his developments. The Jewish Levitt barred Jews from Strathmore, his first pre-Levittown development on Long Island in New York, and he refused to sell his homes to blacks. His sales contracts also forbade the resale of properties to blacks through restrictive covenants, although in 1957 a white couple resold their house to the first black family to live in a Levitt home. Levitt's all-white policies also led to civil rights protests in Bowie, Maryland in 1963.[8][9] The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and the American Civil Liberties Union opposed Levitt’s racist policies, and the Federal Housing Administration prepared to refuse mortgages on his next Levittown. Nevertheless, Levitt would not back down and continued planning another whites-only Levittown in Willingboro Township, New Jersey. He fought legal challenges in New Jersey courts until the United States Supreme Court refused to hear his case.[13]
The 2003 PBS series Race: The Power of an Illusion, by California Newsreel, features Levittown and nearby Roosevelt in documenting systemic racism in the development of the early suburbs.
So the President of the United States of America told a bunch of kids that they should work hard and be like his friend, the guy who wouldn’t let black people buy his properties.