The trajectory of the American Dream is often depicted as a steady climb from rags to riches, but the narrative of Donald J. Trump offers a far more turbulent and cinematic variation. It is a story not of a slow ascent, but of high-stakes gambling, catastrophic financial collapses, and an unprecedented reinvention that culminated in the most powerful office on earth. Long before he was a political firebrand or a television icon, he was a young man in Queens, New York, driven by an insatiable need to surpass the shadow of his father’s success and etch his name—literally and figuratively—into...
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