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Read This Tweet From Donald Trump's Ex-Ghostwriter

by Alexi McCammond

There have been a lot of scandals and excitement throughout the presidential election, but this tweet from Donald Trump's ex-ghostwriter gave an inside look at who Trump has really been all along.

Tony Schwartz was the ghostwriter for The Art Of The Deal, which is part-memoir and part-business advice book, and it's basically the book that Trump has built his campaign on. Now, (well, during the week of the Republican National Convention), Schwartz began speaking out about his long history with Trump and he talked candidly with The New Yorker more about Trump's character over the years. Back in 1986, Schwartz spent more than a year with The Donald as they worked together on The Art Of The Deal. During an interview for an article with Playboy magazine, where Schwartz was freelancing as a journalist, he casually pitched the book title to Trump, and, in turn, Trump immediately asked him to write the book (which Trump pitched as an autobiography).

So why would Schwartz speak out now? Why reveal Trump's character this late in the game? Schwartz told The New Yorker that he believed Trump is "ill-suited and dangerous as a potential president," and once he became the Republican presidential nominee, Schwartz said he couldn't wait any longer. And Schwartz continued to weigh in throughout the RNC, particularly with this salient tweet that he sent out after Trump's speech on the final night of the convention:

Trump's speech at the RNC lasted for what seemed like eternity (it was well over an hour). But the fascinating thing was that the entire message was filled with hateful, divisive rhetoric that spread this idea that the America we live in is, and has been, doomed. Trump talked about the state of disarray and danger that he believes we are in: "I have a message for all of you: the crime and violence that today afflicts our nation will soon, and I mean very soon, come to an end. Beginning on January 20, 2017, safety will be restored."

Yet instead of offering an idea on how safety will be restored, he continued resort to fear-mongering by reminding us of the terrorist attacks, both international and domestic, that have afflicted our nation, as well as the number of attacks on law enforcement. "I have a message to every last person threatening the peace on our streets and the safety of our police," Trump said, adding, "When I take the oath of office next year, I will restore law and order our country. Believe me. Believe me." Sounds rather doom and gloom, doesn't it? But that's Trump's strategy: Focus on the negative, instill fear into the American people, and don't really offer any solutions or hope.

And apparently, this is who Trump has been all along, according to Schwartz. "This is the Donald Trump I came to know. Not a word about hope. Not a word about possibility. All doom, all the time," Schwartz tweeted following Trump's historically long speech. In his New Yorker interview, Schwartz further confirmed this side of Trump when he cited an entry from his personal journal that he kept when they worked together in 1986: "All trump [sic] is is 'stomp, stomp, stomp,' recognition from outside, bigger, more, a whole series of things that go nowhere in particular, that are a blackhole."

Honestly, "a whole series of things that go nowhere in particular, that are a blackhole" seems to me like the most accurate description of Trump and, more generally, the Trump campaign. Schwartz's revelations about Trump are scary because they prove that the divisive and hateful Trump we've come to know in the presidential election is who he really is as a person, not the loving, caring, compassionate father his children so desperately tried to make him out to be during their RNC speeches.