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So I thought we might take another stab at this - just remember to keep this out of Chat territory and focus on Trump’s legacy on American business and pop culture, prior to his emergence as a Republican figure in the 2010’s.
Supposing the middle son of Fred Trump Sr died shortly after graduating college in 1968, or otherwise disappeared from importance to the wider world, and never became president of the Trump Organization in 1971? What, if anything, are the changes to the world of real estate in the 1970's? How does this absence of this individual change, if at all, the popular culture and business ethos of the 1980's? And how do these changes, and the absence of Donald Trump, change the 1990's, 2000's, and first half of the 2010's?

In the larger sense, if Donald Trump did not exist, would the modern United States have had to invent him? Would somebody else just be the face of* something equivalent to The Art of the Deal -- that is to say, a wildly popular self-help book that breaks the same kind of new ground from previous installments? Would 1988 be unaffected by not having the tenth most popular man in the country considering a run while saying things like "America should not be paying to defend [other] countries"? Would the media landscape be any noticeably different (eg all those commercials, Home Alone 2, etc)?

And even if these changes don't amount to anything of substance, what about the 2000's? For example, is the 2000 race altered? Could there be any equivalent to The Apprentice, and if not, does that have any implications for pop culture et el? ... And what does all of this add up to by the time we reach [March of 2011]?

*as it was ghostwritten OTL, any TTL may or may not have the actual author as the face

...

I'd still like to as respondents to treat this as an Alt History discussion focusing on the latter 20th and early 21st century, and not a place to talk (or vent) about the current presidency. Thanks.
Thinking about other ways to take away the OTL career of Donald Trump -- what if his foray into show business in 1970 had been a success? Could he have declined his father's offer to be president of the foundation in 1971 if he was enjoying even mild success as a Broadway producer? And if so, would that sufficiently nerf the Donald Trump known to OTL, or does he just rise to prominence/infamy in a different venue?
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