With $1 million in support from his father, Trump set up his own company focusing on the construction business in Manhattan.  It would take his company a dozen years to develop until it was ready to take on truly massive construction projects, such as the purchase (1976) and conversion of the old, somewhat run down, and unprofitable Commodore Hotel, into the fabulous Grand Hyatt on 42nd Street next to the Grand Central Terminal.  It would be opened four years later (at a cost of $100 million) when Donald was only thirty-four.  But even by that time (1979) he had begun even grander projects, the building of his first Trump Tower, built on the site of the old Bonwit Teller building, at a cost of $200 million, and a number of lawsuits, which he would fend off with the help of his lawyer friend Roy Cohn (Joe McCarthy's legal counsel during the McCarthy Era!).  From this point, he moved on to a variety of other projects: Trump casinos in Atlantic City, an Eastern Airlines shuttle service, a skating rink in New York City's Central Park, partial ownership of Miss Universe and Miss USA pageants, a New Jersey football team (briefly), and in 1985 ownership of the Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach Florida, something that became a personal get-away home for him and his family.

Along the way he met Ivana Zelnikova, who had climbed her way out of obscurity in Communist Eastern Europe by presenting herself as an Olympic skier and a model.  They were married the next year (1977) and began a family in a fashionable New York City Fifth Avenue apartment.  There they would raise together Don Jr., Ivanka and Eric.

Then when the Stock Market crashed in 1987 and America slid into a deep recession, many major New York real estate developers went into bankruptcy, and Trump's own greatly over-extended real estate empire also began to fail.  His Taj Mahal casino in Atlantic City was not coming close to paying for its expenses, and work on his project of restoring the historic Plaza Hotel in New York City had come to a halt.  At the same time, Trump owed $billions to banks that had invested in his various businesses. By 1990, he too was facing bankruptcy.

But the banks were not interested in another bankruptcy, and finally agreed to a five-year payout of his debts, although that meant having to sell off a lot of his properties (which because of the recession had already lost considerable value), and cut way back on his operating expenses.

Then to make matters worse for Trump, his marriage with Ivana fell apart when his affair with the Georgia model, Marla Maples, became public.  Consequently, he became involved in a very expensive divorce with Ivana (1992), one he could hardly afford.  Marla subsequently became pregnant, and two months after their daughter Tiffany was born, the two married (December 1993).  But Donald and Marla would separate in 1997 and divorce two years later.

Even before his entry into the race for the Republican Party's presidential nomination in 2016, Trump had previously tried his hand in the world of politics, one more new challenge of interest to him.  Actually, in 1999, he switched his affiliation from the Republican to the Reform Party, in order to run as a presidential candidate for that party.  He then seemed to switch his interests to the Democratic Party, even being invited by the party's presidential nominee John Kerry (and other Democrats) to sponsor Democratic Party fundraisers for party candidates.  But he soon returned to support the Republican Party, even in 2012 thinking about making a run for the Republican Party presidential nomination, although in the end he threw his support to Mitt Romney, the Party's official candidate.

But in June of 2015, Trump made it official.  He was definitely a candidate for the Republican Party presidential nomination, announcing that his campaign would be built on the challenge to "Make America Great Again" (MAGA).  For younger American generations accustomed to finding greater honor in shaming America for its many sins (all found in the person of Trump!), MAGA sounded perfectly terrible as an idea – Fascist actually.

To the amazement of many, Trump pulled ahead of his competitors to gain the Republican Party presidential nomination, and then he went on to conduct a carefully strategized move to win the electoral college votes needed to gain the presidency itself.  All of it was done with the same careful calculation by which he had built up his huge business empire.

No, Trump was no nitwit.  Vulgar and abrasive at times, yes.  Misleading in his broad public statements about what he planned to do with respect to this issue or that, yes.  But a nitwit.  No.