’ll bet that few of President Trump’s supporters will actually read the article in The New York Times outlining just how he was able to blow $1.17 billion between 1985 and 1994. They won’t either out of antipathy towards that paper, or because the article’s too long, or because they’re so in the tank for Trump that they think he walks on water, is more honest than Mother Teresa and all the rest—and anyone who says anything that doesn’t validate this world view is automatically a far left stooge.

But they might learn something, because the disclosures rip a Titanic-sized gash in the myth Trump has spent a lifetime peddling, namely that he’s a big-brained, super deal-making genius. I mean, you don’t have to be a Trump University grad to know that losing $1.17 billion in ten years isn’t exactly the definition of success.

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What’s interesting here is that even with one mild recession, the overall period in question—1985 to 1994—was a boom time for the U.S. economy. GDP grew 43%, and the stock market, as measured by the S&P 500 SPX, -1.65% , grew 171%—not counting dividends.

If you parked cash in an index fund on New Year’s Day 1985 and went away for a decade, you would have done quite well. Yet Trump was blowing through cash, even at his flashy Atlantic City casinos. How anyone could lose money in a casino in the 1980s—when the only options were Nevada or New Jersey—is beyond me. Trump’s lack of a Midas touch was also evident at everything from a failed airline to a football team in a league that thought it could actually compete with the NFL.