Oh, joy! Oh, goody! Oh, happy day! If you love the loopy side of American politics, your dream of some serious loco for 2016 has arrived: Donnie Trump is in the race! For president. Of the United States. No, really!
He announced his candidacy from – where else? – Trump Tower, the luxury skyscraper on tony Fifth Avenue in Manhattan. The celebrity billionaire who has splashed the Trump brand on casinos, hotels, resorts, condos, neckties, and even steaks, now wants to put it on the Republican Party. Indeed, Trump declared that he should be our president because, “We need somebody that can take the brand of the United States and make it great again.” There you go – the U.S. is a brand, like a “Big Mac,” or “Vidal Sassoon” hair spray, or “Trump!”
As for qualifications, Trump pontificated that only someone “really rich” has what it takes to be America’s CEO. This view that one’s net worth is the measure of one’s worthiness squares with an earlier self-assessment by Donnie: “Let me tell you: I’m a really smart guy,” he assures us.
Of course, smart is as smart does, so what does Mr. Smarty-Pants propose to do as president? Well, he says he’ll build a “great wall” on the Mexican border to stop all the “rapists” and other criminals who, he claims, are streaming into the U.S. in droves. Plus, he has “a foolproof way of winning the war with ISIS,” the barbaric terrorists marauding through Syria, Iraq, and elsewhere. Excellent! What is his plan? It’s a secret, he says: “I don’t want the enemy to know what I’m doing.”
Such goofiness explains why Trump starts his run for the White House with some 70% of voters (including more than half of Republicans) viewing him UNfavorably. But, as a brand-name celebrity, The Donald will qualify to be in the GOP’s presidential debates – so let the lunacy begin!
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This article appears in July 3 • 2015.