The strange appeal of Donald Trump

I have a confession to make. I don’t much like Donald Trump, never have, and yet I’m feeling the buzz too.

I don’t dislike Trump because he’s a gazillionaire. Not even that he inherited a fortune and the connections to grow it. That he took a large sum of money and made it into a huge sum is an accomplishment not to be despised.*

He could have taken the goods and become just another Trust Fund Idiot famous for parties and scandals and diving head first into an early grave. Instead he studied and made himself master of a specific highly-specialized field of business, real estate.

I don’t like Trump because I find his manner abrasive and because way back when he was still married to his first wife Ivana he dissed her publicly in an interview.

Now that I think of it, the specific question was about her statement that Trump would run for president when he was good and ready.

I don’t like Trump because he tried to use a city’s power of eminent domain to run little a old lady off her property so he could build a casino. I don’t respect him because he lost.

I don’t like Trump because he’s switched sides on issues like abortion, universal health care, gun control, and whether Hillary Clinton is competent or not. I don’t respect him because he was their “friend” and a large donor to the Clinton Foundation.

I don’t like the Clinton’s either, and think their Foundation is an ongoing criminal enterprise. But I don’t like people who turn on their friends; not for principle but for expediency.
Trump has been a registered Democrat, once sought the Reform Party nomination, and is now seeking the Republican nomination.

Somehow I don’t think this is a sign of evolving political thought.

I actually started to warm to Trump when he got into show business.
While other people were mocking him, I thought maybe he’s really found his niche. Somebody with an outsized ego, tremendous vanity, bombastic personality – he’s a natural!

I thought maybe this is the kind of thing that would really make him happy and fulfilled. An accomplishment that would stand alone outside the shadow of his father.

After all, they say politics is show business for ugly people.

And now much against my will I find myself drawn to The Donald, knowing full well he’d be a terrible president, and worse a spoiler in the race to prevent Hillary from becoming president.

Why?

“When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best. They’re not sending you. They’re not sending you. They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.”

No, it’s not that I don’t think it’s an offensive overgeneralization.

It’s because he’s not backing down!

How many times have we seen someone make an off-the-cuff remark in the heat of the moment, or maybe only something meant as a joke, who was then forced to abase themselves publicly in the most humiliating way you can imagine, then likely lost their job anyway.

Americans are furious about illegal – stress ILLEGAL immigration. Neither party is taking them seriously. The Democrats see a sea of potential life-long Democratic voters who will insure them a permanent majority.

Republicans are dominated by elites who see a permanent source of cheap tractable labor.

Neither gives a damn about the possible effects of the importation of a huge number of people with little understanding of democratic processes who are less and less willing to assimilate.

Trump said what a lot of people wanted to hear, then stuck to his guns when he got crucified in the media for it and lost a lot of business.

Of course, if Trump never did another deal in his life he could still buy himself a small country to retire in.

Still, that’s why Trump is overtaking the establishment pols in the polls. Oh we’ll get over it by convention time, never fear.

Some of us just wish we could see someone with a real chance display that kind of guts.

* Turns out I was wrong about this. Latest estimates of Trump’s present fortune versus the fortune he inherited indicate it has grown at a rate no greater than the money a conservative mutual fund would have. In other words, Trump might be richer today if he’d done essentially nothing.