Douglas Wilson's Letter From Moscow

Trumpery

Douglas Wilson

Blog&Mablog

I indicated recently that Trump was a presidential non-starter, and I would like to say just a few things about that. If I may.

The Trump phenomenon/boomlet is reality television meets celebrity buzz meets annoyance on immigration meets faux defiance of political correctness meets hot first lady with nude pics on the Internet meets the ultimate American Trump card, which would of course be money. But we have to be realistic. Trump’s high poll numbers is the Republican primary electorate on a spring break bender in Fort Lauderdale. This is not the girl they are going to marry.

I will bring top men into my cabinet, and they will make top decisions. The very best decisions. And they will all go home to their top women, and they will beget top children, all of whom will have lifetime passes to my golf courses.

But what is going on in the meantime? The Trump empire of glitz is built like Versailles, only without any taste. It reminds one of that time I was visiting a well-known charismatic television studio, let us not inquire too closely as to why, and everything back stage looked like it was built for the Sun King. But when you got up close, that special je ne sais quoi trailer park quality jumped out at you. Think Saddam palaces with discount molding bought at Home Depot.

What Trump actually represents is a test for the other Republican candidates. And by this I do not mean whether or not they oppose or support him, or understand the indignation he is tapping into, or fiercely denounce what he just said about Mexicans, or are courting his constituency without identifying with him per se. I don’t mean any of that. The test concerns which candidate is willing to demonstrate in public that they understand that Trump is funny.

There was “a thing” going around after the first debate asking this: if Trump can’t handle Megyn Kelly, then how on earth is he going to handle Putin? Well, great question, but let’s expand it a bit. If the Republican candidates generally can’t handle Trump, then how on earth are they going to handle Putin?


For, make no mistake, in the ledgers of ludicrous, American machismo and Russian machismo are just the same number in different columns. Trump would handle Putin by sending him a bevy of concubines, and they would then discover that they were entirely on the same wavelength. Putin could teach Trump how to ride shirtless on a horse, or maybe shoot Cecil’s cousin in Africa, and Trump would teach Putin how to leverage the hair around his ears into a massive bouffant. Peace would then break out, and the only price we would have to pay would be that of being locked in the studio audience in order to watch reality television eat reality.

That is where I make my mistake, you say. Reality television doesn’t have studio audiences. Ah. But they would then. The world would be the studio audience.