TRUMP

t HE Li FE o F
TRUMP
D
onald J. Trump is an easy man to underestimate. His
attention span maxes out at about twenty-six seconds, 72 and he
has almost certainly never read a book in his adult life. 73 Liberals
thoroughly enjoy mocking his perceived lack of intellect. New York
magazine scoffs at him for being “stupid, lazy, and childlike,” 74 and
Salon calls him an “idiot.” 75 The common descriptors of Trump are
repeated ad nauseum: boorish, 76 obnoxious, 77 egotistical, 78 crude, 79
bullying, 80 greedy, 81 megalomaniacal, 82 arrogant, 83 etc. He is treated as
a self-evidently ridiculous figure, one whose unapologetic embrace of
his own massive personal failings makes him impossible to take seriously.
Trump has been the butt of thousands upon thousands of jokes,
mocked widely for his ignorance, crassness, and vanity.
Since his early rise to fame in the 1980’s, Trump’s name has been
synonymous with gaudiness and greed. Trump is the very definition
of ugly rich, the sort of man who believes gold-plating something
increases its tastefulness, and who installs a 12-foot waterfall in his
80-foot living room (Trump does, in fact, have a 12-foot waterfall in