David Remnick, the editor of The New Yorker, is not the kind of writer who goes around calling people jackasses, so his commentary yesterday on Donald Trump was something to behold.
The personal brand is, depending on your inclinations, a gilded jackass or an up-from-nothing tell-it-like-it-is-type-a-guy (without the up-from-nothing part). But it’s always been more than buffoonish entertainment. The sheer number of people and peoples who Trump has managed to insult, bully, and mistreat is, in its way, awe-inspiring.
Remnick goes on to describe comments Trump’s made about African-Americans, women, climate change, and much, much more, before reminding us that Trump’s running for president:
Trump is now running for President of the United States. His platform appears, in the early stages, to be a smelly soup of billionaire populism and yahoo nationalism—all flavored with a tangy dollop of old-timey racism. On Mexicans: “They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.” (When challenged that a report he cited concerned immigrants who had been raped, he said, “Somebody’s doing the raping!”) Donald Trump is currently polling second among Republican primary voters in New Hampshire, Iowa, and nationally.
Why do Americans worship the rich? We live in a terrifying country.
I didn’t bother to read the article, as I despise Trump, but I would suggest that his apparent popularity also coincides with what writers very similar to what Ann Ramano is doing.