Quote:
Originally Posted by Textcritic
Really? I used to watch The Apprentice, and my impression of Trump was never that he was a "decent guy." He always carried himself like a bloviating, self-interested narcissist on the show, and there were several instances in which I actively wondered if he had even the slightest bit of business acumen, or if anyone actually took him seriously. In his boardroom appearances his attention was ephemeral, and he was so easily triggered by the most meaningless things. He was so volatile that it was impossible to imagine how he achieved any success through such toxicity. His handling of people who "worked" for him made me cringe, and that was part of the appeal of the show. The Trump we see today was easily projected from the Trump of 2005 when he was a reality TV-show personality.
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On the other hand, there was definitely a "funny" quality to Trump, in that he was outrageous but in a non-serious kind of way. He still has that quality to some extent, which allows some people to excuse his behaviour even now - "it's just Trump being Trump, he's not serious".
I can still remember picking up a book of his that was in a vacation house I was renting about 15 years ago, and actually laughing out loud at multiple points throughout it. It was basically just as though he'd dictated it in one sitting, talking about nothing, but doing it in a way that was supposed to make you believe he was some kind of expert on whatever it was he was blabbering about.
Even when he was cutting up the other Republican candidates during the primaries, I thought it was mostly hilarious - precisely because he was not a serious candidate himself (and some of the other candidates were just so clearly loathsome). It really just stopped being funny when it became apparent he had a chance to actually win - and then became stone-cold scary when he actually did.
But I don't have any trouble understanding why he had broad appeal before he actually became a politician. He was just ludicrous.