- Opinion
- 03 Feb 16
"The trouble with Trump is that he is, by temperament, by experience, and by character, utterly unqualified to be president of the United States. He is a buffoon."
So wrote Michael Kinsley in his withering takedown of the odious property developer, businessman and reality TV star turned politician, Donald Trump, published in the November edition of Vanity Fair. In the same issue,VF editor Graydon Carter recalled the joy he used to take in winding-up Trump in the late 1980s by calling him a "short-fingered vulgarian" in Spy magazine.
Predictably, the 69-year-old wannabe Republican presidential candidate was not amused. He responded with a typically petulant tweet from his @realDonaldTrump account: "I have watched sloppy Graydon Carter fail and close Spy Magazine and now am watching him fail at @VanityFair Magazine. He is a total loser!"
He soon followed this with:"@VanityFair magazine is doing really poorly. It has gotten worse and worse over the years, and has lost almost all of it's [sic] former allure."
Seriously? Could you imagine Obama posting a tweet like that? Even George W. Bush would have shown more restraint.
The real trouble with Trump is that, despite a series of car crash interviews, debates and rants, and his seeming ability to offend almost everybody he comes into contact with, he actually might win the nomination. Worse still, he could even - whisper it - win the presidency.
Speaking to Hot Press a few months ago, Bosnian-born novelist Aleksandar Hemon warned of the dangers of writing off the likes of Trump: "Back in the day, before the war in the former Yugoslavia, there were people not unlike Trump, and we mocked them. People of my generation thought they could not possibly take hold: 'These people are clowns!' And so those 'clowns' became heads of newly formed states and their 'clown-ness' orchestrated genocide."
Not that we're saying a President Trump would orchestrate genocide, necessarily. But would you really want such a thin-skinned, short-tempered douchebag to have his finger on the nuclear trigger?
On the bright side, if Trump does become POTUS, it could be good for Ireland. After all, we've already kissed his overfed ass. When the billionaire arrived in Ireland to purchase Doonbeg golf course at a knockdown price, the Government duly wheeled out the red carpet. For good measure, the mogul was also greeted by musicians, dancing girls and a bowing and scraping Michael Noonan.