Donald Trump is a big, blustering, sexist dinosaur. The real estate tycoon and reality TV show host can "fire" us or call us a big fat dyke for saying so. Of all his delightful qualities, one of his most charming is his seemingly unlimited joy for belittling and needlessly berating women. His latest target is actress/princess of Genovia Anne Hathaway. The Donald recently lashed out at her, saying that she only broke up with be-scandaled Eyetalian Rafaello Follieri because his legal troubles caused the money to run out. “So when he had plenty of money, she liked him," he garbled to Access Hollywood. "But then after that, not as good, right?” No, actually, we suspect it's because he was arrested for stealing fucking millions of dollars that Hathaway ended the affair, not because the money trail went cold. She's been doing pretty well for herself in the films lately, so finances probably aren't a huge worry for her. But she's a woman!
You'll remember that this isn't Trump's first run-in with a member of the fairer sex. He's had nasty divorces with ex-wives Ivana ("Don't get mad, get everything") and Marla, and has raged at former business associates like Carolyn Kepcher and Martha Stewart. He fired Kepcher—who always seemed smart and capable and grounded on Trump's "hit" show The Apprentice—because she was becoming a "prima donna" whose "TV role went to her head." (He later axed his secretary for the same reason.) He publicly dissed his once-friend Martha when her Apprentice spin-off failed to attract viewers, blaming his own version's ratings dip on her failures. Then of course came Rosie, who aptly called him a "snake-oil salesman" on The View. He went completely apeshit, refusing to let the imagined "feud" die down. He kept blubbering about it for months and months, making as many jabs about her appearance as he possibly could. There was also the scuttled TV show Lady or a Tramp in which he planned to school "out of control" young women in how to be dainty, and then there was this.
So why do people still put up with him? Remember when he went bankrupt and everyone thought we were finally done with him? That was a glorious time. So what happened? Why did he come back for a thoroughly un-American second act? I mean his brand of self-aggrandizing, bewigged machismo was kind of de rigeur in the 80's and charmingly old-timey in the 90's, but now it's just passé and exhausting and increasingly offensive. And he never stops! He's seemingly impervious to criticism, his ego (and his toupee) just getting impossibly bigger and bigger and bigger.
Though maybe that's backfiring. Maybe that bullet-proof exterior will be his undoing. People do seem, finally, to be less charmed by his, well, snake-oil ways. Some are even turning their heads away from boredom. I mean, if you've witnessed time and time again how unstoppable the juggernaut is, you just stop worrying about it. There's nothing you can do. And then, after a while, you stop paying attention altogether. The Apprentice was canceled last year (though he'll tell you it was his choice to end it) and now he's been reduced to bellowing about perfectly likable actresses who have absolutely nothing to do with him. Hopefully this marks the beginning of his dimming-casino-lights fade into obscurity. We're tired.
What's on iconoclastic writer