[Vision2020] Our "president"

[Debi Smith]

Column:


  When this is over, you will have nothing that you want

Donald Trump

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump arrives to speak at 
Joni's Roast and Ride at the Iowa State Fairgrounds, in Des Moines, 
Iowa, on Saturday, Aug. 27, 2016.

(Gerald Herbert / AP)

Garrison KeillorSpecial To The Washington Post

The cap does not look good on you, it's a duffer's cap, and when you 
come to the microphone, you look like the warm-up guy, the guy who 
announces the license number of the car left in the parking lot, doors 
locked, lights on, motor running. The brim shadows your face, which 
gives a sinister look, as if you'd come to town to announce the closing 
of the pulp factory. Your eyes look dead and your scowl does not suggest 
American greatness so much as American indigestion. Your hair is the 
wrong color: People don't want a president to be that shade of blond. 
You know that now.

Why doesn't someone in your entourage dare to say these things? So sad. 
The fans in the arenas are wild about you, and Sean Hannity is as loyal 
as they come, but Rudy and Christie and Newt are reassuring in that 
stilted way of hospital visitors. And The New York Times treats you like 
the village idiot. This is painful for a Queens boy trying to win 
respect in Manhattan where the Times is the Supreme Liberal Jewish 
Anglican Arbiter of Who Has The Smarts and What Goes Where. When you 
came to Manhattan 40 years ago, you discovered that in entertainment, 
the press, politics, finance, everywhere you went, you ran into Jews, 
and they are not like you: Jews didn't go in for big yachts and a fleet 
of aircraft — they showed off by way of philanthropy or by raising 
brilliant offspring. They sympathized with the civil rights movement. In 
Queens, blacks were a threat to property values — they belonged in the 
Bronx, not down the street. To the Times, Queens is Cleveland. Bush 
league. You are Queens. The casinos were totally Queens, the gold 
faucets in your triplex, the bragging, the insults, but you wanted to be 
liked by Those People. You wanted Mike Bloomberg to invite you to dinner 
at his townhouse. You wanted the Times to run a three-part story about 
you, that you meditate and are a passionate kayaker and collect 
14th-century Islamic mosaics. You wish you were that person but you 
didn't have the time.

Trump to preside over the richest Cabinet in U.S. history

<http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/commentary/ct-donald-trump-losing-garrison-keillor-20160831-story.html#> 

Caption Trump to preside over the richest Cabinet in U.S. history

Trump to preside over the richest Cabinet in U.S. history

<http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/commentary/ct-donald-trump-losing-garrison-keillor-20160831-story.html#> 

Trump to preside over the richest Cabinet in U.S. history

White House responds to Trump's Carrier announcement

<http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/commentary/ct-donald-trump-losing-garrison-keillor-20160831-story.html#> 

White House responds to Trump's Carrier announcement

Supreme Court weighs rules for jailing immigrants under a Trump 
administration

<http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/commentary/ct-donald-trump-losing-garrison-keillor-20160831-story.html#> 

Supreme Court weighs rules for jailing immigrants under a Trump 
administration

Breitbart News sees advertisers exit

<http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/commentary/ct-donald-trump-losing-garrison-keillor-20160831-story.html#> 

Breitbart News sees advertisers exit

Senator Cardin: 'We can't allow Trump to trick us'

<http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/commentary/ct-donald-trump-losing-garrison-keillor-20160831-story.html#> 

Senator Cardin: 'We can't allow Trump to trick us'

Running for president is your last bid for the respect of Manhattan. If 
you were to win election, they couldn't ridicule you anymore. They could 
be horrified, but there is nothing ridiculous about being Leader of the 
Free World. You have B-52 bombers at your command. When you go places, a 
battalion of security guys comb the environs. You attract really really 
good speechwriters who give you Churchillian cadences and toss in quotes 
from Emerson and Aeschylus and Ecclesiastes.

Labor Day 
<http://www.chicagotribune.com/topic/jobs-workplace/labor-day-EVFES000025-topic.html> 
and it is not going well. You had a very bad month. You tossed out those 
wisecracks on Twitter and the Earth shook and your ratings among white 
suburban women with French cookware declined. The teleprompter is not 
your friend. You are in the old tradition of locker room ranting and big 
honkers in the steam room, sitting naked, talking man talk, griping 
about the goons and ginks and lousy workmanship and the uppity broads 
and the great lays and how you vanquished your enemies at the bank. 
Profanity is your natural language and vulgar words so as not to offend 
the Christers but the fans can still hear it and that's something they 
love about you. You are their guy. You are losing and so are they but 
they love you for it.


So what do you do this winter? Hang around one of your mansions? Hit 
some golf balls? Hire a ghostwriter to do a new autobiography?

What the fans don't know is that it's not much fun being a billionaire. 
You own a lot of big houses and you wander around in them, followed by a 
waiter, a bartender, a masseuse, three housekeepers, and a concierge, 
and they probably gossip about you behind your back. Just like 
nine-tenths of your campaign staff. You're losing and they know it and 
they're telling mean stories about you to everybody and his brother.

Meanwhile, you keep plugging away. It's the hardest work you've ever 
done. You walk out in the white cap and you rant for an hour about stuff 
that means nothing and the fans scream and wave their signs and you wish 
you could level with them for once and say one true thing: I love you to 
death and when this is over I will have nothing that I want.

/Garrison Keillor is an author and radio personality./

Donald Trump through the years

Take a look at Donald Trump's life long before his 2016 presidential bid.

Copyright © 2017, Chicago Tribune <http://www.chicagotribune.com/>
Sponsored 
Links<http://popup.taboola.com/en/?template=colorbox&utm_source=tribunedigital-chicagotribune&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=ab_thumbs-1r_2-rows:below-article-thumbs:>
FROM AROUND THE WEB
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mailman.fsr.com/pipermail/vision2020/attachments/20170107/7b738877/attachment-0001.html>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: 750x422
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 36955 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://mailman.fsr.com/pipermail/vision2020/attachments/20170107/7b738877/750x422-0002.jpe>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: 250x141
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 6517 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://mailman.fsr.com/pipermail/vision2020/attachments/20170107/7b738877/250x141-0002.jpe>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: 250x141
Type: image/png
Size: 59500 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://mailman.fsr.com/pipermail/vision2020/attachments/20170107/7b738877/250x141-0001.png>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: 250x141
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 7772 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://mailman.fsr.com/pipermail/vision2020/attachments/20170107/7b738877/250x141-0003.jpe>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: 750x422
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 36224 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://mailman.fsr.com/pipermail/vision2020/attachments/20170107/7b738877/750x422-0003.jpe>