The headline of an op-ed in my local Sunday paper reads “Donald Trump, the luckiest politician who ever lived.”
I haven’t read the article but that headline made me realize that I don’t consider him a politician. If I was forced to chose one descriptor for him I guess it would be a celebrity. Does that make any sense? Can a person who has been and is running again to be the president of the U.S. not be a politician?
While he wasn’t originally a politician, he certainly is now. He’s now in his fourth campaign for the presidency (including his brief run for the Reform Party nomination in 2000), and the office of president – running for it, holding it, and trying to reclaim it – has been a primary focus for him since 2015.
He’s taken complete control of the RNC, and he actively endorses Republican candidates for other offices who suck up to him, while insulting those who aren’t sufficiently deferential to him.
Certainly, his celebrity was a major factor in his ability to initially gain traction during his run in 2016, but he is, by any reasonable standard, now a politician.
An interesting question (though maybe not an important one).
Was Dwight Eisenhower a politician? Arnold Schwarzenegger? Al Franken?
Ronald Reagan? Sonny Bono?
Ronnie has a better claim than some mentioned here (including Donald) to be called a politician. He ran for, and held, more than one political office. He spent a considerable portion of his life in politics. When you mention his name, most people will not think, “Oh, the actor” but rather “Oh, the president” or even “Oh, the politician.”
Fair, when looking back at his career now, but if he hadn’t been a well-known actor in the first place (and president of the Screen Actors Guild), his initial foray into politics in the 1960s might not have succeeded.
You’re right that most people today think of him as a politician, and president, first, but we’re now 35 years removed from the end of his presidency, and 60+ years removed from the end of his acting career. I’d wager that very few Americans alive today have ever seen one of Reagan’s movies.
When he ran for President in 1980, there was no small amount of criticism levied against him, for being “just an actor, and not even a good one” and not an experienced politician, despite the fact that he’d been the two-term governor of California at that point.
No one’s born a politician. (Well, Son-of-a-wrek may have been, come to think of it)
Who’da thunk a peanut farmer would ever be President?
Agreed. Donald may not have been a “career politician”, to use the common phrase (recently turned into snarl words) or even a good one, but he definitely is a politician today.
Which last bit makes for an excellent introduction to active politics when you think about it. Also, we must remember you can be actively engaged in politics without being in a public-facing role or running for elective offices – you can be a county party treasurer or a collaborator with a committee in drafting platforms or working on voter registration or assisting in donor networking, all the while continuing your regular profession or business career, until an opportunity comes along to get into it. So sure, you make a whole career as an entertainer, car salesman, business press publisher, federal prosecutor, astronaut, and then you pivot into politics. But once you run, IMO you get ONE shot at being the “outsider”.
He will lie, cheat and steal to gain political power.
He is a politician.
I liked him in the movies, and thought his acting good. His drunken playboy role in “Dark Victory” as Alex is one I enjoy. Aren’t all politicians actors, in a way? They have to fake their feelings, and convince that they are the real deal. RR was probably always astute to the ways of politics, whether in the studio on the campaign trail. I did not vote for him, but I could understand his appeal to voters. Just my .04 worth (adjusted for inflation).
To add a comment concerning the topic, I can see why Trump is appealing to certain people. He reminds me very strongly of a friend of my family who no one trusted, but who could be the life of the party. Trump has a crude charisma, he is funny, a celebrity, entertaining, etc…and over time, that kind of person has seeped into our government (such as Jesse Venture and Al Franken). One must have decorum and intelligence (not jokes and silly gestures and harmful bravado) to be trusted in a govt position, no matter what it is. I expect that, and I want people who run for public office to have knowledge, dignity, etc. They can have their own personality, but not to the detriment of looking clownish and unstable. I have no problem with actors being in politics, but I have a problem with them thinking it’s a role and not a real job that requires that they make real decisions with real consequences. Again, just my .04 worth.
I don’t think it’s luck, exactly. It’s not like he was running a distant second and his competitor was struck by lightning. His success isn’t some fluke. That said, if ever I could believe that someone sold his soul to the devil, it would be Trump.
For all of Trump’s forays into real estate, casinos, steaks, menswear, university, reality TV, and now politics, I consider him a salesman. Read the audience, figure out what they want, play up to them, press every advantage, and always be closing. Tell them your tale, get them hooked, make sure they want you more than you need them, be prepared to walk away, and get paid up front.
He’s good at it; he could sell snow to Eskimos.
To be kind, If I needed a descriptor to fit, it would be professional con man. I’m almost using it how thief is a profession in DnD type games. All his other descriptors stem from that. From real estate mogul, to celebrity to politician, to potential dictator. All seem to involve some forms of massive con’s and intimidation and other ‘persuasion’ behind the scenes (and sometimes blatantly in front of them). He seems to have mastered the art of getting his way by whatever means needed.
Yet a LOT of people trust Donnie to be their president, even though he has yet to exhibit any signs of either decorum or intelligence.
There are two aspects of “being a politician”.
Trump is baffling good at the first, lousy at the second. Does being good at both make one a politician? Or does actually not being good at either unimportant? So someone who runs and runs and runs but never gets in office might still be seen as a politician?
I lean somewhat to the latter. The fact that he actually won clinches it.
I thought #2 was “Staying in office”?
Yeah, “doing the job” is an unwarranted assumption. I am assuming most pols have getting reelected as priority number 1 above anything they actually plan to do.
Trump has been endlessly and tirelessly at the job of promoting himself as a media creation, business variety, since the 1980s. I would assume he is by far the most famous person ever to have been on the ballot for one of the major parties as a presidential candidate.
His continued work and campaigning seems to be mostly related to this self promoted image above all else. I don’t think Trump is actually very knowledgeable as to how to get and consolidate power or even money. He’s had decades of chances to build an actual empire, and he’s still hoofing it from rally to rally. Because that’s really what he knows. I don’t expect him to ever retire, just die or become incapacitated.
As an actual candidate, he picked a good year to run. His lack of shame is probably one of his talents that catches people off guard, it works well because people come in with certain expectations that Trump will never meet. Trump will always underdeliver, it’s his one core business strategy, defaulting on a promise. It’s a strategy that works well in politics because politicians that do exactly what they promise aren’t particularly successful. Politics has a bias towards lying anyway.
It’s hard to evaluate Trump’s abilities as a candidate outside of his immense fame. Once he became the Republican candidate, really it was a lot of inertia that carried him forward, people weren’t going to abandon him no matter what he did as long as he gave some sort of image of “strength.” As an incumbent candidate, he was well below average, losing his bid for reelection in circumstances that would mostly favor a generic, average incumbent.
I usually hear Sigourney Weaver’s voice saying: “You’re more like a game show host.”
That assumes he had a soul to sell.
Of course, he could have conned Ol’Scratch on that point.
He may not have been a politician in 2015, but by now, nine years later, he’s fully one, indeed. So yes.
Motivation matters. A politician runs for office, and performs the duties of that office, because they care about policies and the implementation thereof. They care about how their constituency is governed, and think they have something to offer that will improve that governance.
I’ve never gotten any sense of that from Trump. I can’t remember him ever articulating and advocating a policy that is important to him. He finds what’s important to his followers and uses that to his advantage. I’m reminded of that scene in The Usual Suspects where Keyser Soze murders his family rather than give in to those who are threatening them. Politicians care about things; to Trump, caring about anything is a weakness.