# What did you think of Donald Trump a decade ago? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [October 3, 2018, 3:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-you-think-of-donald-trump-a-decade-ago/822370 "2018-10-03T15:15:24Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2018, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-you-think-of-donald-trump-a-decade-ago/822370/41 "2018-10-03T21:29:09Z")
Same thing I though of him _3 decades ago_– A vile, disgusting, self-absorbed real estate huckster with bad taste to boot. Someone to laugh at, not respect. ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2018, 10:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-you-think-of-donald-trump-a-decade-ago/822370/42 "2018-10-03T22:32:23Z")
Living in NYC, I was aware of Trump starting in the 70s. Even then, I thought of him as the most reprehensible human being on the planet. Nothing since then has changed my opinion of him. ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2018, 10:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-you-think-of-donald-trump-a-decade-ago/822370/43 "2018-10-03T22:48:01Z")
I was barely aware that he existed. ---
**Author:** ![Mean\_Mr.Mustard](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mean_mr.mustard/32/3865_2.png) [@Mean\_Mr.Mustard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mean_Mr.Mustard)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2018, 10:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-you-think-of-donald-trump-a-decade-ago/822370/44 "2018-10-03T22:48:14Z")
Presidential material. HaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHa! ---
**Author:** ![JohnGalt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johngalt/32/184_2.png) [@JohnGalt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnGalt)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2018, 10:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-you-think-of-donald-trump-a-decade-ago/822370/45 "2018-10-03T22:55:32Z")
My first knowledge of him was a 1983 episode of _This Old House_ with Bob Vila. They discussed the new Trump tower which ended with Donald Trump giving Bob a tour of the penthouse. The ego was amazing (and frankly, so were the views). It was the best finishes and location and layouts, according to Trump. A year later we were visiting NYC and stopped by the Trump Tower. We got told to wait at the bottom of the escalator by the security guard before we could go to the mall on the second floor (is that right?), maybe because we were tourist hicks by the way we dressed. We stayed for about 15 minutes and then went saw more interesting things in the city. To me he was big money, ego, bad hair, and self-promotion. I avoided reading about him and his divorces and business dealings, figuring he’d simply go away… ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2018, 11:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-you-think-of-donald-trump-a-decade-ago/822370/46 "2018-10-03T23:02:18Z")
> [@DinoR](#): > > I thought he was a narcissistic ass hat thanks to Bloom County. What I saw of him in other popular culture references seemed to confirm the image. I also was aware of his 2000 Presidential campaign (he sought and didn’t win the Reform Party nomination) and regular discussion of maybe running for President every cycle even before that. I was not impressed with the idea any of the times I heard his name come up. “Doonesbury” has been lampooning him for decades. I recently saw a cartoon from 1987 which postulated a Trump presidency. That was scary to read or think about, even then. If someone had told me a decade ago that he’d run AND “WIN”, I’d have said they had to be lying. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2018, 11:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-you-think-of-donald-trump-a-decade-ago/822370/47 "2018-10-03T23:31:47Z")
This is after the Apprentice aired, but before he went in on birtherism, right? Then he was this business guy with tacky tastes and who played up being an asshole for reality TV. Before that, he was this vague talk of a rich guy who would occasionally do cameos. I can’t remember if I’d seen any of his stuff to know how tacky his tastes were. ---
**Author:** ![choie](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/choie/32/7829_2.png) [@choie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/choie)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2018, 11:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-you-think-of-donald-trump-a-decade-ago/822370/48 "2018-10-03T23:37:38Z")
New Yorker here. For decades, I knew him as a trash-talking egomaniac with daddy issues, a womanizing sexist, someone who was likely mob-connected, a sleazy opportunist with the wannabe taste of a _nouveau riche_ Marie Antoinette, and most of all a racist shithead who hounded the Central Park Five and called for their deaths and insisted they were guilty until proven innocent (HMMMM, his feelings on _that_ tenet certainly change depending on the gender and race of the person, don’t they?)–and even when they _were_ proven innocent, he maintained their guilt. Also, more specifically ten years ago: ugly as hell and a trashy reality TV star. Otherwise I didn’t think much about him. ---
**Author:** ![seal\_cleaner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e274bd/32.png) [@seal\_cleaner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/seal_cleaner)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2018, 11:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-you-think-of-donald-trump-a-decade-ago/822370/49 "2018-10-03T23:46:03Z")
I thought he was an asshole, but never paid attention to him. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2018, 1:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-you-think-of-donald-trump-a-decade-ago/822370/50 "2018-10-04T01:46:42Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > In 2003, I had thought of Trump as being a bit of a fictitious character and had only heard the name but never thought of him as a real person. Up to a few years ago I could only vaguely associate the words “reality TV,” “Apprentice,” “you’re fired” with his name, and knew next to nothing about him. > How about you? I thought he was a rich, entitled asshole who was good at real estate. I knew about him prior to 2003, and actually never saw his Apprentice show, but I admit I didn’t delve into him too deeply. I recall a lot about his various products, like his vodka and board game, but also knew he’d gone through rough patches wrt his business, and that he definitely dicked a lot of his investors. My opinion of him these days (well, for the last 6 or so years) is much, much worse. I actually don’t think he is even good at real estate, certainly not general business, and I think he’s a puffed up clueless idiot who is also a terrible human being. He’s also like a lemming, leading the Republican party over the cliff. I actually think it’s possible that one of the big two parties could go down thanks to this idiot, and that we might see something we haven’t seen since the rise of the Republican party just before the civil war…a full collapse of a major party and the rise of a new one from it’s ashes. Hopefully we’ll get another Lincoln without the civil war… ---
**Author:** ![Ukulele\_Ike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/df788c/32.png) [@Ukulele\_Ike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ukulele_Ike)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2018, 2:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-you-think-of-donald-trump-a-decade-ago/822370/51 "2018-10-04T02:23:19Z")
> [@nearwildheaven](#): > > “Doonesbury” has been lampooning him for decades. Underground comix artist R. Crumb did a story about how much of an asshole Trump was back in 1989, in the third issue of HUP! You can read the whole thing here: > **[R. Crumb v. D. Trump, 1989 \[NSFW\]](https://boingboing.net/2016/06/21/r-crumb-v-d-trump-1989-ns.html)** > > R Crump's "Point the Finger" series of comics about his disgust with America appeared in the first run of Hup! in 1989. Crumb took aim at many targets, among them… ---
**Author:** ![madmonk28](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madmonk28/32/20811_2.png) [@madmonk28](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madmonk28)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2018, 2:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-you-think-of-donald-trump-a-decade-ago/822370/52 "2018-10-04T02:39:31Z")
He was always kind of a punch line, the guy who put his name on his tacky buildings. Like a sentient pinky ring. ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2018, 2:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-you-think-of-donald-trump-a-decade-ago/822370/53 "2018-10-04T02:42:47Z")
> [@panache45](#): > > Living in NYC, I was aware of Trump starting in the 70s. Even then, I thought of him as the most reprehensible human being on the planet. Nothing since then has changed my opinion of him. :dubious: Worse than Pol Pot, who was around at the same time? Or were you not aware of the latter? :D;) Seriously, you have mentioned this before, so I am curious. What did 70’s DJT do to earn your ire? AFAIK, this was before his showman phase. ---
**Author:** ![Ukulele\_Ike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/df788c/32.png) [@Ukulele\_Ike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ukulele_Ike)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2018, 3:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-you-think-of-donald-trump-a-decade-ago/822370/54 "2018-10-04T03:15:38Z")
Go back and look at my post at #34, for starters. These things are why most New Yorkers hated him in the 1980s. See also: SPY magazine. One of the pranks they pulled was sending increasingly dwindling checks to celebrities to see when they would stop cashing them. Trump held out the longest, eventually banking checks for $.02. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2018, 3:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-you-think-of-donald-trump-a-decade-ago/822370/55 "2018-10-04T03:22:41Z")
> [@MEBuckner](#): > > From [all the way back in _1989_](https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/magazine/1989/09/24/air-daves-flight-plan/f2767c26-70bc-4abe-8f9b-cd47b9ded825/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.e2e97ad156f2): Dave Barry’s column and that absurd board game formed my opinion of Trump from a young age. Nothing since then has altered my opinion for the better. On occasion as a kid, I’d find myself with some friends in a strange house–say, a beach house that the parents had rented. Being bored, we’d sometimes search every cabinet hoping to find something to do. Invariably, we’d find a stash of lame board games. And _Trump: The Game_ was, for some reason, always among them. I did not know, then, the word narcissism, but I knew what it was to be a narcissistic ass. And I knew that anyone that put their own stupid face on such a stupid game, with tacky gold lettering and an offensive tagline, must be a narcissistic ass. ---
**Author:** ![outlierrn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/outlierrn/32/3005_2.png) [@outlierrn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/outlierrn)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2018, 4:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-you-think-of-donald-trump-a-decade-ago/822370/56 "2018-10-04T04:05:03Z")
I remember a vanity photo op of him holding a million dollars in cash from some magazine in the '80s; that and doonesbury pretty much informed my opinion. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2018, 4:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-you-think-of-donald-trump-a-decade-ago/822370/57 "2018-10-04T04:09:35Z")
I thought he was a rich asshole who liked firing people. Turns out I was wrong on two of three counts. ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2018, 4:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-you-think-of-donald-trump-a-decade-ago/822370/58 "2018-10-04T04:50:36Z")
> [@Ukulele\_Ike](#): > > Go back and look at my post at #34, for starters. These things are why most New Yorkers hated him in the 1980s. > > See also: SPY magazine. One of the pranks they pulled was sending increasingly dwindling checks to celebrities to see when they would stop cashing them. Trump held out the longest, eventually banking checks for $.02. I loved “Spy” magazine. Haven’t seen a Dumpster worshipper here yet! Thank heavens. ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2018, 4:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-you-think-of-donald-trump-a-decade-ago/822370/59 "2018-10-04T04:53:11Z")
> [@AK84](#): > > :dubious: > Worse than Pol Pot, who was around at the same time? Or were you not aware of the latter? :D;) > Seriously, you have mentioned this before, so I am curious. What did 70’s DJT do to earn your ire? AFAIK, this was before his showman phase. Well, Agent Orange DID say recently that he “fell in love” with Kim Jong Zero. :dubious: ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2018, 5:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-you-think-of-donald-trump-a-decade-ago/822370/60 "2018-10-04T05:57:43Z")
> [@Hampshire](#): > > C’mon now, honestly, did you really need Trump to tell you that? > It’s a bit of common sense most people know. Actually, while getting it from Trump happens to be a “broken clock” kind of thing: 1. Trump isn’t a complete imbecile, or he wasn’t, 2. the one thing he was good at is sales, 3. and if you spent as much time browsing through flat ads as I do, you’d know it’s something that, while most people have heard at some time or another, a huge amount of people do not truly know. One reason my Barcelona flat was relatively cheap compared to others the same size in the exact same neighborhood is that it had been neither painted nor staged. The seller was superhappy when I told him I’d be glad to take any furniture he didn’t want, stopped his agent’s attempts to keep bargaining right there. I ended up giving most of that furniture to a charity, in two stages, and one of the pickup guys was in both teams: when he saw the living room the second time (without that stuffed sofa they’d already taken) he exclaimed “wow, it looks twice as big!” [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-you-think-of-donald-trump-a-decade-ago/822370.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-you-think-of-donald-trump-a-decade-ago/822370.md?page=4)