My theory now is that Donald Trump is just the scariest drag queen alive. Consider it: make-up so dramatic it starts to look like parody, arch comments and lip curls, practised feminine hand gestures, a personality so large and loud that it becomes intimidating.If he'd busted out a flawless lip-sync of "The Trolley Song" during the final debate, would any of us, truly, have been surprised? If he ran his hands up his body, pawing at his trousers to reveal a tanned and stockinged leg, would we blink? We wouldn't. We know Trump now. We know the shape of his oddness and have contorted our world around it to accommodate him.
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With that in mind, I would like us all to look at this photo:
(Photo: Spencer Platt / Getty Images)
Since Eric Trump tweeted this photo six days ago I have not been able to stop looking at it. This is every strain of Trump currently alive: the prized daughter; the other daughter; the two sons who constantly look like they just got done shouting "HEY, MCFLY!" at Michael J. Fox; the trophy wife; visibly rich children. This is Trump split into seven as if he was punched down the spine by a power ring. This is the very essence of Trump.Tell me, though: is this not the most eerie family photo you have ever seen? Kind of family photo you see on a pamphlet for a pastor who has invented "a new kind of Christianity, one that is somehow even more puritanical. Come, live with us in tents, and we will feast and fuck together under the true and golden light of God." This family photo proves that Trumpness – Trump as an essence – is something that can be passed from one human to another. That Trumpness overwhelms all other genetics, pushing hair follicles back the wrong way, pulling skulls into emotionless rictus grins, making nasal cavities sensitive only to the smell of money. It sort of impresses me and terrifies me in equal measure.Essentially: one day, Trump Alpha will fall, and in his place one or more Trumps will pop up, more orange and bombastic than ever. The next great Trump is somewhere in this photo. We need to figure out who it is.
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WHO IS THE TRUMPIEST TRUMP WHO ISN'T TRUMP?
First, we have to define Trump 1.0 by some rough parameters, as follows:
— All the way fucked up hair
— Smiles like a caveman snarling at some meat
— Doesn't really know what to do w/ hands
— Visibly evil
— You just sincerely get the vibe that he does something weird when he pisses
So as you can see, The Donald gets a perfect score on all of the above. He is five on five on five:
Melania Trump, though, knows almost how to smile like a human and mostly knows where to put her hands in photographic situations, so scores near zeroes all round:
Now we have our range. Let's take the children out early, because people in the comments section always go like, "Oh, don't be mean! They're only children! Incredibly wealthy children, sure, and that boy one already looks like he's eyeing up my house to demolish it and turn it into a mega-hotel – like actually stare into that kid's eyes and tell me he doesn't already say things like, 'The yacht club? I hate that yacht club. Listen: get the maid in here to clean up all this Cola I deliberately spilt on the floor,' – but they are children nonetheless, so don't be mean about them!"
I am choosing not to speculate on how weirdly these kids piss for legal reasons, so they both get hard 0s on that.
Now we are getting to the meat of things. Donald Trump Jr. looks like every single dude from Made in Chelsea got into a car at once and crashed it into a bank, and this is what crawled, moaning and clicking its monstrous fingers irritably at a strip club waitress, out from the smoking remains. Donald Trump Jr. wins points for being literally called Donald Trump Jr., and for looking like he was taught to smile at a special smiling school for rich children ("Now, Donald, if we are struggling to smile, what do we do?" "Lean backwards and hope the rest of our body works as a pendulum to pull our lips up" "Good"), but loses them for having a thick, lustrous head of hair and for having this weird animal-of-the-woods innocence to him.
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Like: I personally have no doubts that Trump Jr. has some sort of evilness running through him, but from the off he just looks like one of those dudes who comes out of the woodwork every couple of years trying to sue Mark Zuckerberg because they think they invented Facebook, knowing deep down they didn't invent Facebook, knowing that they are in too deep now and have to follow through with this folly to the end. That's what Donald Trump Jr. looks like.
Tiffany doesn't really count because you just get the feeling she is one credit card overspend from "mysteriously going missing" and never being heard from again, but for now she is here and, inability to smile properly aside, she is human.
Then we get to Eric. Eric absolutely blasts this round on hair alone – when you're a really, really rich guy you only really have one choice of haircut, and that's "slicked back off your head". But there is like 1 percent of men that this haircut does not suit, myself included, and Eric is sadly one of them. He's got a little helmet bulge thing going on. The top of the hair runs too close to his skull. He looks like a 17-year-old boy whose very conservative mum let him buy his first pot of hair gel the night before prom, and this was what came out.Add in that his hands are at fuck o'clock, his smile is genuinely aggressive and the fact that he sincerely gives off the vibe that he does something chaotically wrong when he pisses – rides the toilet back-to-front, does a handstand before, during and after, takes off all of his clothes to pee, something like that – and we've got a hell of a Trump happening here.
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Now, on the parameters described above, Ivanka is only a low-to-medium scoring Trump. Yes: she has fuck all idea what to ever do with her hands, and smiles like she's eight hours in to a dental photoshoot, but her hair is mainly normal and she overall has the air of someone who is mildly embarrassed by – but not really enough to do anything about – her father. Look at Ivanka once, twice, maybe three times, and she appears to all intents and purposes a normal human person, positively non-Trumpian. But she isn't. She's basically Krang and The Donald is just the dumb robot body she bosses around. She is the smooth glassy shape that contrasts The Donald's oversized bombast. She is the anchor keeping this ship safe in the storm. Look at Ivanka and know true Trumpness. Look at Ivanka and know she is the one who will take the keys to the nuclear codes. Trust me, here. She is the next Trump to be feared.But I'm bringing this guy back in – the little kid, Donald Trump Jr's son, currently getting some sort of all-that-is-evil-in-the-universe power transfer from the big man behind him:
Look at him. Look at the way he's standing, hands in his little pockets, like he's waiting for a valet with his car. Look at the way that bowtie sits so naturally under his little neck. Look at that thousand-yard stare on him, a child so mature he is already disinterested in the presidential race, thinking of something, anything, to get him out of here.
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Melania Trump, though, knows almost how to smile like a human and mostly knows where to put her hands in photographic situations, so scores near zeroes all round:
Now we have our range. Let's take the children out early, because people in the comments section always go like, "Oh, don't be mean! They're only children! Incredibly wealthy children, sure, and that boy one already looks like he's eyeing up my house to demolish it and turn it into a mega-hotel – like actually stare into that kid's eyes and tell me he doesn't already say things like, 'The yacht club? I hate that yacht club. Listen: get the maid in here to clean up all this Cola I deliberately spilt on the floor,' – but they are children nonetheless, so don't be mean about them!"
I am choosing not to speculate on how weirdly these kids piss for legal reasons, so they both get hard 0s on that.
Now we are getting to the meat of things. Donald Trump Jr. looks like every single dude from Made in Chelsea got into a car at once and crashed it into a bank, and this is what crawled, moaning and clicking its monstrous fingers irritably at a strip club waitress, out from the smoking remains. Donald Trump Jr. wins points for being literally called Donald Trump Jr., and for looking like he was taught to smile at a special smiling school for rich children ("Now, Donald, if we are struggling to smile, what do we do?" "Lean backwards and hope the rest of our body works as a pendulum to pull our lips up" "Good"), but loses them for having a thick, lustrous head of hair and for having this weird animal-of-the-woods innocence to him.Like: I personally have no doubts that Trump Jr. has some sort of evilness running through him, but from the off he just looks like one of those dudes who comes out of the woodwork every couple of years trying to sue Mark Zuckerberg because they think they invented Facebook, knowing deep down they didn't invent Facebook, knowing that they are in too deep now and have to follow through with this folly to the end. That's what Donald Trump Jr. looks like.
Tiffany doesn't really count because you just get the feeling she is one credit card overspend from "mysteriously going missing" and never being heard from again, but for now she is here and, inability to smile properly aside, she is human.
Then we get to Eric. Eric absolutely blasts this round on hair alone – when you're a really, really rich guy you only really have one choice of haircut, and that's "slicked back off your head". But there is like 1 percent of men that this haircut does not suit, myself included, and Eric is sadly one of them. He's got a little helmet bulge thing going on. The top of the hair runs too close to his skull. He looks like a 17-year-old boy whose very conservative mum let him buy his first pot of hair gel the night before prom, and this was what came out.Add in that his hands are at fuck o'clock, his smile is genuinely aggressive and the fact that he sincerely gives off the vibe that he does something chaotically wrong when he pisses – rides the toilet back-to-front, does a handstand before, during and after, takes off all of his clothes to pee, something like that – and we've got a hell of a Trump happening here.
Now, on the parameters described above, Ivanka is only a low-to-medium scoring Trump. Yes: she has fuck all idea what to ever do with her hands, and smiles like she's eight hours in to a dental photoshoot, but her hair is mainly normal and she overall has the air of someone who is mildly embarrassed by – but not really enough to do anything about – her father. Look at Ivanka once, twice, maybe three times, and she appears to all intents and purposes a normal human person, positively non-Trumpian. But she isn't. She's basically Krang and The Donald is just the dumb robot body she bosses around. She is the smooth glassy shape that contrasts The Donald's oversized bombast. She is the anchor keeping this ship safe in the storm. Look at Ivanka and know true Trumpness. Look at Ivanka and know she is the one who will take the keys to the nuclear codes. Trust me, here. She is the next Trump to be feared.But I'm bringing this guy back in – the little kid, Donald Trump Jr's son, currently getting some sort of all-that-is-evil-in-the-universe power transfer from the big man behind him:
Look at him. Look at the way he's standing, hands in his little pockets, like he's waiting for a valet with his car. Look at the way that bowtie sits so naturally under his little neck. Look at that thousand-yard stare on him, a child so mature he is already disinterested in the presidential race, thinking of something, anything, to get him out of here.This is Donald Trump III, and he brings with him doom. This is Donald Trump III, and he already owns all of you, and me too. This is Donald Trump III, and he is the Trumpiest Trump who isn't Trump.@joelgolbyMore stuff from VICE:All the Evidence We Could Find About Fred Trump's Alleged Involvement with the KKKA Brief History of Donald Trump and the MafiaMeet the 15-Year-Old Helping Donald Trump Take Over the World