‘I Think He’s a Very Dangerous Man for the Next Three or Four Weeks’
‘I Think He’s a Very Dangerous Man for the Next Three or Four Weeks’
Back in early March, Politico Magazine brought together five Donald Trump biographers for a conversation over lunch at Trump Tower. At the time, the country was just beginning to grapple with the reality that the presidential nominee from one of the two major American political parties stood a good chance of being a real estate mogul and entertainer. Wayne Barrett, Gwenda Blair, Michael D’Antonio, Harry Hurt and Timothy O’Brien knew him better than anybody, had studied him more than anybody, had written an aggregate 2,195 pages in books.
So much has happened over the past seven months: the crackpot conspiracy theories, the rageful late-night Twitter tirades, the surges and slides in the polls, an onslaught of investigative reporting that painted him as a racist, sexist, selfish, uncharitable, lying predator. So we thought it was time, especially in the wake of “grab them by the pussy,” for an emergency reconvening of the Trumpologists.
In a conference call on Monday with Barrett, Blair, D’Antonio and O’Brien, the biographers were unanimous in their assessment of what we are seeing: They are not surprised. Trump is who they thought he was. This, they said, is not a show. It is not an act. This is the man they wrote about. In 1992. In 1993. In 1999. In 2005. In 2015. This is a man who has been one of the most famous people in America for going on 40 years. Only now, though, are many people, finally, really, getting to know Donald John Trump.
He is, the biographers said, “profoundly narcissistic,” “willing to go to lengths we’ve never seen before in order to satisfy his ego”—and “a very dangerous man for the next three or four weeks.” And after that? “This time, it’s going to be a straight‑out loss on the biggest stage he’s ever been on,” one biographer predicted. And yet: “As long as he’s remembered, maybe it won’t matter to him.”
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