USA TODAY US Edition

Imagining Trump’s reality-show America

- Jill Lawrence Jill Lawrence is the commentary editor of USA TODAY.

To really appreciate the fix we’re in, imagine an entire nation of Donald Trumps.

Anarchic classrooms filled with child bullies flinging insults at kids cowering in corners. Marauding adults in a 24/7 frenzy of baiting and scapegoati­ng. Everyone feeling they have license to attack everyone else. Just make sure to laugh as you’re hurling the sneers and mockery. If you’re tweeting, finish off with an exclamatio­n point.

These touches make people feel better. You might, after all, be kidding. Except you’re not. And he’s not. Presidents have flaws just like anyone else. But one thing almost all of them recognize: They are obligated to present a civilized face to the nation and the world. Goodbye to all that.

Listening to Trump is a handwringi­ng experience. You want to laugh, cry and pummel the many GOP elders who refuse to take him on. You marvel at what Trump gets away with, and picture Mitt Romney sputtering at the unfairness of it all.

Trump can refer to his friends who own sports teams (“Mark Cuban actually gave us the Dallas Mavericks arena” for a rally) and dismiss his profits from Macy’s as negligible (“Now look, it was peanuts. I was selling shirts and ties. Not a lot.”) and nobody cares. People did care when Romney mentioned his friends who owned NASCAR and football teams, his $374,000 in speaking fees that he described as “not very much,” and all the other markers of his wealth. Trump implies he’s doing us a favor by taking a break from his “very nice life” to run for president.

All of those quotes came from a rally Tuesday in Sparks, Nev., hours before Trump coasted to a 46% victory in the state. It was an extraordin­ary yet perfectly standard display, replete with hyperbole and narcissism (“nobody loves the Bible more than I do” and “it’s amazing how I can talk people into things”). There was thinking out loud (Who is more “disgusting ” and “dishonest,” Ted Cruz or the news media?) and Trump’s customary yet still incredible ode to the loyalty of his fans: “Sixty-eight percent would not leave under any circumstan­ces. I think that means murder, I think it means anything.”

The most dangerous elements of Trump are the flashes of charm and humor that make him seem almost plausible. You laugh when he talks about bad business decisions by The New York Times — and then “they tell you how to run your life!” You laugh when he describes how Japan rejects U.S. beef, sends it back, we send it back to them, and “by the time they get it back to Japan after three to four times it’s so rotted and so disgusting that they call it Kobe beef and they charge 10 times more because they’re smart.”

You laugh and kick yourself and wish for instant fact-checks and try to resist the urge to tweet every crazy insult and tall tale. Because a lot of people don’t think they’re crazy or untrue. And they love them.

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