Donald Trump, From A To Z

An alphabetical portrait of the frontrunner in the race for the Republican Party's presidential nomination.

- Tunku Varadarajan

Coarse as hell, bombastic and misogynist, a blunt-spoken nativist with an almost cartoon arrogance, Donald Trump offers the textbook picture of a candidate unsuited to any elective office—however picayune— in the world’s most politically correct democracy. And yet he’s the clear (and effortless) frontrunner in the mucky marathon race for the Republican Party’s presidential nomination.

This reflects not merely the famine in the Republican field, but also the defeatism that has paralysed the party—a collective resignation to a rout in 2016 that has mutated into a theatre of the grotesque, with Trump as the rampant (but ultimately impotent) anti-hero. For those of you who are transfixed, here’s a brief Trump Primer:

A is for ’merica (the ‘A’ is silent), where aliens from across the southern border flock to have their anchor-babies, children with a right to US citizenship that Trump would seek to deny (the pesky Constitution notwithstanding).

B is for braggadocious, an adjective used by a gleeful Trump to describe himself in his opening statement in the last presidential debate. Contrary to popular media belief (and most likely his own), he didn’t invent the word.

C is for China, China, China, Trump’s one-country foreign policy. “Their leaders are much smarter than our leaders,” he has lamented loudly. “China in a trade deal? They kill us.” But things will change when he’s in charge: “I beat China all the time. All the time.” At least his bouffant is better than Xi Jinping’s.