Donald Trump

Donald Trump is a real estate mogul known for slapping his name on the front of his innumerable hotels, casinos, resorts and golf courses. Most of his capital is rooted in New York City, where he owns several million square feet of property, including half of the Empire State Building. This is a secondary achievement to Donald's comb-over, which rivals any architecture he's built. He also hosted The Apprentice, until he got kicked out for his controversial opinions about Mexican immigrants. But we're getting ahead of ourselves...

In The Seventies, Trump inherited his real estate business from his father Fredrick (rechristening it "The Trump Organization", natch). Following a five-year apprenticeship under his dad, Donald relocated to New York City to begin his career in earnest. He went on to gather up Manhattan's most profitable properties like so many vacant Monopoly squares.

His 1987 semi-autobiographical book, The Art of the Deal, sold extremely well as people began to identify him with American entrepreneurship and shrewd power brokering. It was around this time that Trump started to appear As Himself in television Dom Coms and films, including Home Alone 2 and The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, where the characters invariably treat him with a reverence usually reserved for royalty. His golden boy image took a beating in The Nineties as the result of bankruptcies, a much-publicized extramarital affair, and mounting debt (partly as a result of the 1980s recession), but he managed to bounce back. He even has his officially licensed and voiced video game.

From 2004 to 2015, Trump starred in The Apprentice, his own reality TV series (created by Mark Burnett, the brains behind Survivor) on NBC. The show consists of a selection of candidates competing against each other for an open slot in one of Trump's companies. The program was wildly successful and remains one of the highest-rated reality shows to date. He has since been replaced with Arnold Schwarzenegger.

He also holds joint-ownership over the Miss Universe pageant, also encompassing Miss USA and Miss Teen USA.

In 2011, Trump briefly ran in the Republican presidential nomination primary for the 2012 election, seen by some as a ratings stunt. He was a proponent of the "birther" theory, so his campaign was ended after the birther train was stopped for good by Barack Obama providing his long-form birth certificate. Despite this, Trump maintained that there were still "questions" about Obama's birth certificate until he dropping the issue late in 2016 after congratulating himself on clearing up the issue.

In June 16, 2015, he again announced his candidacy for president, as a Republican. With his opposition to illegal immigration, and alleged "free-trade agreements" as well as non-interventionist views on foreign policy, among many other things, Trump quickly emerged as the front-runner for the Republican nomination, showing qualities that other candidates in his party lacked. His highly controversial remarks and unorthodox behavior during the campaign gave him a Hatedom and a Fandom as massive as each other. It came to a point where Trump became the only major Republican candidate.

As of November 9, 2016, he has been elected to be the 45th President of the United States of America, a role he will assume with his inauguration on January 20th, 2017.


 * Adam Westing: At one time he seemed to revel in parodies of himself, even appearing in a series of OREO commercials with Darrell Hammond (Hammond was Saturday Night Live ' s longest-running white male cast member and one of the show's best and most frequently-used celebrity impersonators) impersonating him.
 * Arch Enemy: He's hosted two Wrestlemanias and been an active participant in WWE promos, highlighted by his "feud" with rival CEO Vince McMahon.
 * Not content with prime time, Trump took daytime TV by storm when a tabloid war erupted between himself and Rosie O'Donnell, then-host of the American morning talk show The View.
 * After Rosie, Barack Obama was this to him somewhat briefly.
 * Jeb Bush was one of his main targets in terms of his opponents during the race for the Republican nomination, with the now infamous line about Jeb being "low-energy"
 * Hillary Clinton even beyond the natural result of being presidential nominees from opposite parties, due to her alleged criminal history and the (disputed) accusation of being the creator of the birther movement.
 * Awesome McCoolname: Might also be interpreted as a Prophetic Name, given his knack for trumpeting himself. His ancestral name was Drumpf, which was changed to Trump sometime in the 17th century.  This factoid prompted Last Week Tonight to produce "Make Donald Drumpf Again" hats.
 * Badass: He got a very credible threat to his life a week or two before his presidential election, to the point the Secret Service had to evac him from the speech he was giving, but instead of letting it stick, he simply went right back to the podium a few minutes later and continued speaking. In fact, throughout his entire presidential campaign he's been the target of more than one confirmed assassination attempt and refused to quit appearing in public, even making a point of refusing to be cowed into doing so.
 * Badass Grandpa: The man is over 70 now and is an actual grandfather.
 * Broke Episode: Trump's businesses have filed for bankruptcy six times.
 * Brooklyn Rage: Made efforts to cultivate this image over the years. Trump's persona is that of a straight-talking, tough New Yorker whose face resembles a pit bull in repose.
 * Brutal Honesty: The reason many supporters voted for him, especially those who were against political correctness.
 * Catch Phrase: "You're fired." Inverted regularly in the season finales of The Apprentice, when he announces "You're hired."
 * "Make America Great Again" (MAGA for short) was his election version.
 * Compensating for Something: Trump's resurgence in business which was symbolized by the, erm...erection of a 68-story Trump Tower in Manhattan's Upper East Side. Trump was so happy with the finished product, he sprouted more "Trump Towers" in major cities throughout the U.S., including one which looms directly over the U.N. Headquarters. Now you can't ignore his girth.
 * Also while on the campaign trail, he assured America that despite his small hands, he had "no problems in that department".
 * Didn't Think This Through: His first assassination attempt. Michael Steven Sandford, a illegal immigrant from the UK who had only just learned the bare minimum of shooting (having fired a mere 20 rounds, not even two full magazines. Presumably as it is the small unit of ammo that can be purchased new) at a Vegas range, attempted to grab a cop's gun and shoot Trump only to be stopped cold by the now universally standard retention holster. This attempt was so poorly thought out the court considered (though rejected) a halfway house over no bail for an assassination attempt on a presidential candidate.
 * Dodgy Toupee: Often when someone wants to make a sketch or joke about Donald Trump they may take the easy angle and mock the obvious toupee. Meet the Spartans did this where he fires Spiderman and cuts his web but he sticks it back onto his head and pulls the wig off.
 * Lisa Lampanelli did this funnier than anyone: "What do you say to a barber to get him to cut your hair like that? I fucked your daughter?"
 * In one Sluggy Freelance strip, his toupee was revealed to be a live squirrel.
 * Egopolis: Trump 'brands' his buildings with the Trump name displayed prominently, often placing large gold "T" symbols throughout the interior rooms. He probably has a caped uniform with a "T" on its chest in his closet, too.
 * Ensemble Darkhorse: In the 2016 Presidential campaign.
 * Fountain of Memes: Became a gigantic wellspring of these during his 2016 Presidential campaign.
 * Friendly Enemy: With Bernie Sanders, who attempted to get the Democrat party's nomination in 2016 but lost narrowly to Hillary Clinton. Trump repeatedly encouraged Sanders during the primary. The media universally acknowledged it was a transparent attempt to peel Bernie voters away from Hillary Clinton, though did not necessarily see it as untruthful. With a third party hacking revealing Democrat internal communications always talked as though Hillary would be the nominee the suggestion the primary was rigged wound up very appropriate.
 * Humiliation Conga: Trump was on the receiving end of this from Barack Obama at the end of April 2011. On Wednesday, after Trump jumped on the "birther" issue, Obama released the long sought after "long form birth certificate", making Trump look somewhat foolish (though Trump boasted about how proud he was of getting the certificate released; he probably still didn't believe it). On the Saturday, Trump was the subject of more roasting than the President at the White House Correspondent's Dinner. And finally, on the Sunday night, just to make a bad week worse for Trump, Celebrity Apprentice was interrupted for the news that Obama had ordered a successful raid and killing on Osama bin Laden.
 * Implacable Man: Proclaimed by supporters with the unofficial slogan "Can't Stump the Trump", referencing what they see as an ability to have repeated (political) attacks just glance off of him instead of sticking like most candidates.
 * Even the Democratic party's own analysts will (in hindsight) give him credit for accomplishing the almost impossible feat of being on the opposite end of both the most lavishly-funded and well-connected political campaign team in history and the most consistently unfavorable press coverage ever received by a Presidential candidate in the past century and still triumphing over both on sheer determination.
 * It Will Never Catch On: Outside of his own campaign team the # of political pundits, analysts, or insiders even remotely willing to entertain the idea that Donald Trump could successfully be elected President could literally be counted on the fingers of one hand. Of course, then he won anyway.
 * Pretty much every major news outlet had run a headline saying "This is the beginning of the end for Trump!" or a close variant at least once during his political campaign. Towards the end he was averaging at least one of these editorials a week.
 * Metaphorgotten: He opposes gay marriage because of new trends in golf putter preference.
 * The Nicknamer: The ability to push nicknames on people and make them stick is considered one of his greatest rhetorical strengths in his 2016 election campaign. The nicknames reflect basic sorting of threat levels, which more minor opponents being called "Little Marco" or "Low Energy Jeb" while his biggest primary opponent was "Lying Ted" and general election opponent dubbed "Crooked Hillary"
 * Inverted with his fans, who generally take the insulting nicknames Trump's opponents have given them and turn them into Insult Backfires. Often after Trump picks up on the insult and calls it out for being such.
 * Never Accepted in His Hometown: Trump joins James K. Polk as the only Presidential candidate to lose both his home state and state of residence while still winning the election. Unlike Polk these are the same state (New York).
 * No Such Thing as Bad Publicity: Trump managed to sail through the 2016 Republican primary with minimal spending by ensuring the media never stopped stopped talking about him. Their constant airing hit pieces against him ensured that by the end of the primary everyone knew Trump wanted to build a border wall despite minimal ads on the subject. This continued in the general election where over sixteen major publications redistributed a graphic he posted, claiming its use of a six pointed star (supposedly a Star of David) was supposedly a hidden anti-Semitic agenda at no cost to him.
 * No, You: One gets the feeling that most of the insults lobbed by Trump are things that he himself has been called. There was that time he called Hillary Clinton a bigot, for instance. Of course, given the sheer number and variety of insults aimed at Donald Trump during his lifetime he finds it essentially impossible to avoid this trope whenever he himself insults anyone for anything.
 * Nouveau Riche: To a degree. His father was a very successful low income housing developer in NYC, he sent Donald to Fordham, so his family was doing very well before. Donald just took his love of construction and everything else Up to Eleven. Trump has noted his family was not welcome among the "old money" families from different parts of New York.
 * The One Thing I Don't Hate About You: Hillary Clinton cited his children at the debates as her compliment.
 * Presenters: For The Apprentice.
 * Self-Deprecation: You've got to admit he can laugh at himself like at his roast and originally at the White House Correspondent's Dinner before the jokes against him got more scathing, which is unusual for someone so card-carryingly vain. According to Frontline, Obama's jokes about Trump were the turning point that caused Trump to run for president seriously.
 * Self-Made Man: In the sense that he inherited his business, went broke (bankrupting a casino is, as many have noted, no mean feat), and then rebuilt himself.
 * Spell My Name with a "The": Nicknamed "The Donald", after his first wife Ivana Trump referred to him as such in an interview.
 * Terrified of Germs: Avoids pressing the call buttons on elevators, or even shaking hands. (Which would make him an interesting head of state.)
 * Troll: As demonstrated during his presidential campaign, he would purposely lure the media into writing hit pieces on him by spewing inflammatory rhetoric so they would give him publicity they otherwise would have denied him. His best troll, even acknowledged by CNN, was when he promised to speak about his views on Barack Obama's national origin, duped the media into airing nearly half an hour of positive press about him, then made a brief comment Obama was born in America just as they were losing patience and abruptly left.
 * Blogger Glenn "Instapundit" Reynolds ran a recurring feature of Trump's latest head-gaming of this opposition underneath the tag "Troll Level: Supreme Galactic Overlord". Most of the Instapundit readership considers the appellation well-earned.
 * Volleying Insults: The 2016 Republican party debates generally devolved into this.