Forget Trump: Austin Powers for President!

Americans in small towns, suburbs and exurbs around the country tend to see New York City as modern-day Sodom. At the same time, they are fascinated by this den of iniquity.

You can see this by the constant flow of provincials on New York streets and by how excited and wide-eyed they get when they come here. For them it’s a kind of guilty pleasure.

And that’s also the principal reason why so many of them readily fall for Donald Trump as their presidential candidate – even though this is really an act of almost perverse self-flagellation.

Deep down, they feel completely let down by the country’s establishment. And yet, in order to belong to it by extension, they choose a tycoon as their savior.

A make-believe candidate

They are mightily impressed by the fact that Trump is a New York City-based real estate developer, a hard-nosed businessman and a very rich man.

The fact that Trump plays fast and loose with the facts does not concern them that much.

Trump rather reminds his voters of themselves. In order to impress themselves, they, too, play fast and loose with the facts.

To Trump, just as much as to his supporters, the world as such is much more tolerable when one lives it based on one’s projections, wishful thinking, delusions and outright lies.

Just don’t blame Trump for dealing in double standards and deceit. His real rise to fame and adoration is based on playing a mogul on TV, in his reality show The Apprentice. It makes plain that he has never made a secret of his strong preference for operating in a make-believe world.

This helps obscure that fact that Trump has been viewed as a notorious New York buffoon for decades, the laughing stock of its media and an embarrassment to its business community.

Trump is a shameless self-promoter from the Borough of Queens who built a few atrociously ugly, nouveau-riche towers and slathered his name all over their facades, a kind of lying, loud-mouth carnival barker forever making exaggerated claims about his wealth and importance.

At first, all genuine New York City developers were laughing at the scam the man from Queens was perpetrating on the world. They are laughing no more.

Trump’s business model is to lease his name to others who then build buildings and make products branded Trump.

Ultimately, he is a period piece of a bygone era – a kind of “wild and crazy guy” from the 1970s Satuday Night Live shows, sniffing around beauty contests and wrestling matches and marrying foreign models.

It was only on the basis of that reality TV show that he could bamboozle the rest of the country into believing that he’s the real thing.

Now, still in character, he is running for President of the United States, ready to put on a reality TV version of West Wing.

Trump is an actor running for the world’s most powerful position under the Trump brand – the same set-up exactly as in The Apprentice. The only difference is that he now “fires” contestants that are presidential candidates.

The mind boggles at the thought how President Trump will get back at all those who committed the social and business slights against him that he has had to endure over the years.

It is as though actor-director Mike Myers were to run for president in the character from his three-film series, Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me.

Austin Powers for President!

And why not? Just like Trump, Austin Powers is obsessed with sex and loves to discuss his anatomy. The third Austin Powers movie, in fact, was subtitled Goldmember, a perfect Trump title.

Powers’ lack of political correctness should appeal to Trump supporters.

Come to think of it, the stalwarts of the Republican Party, who are genuinely scared of the prospect of a Trump candidacy and genuinely hate Ted Cruz, the perniciously insane runner-up, should consider running Powers as an alternative candidate.

Consider the advantages: Powers has got instant name recognition, he’s likable and, like all secret agents, he’s tough on crime.

Mike Myers also plays the evil guy, Dr. Evil, in Austin Powers movies. That should appeal to the Cruz crowd. Plus, Myers was born in Canada, too, which should make him a perfect stand-in for Cruz.