Branded
By Andrew Feinberg
In what some are calling the cherry on top of the strangest campaign in American political history, Donald J. Trump, the former alleged billionaire and famed “Dukakis of Fifth Avenue,” announced today he had filed for bankruptcy. Trump made his statement at the former Trump National Golf Club in Briarcliff Manor, New York, where he works as a caddie and lives in the pro shop.
For some months, the despised former Republican nominee had hoped to sell his name to raise money. But a report yesterday by PricewaterhouseCoopers found the Trump brand, which the candidate had once valued at $3 billion in a “what the hey” financial statement, was now worth negative $3 billion. “Vlad the Impaler has better favorables,” said James Duckworth, senior vice president at PricewaterhouseCoopers.
Trump’s business problems snowballed last spring when Democrats, Hispanics, African-Americans, Muslims and women boycotted his properties. Trump responded by saying, “Thank God I still have the loyalty of stupid white men.”
As occupancy plummeted at his hotels, Trump found that the boycotters who didn’t want to stay at his properties didn’t want to work there either. Trump Las Vegas had to pay dishwashers a remarkable $45 an hour. “There are only so many fat white men available,” Trump said.
Still, even the dumb white men who stayed at the Trump Las Vegas did not enjoy being served drinks at the casino tables by fat white men with giant man boobs. “If that’s what I wanted to see, I could look in the mirror,” one said.
Politically, September was devastating. David Duke’s decision to call Trump “a racist” was at first perplexing, but was ultimately seen as a shrewd flanking maneuver to capture territory to Trump’s left on the Gandhi-Himmler Tolerance Continuum. Trump counterpunched by saying Gandhi dressed like a bag person and wasn’t half the Indian leader Geronimo was.
In October, with occupancy rates cratering and Trump trailing Hillary Clinton by 16 percentage points, Trump’s business partners demanded a debranding.
Around the world Trump partners renamed their properties, removing giant golden Ts, Rs, Us, Ms and Ps from facades. Many were surprised to find that, because the letters were so firmly affixed, when they were removed entire floors of the building often came with them. In the horrific aftermath, Trump’s enraged partners filed 1,457 lawsuits against him seeking damages of $1.7 billion.
The debranding apotheosis occurred when workmen removed the 600-foot high TRUMP letters from the 610-foot tall Trump Kuala Koala Koala in Malaysia. The building collapsed, killing 32 Malaysians.
“Incompetent morons,” Trump spewed. “Thank God only Malaysians were killed.”
His poll numbers continued tanking. But loyal Republicans stood by their man, trotting out their familiar denounce-renounce-and-support responses. “I hate him and don’t think he could run a bowling alley but I really want him to have the nuclear codes,” said Stefan “Stockholm” Sindrum, a Republican congressman from Nevada.
Trump’s epic “concession” speech cum tantrum after losing every state except Wyoming surely hurt. Calling the election outcome “grossly unfair and unfairly gross,” he refused to congratulate President-elect Hillary Clinton. “I won,” he said. “I won, I always win. I must have won, right?” Veteran pols could not recall another case in which the loser called the winner “a shrill fat ugly harpy pig-face who could win a Rosie O’Donnell lookalike contest.”
Exit polls showed the only demographic groups Trump carried were pear-shaped white male golfers with no college degree and a wicked slice, mercenaries seeking work in the hospitality industry and Sheldon Adelson.
Trump’s coattails proved long. Democrats emerged with a 65-35 lead in the Senate and a 232-203 margin in the House. “The Trump campaign,” said W.R. Smeath, an independent pollster, “was to campaigns what the Hindenburg was to air travel or what Red Lobster is to food.”
Calling Republicans “thin-skinned sissies” for complaining about an outcome “that was all their fault,” Trump assured supporters that a state-by-state recount overseen by henchman Chris Christie and militia volunteers would show he had won. After several spirited “Second Amendment” recount sessions left twelve election officials dead, twenty-six militia members were charged with murder. Following a day of incoherent blubbering on the witness stand, Christie was sentenced to four years as a toll collector on the George Washington Bridge.
Trump’s brand became even more toxic during the December holiday season. Traumatized by the election results, Republicans blamed Trump for the destruction of their party and became the final group to shun his properties.
After the erstwhile mogul lost Trump University fraud cases in California and New York, he ranted, “It’s a rigged economy.” His brand grew more noxious still. Apartment owners in Trump Tower found friends now avoided them for having “the bad taste” to live in the building.
“Being here is like telling people you live in Sodom and summer in Gomorrah,” said a woman who did not want her name mentioned—ever. Eventually, all the apartment owners simply handed in their keys and left.
After the mass exodus, Trump Tower was purchased by Bideawee and turned into the world’s largest cat shelter. The pink marble lobby, where Trump first announced his candidacy and held so many profoundly annoying press conferences, now features the distinctive musky-ammonia smell of cat urine. “All in all, we consider it an improvement,” said Wendy Shuttin, a Bideawee spokesperson and cat lady.
Last week, a former owner of a Trump Tower apartment said she hoped that the once-iconic building could be gentrified or, failing that, knocked down and turned into a shrine to honor small businesspeople who had been stiffed by Trump.
Andrew Feinberg is the author of Four Score and Seven, novel that imagines that Abe Lincoln comes back to life for two weeks during the 2016 campaign and encounters a candidate who, some say, resembles Donald Trump.
Caricature by DonkeyHotey via Flickr