I get the celebrity thing.  I’ve been surrounded by them for most of my life and I’ll freely admit the occasional wallow in the privilege that is afforded even those in the presence, (that would have been my designated position), of famous people.  It’s a ridiculous notion, of course, to idolize someone for the way they look or their ability to stand, after hours in a makeup chair, at a particular angle, under a painstakingly adjusted light and read a seven-word sentence thirty or forty times until they come close to the desired elocution of some likewise idolized director.  And yet, in every culture, in every corner of the Earth, the idea that fame, even devoid of substance is, in and of itself, reason for adulation, is, somehow, a thing.

Take one Donald J. Trump…please.  If you first dismiss the self-congratulatory ghost-written books to which he claims authorship and replace them with a fact-checked, journalistic representation of his public biography, you get:

A cheater, a liar, a philanderer, a misogynist, an elitist, a bully, an absentee father, a draft dodger, a tax dodger, a socially inept socialite, (did you see him at the Al Smith dinner?), did I mention liar?, a Democrat, a Republican, a defendant, a defendant, a defendant and reality TV host, most famous for being a nasty asshole.

Gandhi was a celebrity, Picasso and FDR were celebrities.  There are artists and statesmen and soldiers and schoolteachers who have earned adoration for their contributions to humanity and society, and then there is Donald J. Trump; singled out here because he would dare to insinuate that his self-proclaimed, branded image somehow qualifies him to be the leader of the free world.  How on Earth could such a large basket full of “plorables”, (that’s OK, right?), not know the difference?  It’s as plain as apples and orange guy.