United States | News & Politics

Garbage, huh. Ok. Let’s see.

To start, he sets the tone by stating, “. . . why are so many in America now talking about how Donald Trump smells, and why is Trump acting like this superficially puerile question is somehow political Kryptonite?” Which is the same question you were asking. Okay, so he’s going to answer that question.

First, he reminds us of the many anecdotal stories of trump’s deeply disturbing odor going back many decades. (Yes, yes, what if Jesus or whoever smelled bad? I know, we’re getting there, hang in there.) There are many accounts. Here are a couple - this is “the smell”, ok, the Thing We’re Talking About:

“Years ago I posted [online] about Donald Trump being kicked out of Keens Steakhouse in Manhattan—where I was eating with my father in 1983—because his smell was so offensive. . . . *[My father and I] didn’t complain [about Trump’s smell]. The table next to him complained and the table behind him complained.*We smelled [him], but my father and I didn’t complain about it.

Trump was not elderly. [But] the smell was so f****** offensive that they finally had to ask him to leave [the restaurant]. And he did leave—quietly—and [his smell] wafted right by us.

Okay that was 1983. Let’s jump ahead to the 90s:

Yet another person wrote in to say, “That’s so true. I smelled [Trump] in the early nineties at an event afterparty. I really had the thought back then that he just saw himself [as being] so rich he didn’t give any…[thought to] his smell. I think he showers, but gas and not caring to wipe his bum was [the] issue. We saw him later in the evening surrounded by people; he was pulling girls into hugs and you could see they were pulling away, but he kept forcing them back. My friends and I left maybe two hours into the event.”

So, for the sake of discussion, let’s take as a given that trump smells bad. If you dismiss the premise completely, that’s a different article. So for the sake of getting to the “So What?” part of your question let’s agree - okay, trump smells offensive - something like feces.

The author then asks the question, Is it okay to write about a public figure’s smell? He says:

This is a difficult question, but we can at least find an appropriate starting point: the name of the person in D.C. who speaks most irresponsibly about how people smell.

That person would be Donald Trump. As the New Yorker reports, Trump has long equated how someone smells with their value as a human being . . .

He gives several on-the-record examples. So. It’s actually trump telling the world - I judge this person by how they smell. Is that hypocrisy? (Politically relevant). Irony? (Human-interest story). Or something else? The answer is, it’s enough to make it a valid news topic.

But wait! There’s more!