One of them shaves his head while the other has a comb-over. One of them is black. One of them is orange?
?Money is our madness, our vast collective madness.??D.H. Lawrence
Comparisons are inevitable. Both are monomaniacal. Both are the best at what they do. They are loved by some and reviled by others. Their wealth sets them apart from mere mortals.
But there are differences as well. One pulled himself up by the bootstraps while the other was born with a silver spoon in his mouth. One shaves his head while the other has a comb-over. One of them is black. One of them is orange.
That?s about all the analysis I?m up for. But thanks to Matthew Dowd, writing on http://abcnews.go.com/, an examination of the two titans took place after he spent the weekend in Iowa, ?as well as talking to folks in Texas, where I live, and with voters in Detroit area, where I was born.? After logging that mileage and having thought long and hard about the candidacy of the real estate magnate, Dowd has concluded that ?Donald Trump is the Floyd Mayweather of politics.?
Those who think Trump is the man to save America, as well as those who think Mayweather is ?The Best Ever,? might as well stop reading now. But those who have nothing better to do, or aren?t enthralled by glitz, read on my brothers, read on.
?If you look at all the interest and excitement surrounding Trump?s entrance in this race,? writes Dowd, ?the coverage dealing with his daily utterances, the forgiveness of his fans for mess ups, and the way he manages his brand, it is eerily familiar to the prize fighter Floyd Mayweather. From the brandishing of their logos on everything, Mayweather having the ubiquitous caps emblazoned with the Money Team to Trump?s Making America Great Again, they each have an ability to capture part of our culture and market themselves exquisitely.?
Marketing is everything. Well, not everything, there?s also opulence to consider. But it?s as Lenin once said, in a rare sane moment, ?A lie told often enough becomes the truth.?
?Many react to their bravado and the ?in your face? attitude by saying ?isn?t that over the top? or too much, but folks run to be around them or near them or buy their expensive tickets to fight night. Both Mayweather and Trump are essentially some of the best salesman and showmen on the planet. And their extreme wealth isn?t off-putting to regular folks, but an attraction. They both have an intuitive understanding of the entertainment world that many respond to in America today. Would we want Mayweather to be our father or our spouse? Most would say definitely not. But we watch his fights and talk about him when he does something outlandish.?
It?s true that Mayweather and Trump are, as Dowd writes, ?some of the best salesman and showmen on the planet.? But does that qualify them for anything other than salesmanship and showmanship, which has no obvious inherent value?
After invoking Nelson Mandela, while failing to mention his connection to boxing (an unforgiveable oversight in my opinion), Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., Ronald Reagan, and John F. Kennedy, who ?understood popular culture, political strategy and the art of entertainment,? Dowd asks, ?Can Donald Trump become this type of leader? I don?t know and have some serious doubts. Right now he is much more akin to Mayweather than MLK.?
Considering the alternatives, Huey Long, Father Coughlin, and Pat Robertson, there are worse people to be compared to.
