Political Irony

Mother Jones came across something that (at least to me) not-so-neatly sums up Donald Trump. The occasion was the 2009 death of Jett Travolta, the 16-year-old son of John Travolta and his wife Kelly Preston, who died of a seizure while on vacation with his parents.

Trump decided to offer his condolences. His first mistake was publishing it on the website of Trump University (which, mercifully is now defunct in a flurry of fraud). His second mistake was publishing it just four days after the tragic death. But the biggest mistake is what Trump wrote. Here’s the first paragraph:

I have always respected people who were loyal and faithful — which brings to mind Kelly Preston. A long time ago, before I was married, I met Kelly Preston at a club and worked like hell to try and pick her up. She was beautiful, personable, and definitely had allure. At the time I had no idea she was married to John Travolta. In any event, my track record on this subject has always been outstanding, but Kelly wouldn’t give me the time of day. She was very nice, very elegant, but I didn’t have a chance with her, and that was that.

Yes, Donald Trump takes the occasion of the tragic death of a child and makes it into an opportunity to reminisce about how he once tried to pick up the dead child’s mother. And because he is Trump, he even throws in some bragging about his track record.

Even the humor website Cracked was gobsmacked. This is (part of) what they wrote:

Alright, do you see what you did there? Instead of telling Kelly you grieve for the loss of her little boy, you mentioned the time you tried to fuck her. This is what most ethicists would call “unspeakably shameful” and most psychiatrists would call “psychopathic.” When us regulars write our condolence letters, we tend to leave out stories about once trying super hard to fuck the mother of the recently departed.

Most people don’t need to be told this, but it’s actually almost never OK to brag about your powers of seduction in a letter about a dead kid. No matter how much you want people to know how much of that sweet poontang you get, the mother and father typically don’t want to hear about it four days after their son’s death.

Donald Trump may be the first major candidate to run for president who could start World War III completely unintentionally, just by saying something really stupid and insulting.