🎥 Watched The Apprentice.

Why do I do it to myself one might fairly ask? But I did.

This is the story of Donald Trump’s early years in 1970s-80s New York. It is nearly as full of the misogyny, racism, greed, arrogance and incompetence that shaped his bizarre success as one might imagine. The main narrative seems to be around how his relationship with the famously aggressive lawyer Roy Cohn aided his rise and shaped his business and political “style” for want of a better word. A bit of Trump’s family life is portrayed, again providing clues as to how he turned out like he did.

It’s full of foreshadowing of what came next, although the story cuts off just as he (well, a journalist, Tony Schwartz) is writing his book - I assume the “Art of the Deal”. That’s the book Trump says is his second favourite book ever, modestly demurring to the Bible as the first. Schwartz on the other hand later said being involved with it was the greatest regret of his life and that Trump was not in the least bit involved in writing it.

The mannerisms and speech patterns of the actor playing Trump are certainly enough to bring shudders to anyone who has had the displeasure of hearing him speak in person.

Roy Cohn in the real world is certainly a character worth learning about to help understand how we got to where we are today. The BBC has a rundown of the guy here:

A Washington Post article about Cohn’s influence, published during the 2016 presidential campaign, had the headline “The man who showed Donald Trump how to exploit power and instill fear”, and summed up his lesson as “a simple formula: attack, counterattack and never apologise”. Cohn was also expert at media manipulation.