Part 9. Trump: An Interregnum Little did I know, as we waited for Sparky’s mast to appear above the waves, that Donald Trump had that day ascended to Number 2 in the Republican presidential polls (he is now No. 1). One of the reasons for going to sea is to get away from – perhaps even get perspective on – the minutiae that threaten to engulf our daily lives. And while in hindsight there may be some ghoulish consolation in knowing I wasn’t the only loyal American having a very bad day, how trivial now seem the rantings of this ridiculous man.

And yet, even as the media insist he isn’t a serious candidate, Trump continues to suck all the air from the public conversation, getting more headlines than he could ever have dreamed possible. He needs not merely to be ridiculed but condemned.

He is a compulsive dissembler (“I’m a really smart guy”), intimating that he graduated from Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business (“the best school in the country”), when in fact he spent two undistinguished years in Penn’s undergraduate program, a decidedly inferior brand – and from which, appropriately, he received, not an MBA, but a BS. When Timothy O’Brien wrote that his wealth was a fraction of the billions he claimed, Trump sued him – and lost.

His candidacy has been likened to Hitler’s, but the more apt – and worrisome – comparison is to Sen. Joseph McCarthy* of Wisconsin, an earlier buffoon who did terrible damage to America.

* McCarthyism: “demagogic, reckless, and unsubstantiated accusations, as well as public attacks on the character or patriotism of political opponents."