“I prefer a man who is not basically a celebrity.”
That dog won’t hunt. In the past 35 years, Trump has probably made 98% of his money in commercial real estate development. The “celebrity” excuse doesn’t even amount to petty cash in his life earnings.
As a political figure he is basically a celebrity. If you want to elect a successful businessman, there are many such men in Forbes Magazine. Or go to the Fortune 500. But what has brought him this far is his show business persona. He is rich, but few rich people are television personalities. Like most such people, he is a person we think we know but do not. We thought we knew Bill Cosby, but we knew the persona he created. You might ask, why did Trump devote so much of his life to a television show that is basically the same as Duck Dynasty? We watch them because we find them charming. We trust that they are, (normally) what they seem. The head of the family is a man who did once play football especially well.Terry Bradshaw says so, and we trust Terry. He has done much better on TV than he did as a football player and we know EXACTLY what he did on the football field. Trump? We only know the cards he is showing us.