The Further Evolution of This Character Called 'Donald Trump'
We've noted the history of Donald Trump's image in New York tabloids, but it's the glossy magazines that tend to portray Trump the way he wants his public persona to be seen -- and in the last decade, that's meant a loud, rich, rap star-playboy-CEO. It's a far departure from the very important person Trump started projecting back in the 1980s. Searching through the Associated Press photo archives is a little It's like sifting through the indecipherable scraps of recorded history left behind by a vanished civilization. Why, here's Mikhail Gorbachev meeting with Donald Trump at a State Department ceremony (above). Trump with Hulk Hogan at Wrestlemania? Fine. Trump with Don King and Mike Tyson? Sure. Trump with Ed Koch? Understandable. Trump with Henry Kissinger and Liza Minelli: What? Trump with Andy Warhol?? All that soaking in the limelight fueled Trump's first dalliance with faux greatness: in the early 1990s, he pretended to run for president out of fake concern for the economy. This year, he pretended to run for president out of concern for the president's birthplace and will moderate a debate out of pretend concern for the Republican Party and while photo-ops are not loading up Trump's schedule these days (even if wannabe world leaders are still rushing to be photographed with Trump) he is arguably more important than he was then. USA! Watch Trump change through time:
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Note how in this September 1987 issue of Newsweek, "billion-dollar empire" is not used sarcastically:
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This January 1989 Time cover, one of the best, accuses you of envying Trump:
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In March 1990, a Trump interview is advertised far above "world-class playmates from out far-flung empire":
Trump's marriage in 1993 to Marla Maples was the beginning of a change. It appears he suffered from one of the most terrible side effects of marriage: weight gain. He started wearing pink and being photographed while sitting down.
Is this real? Winter 1995:
A recently-divorced Trump, pretending to consider running for president the second time in the February-March 2000 issue of George:
It was only in the last decade that Trump began to live being pictures with his mouth open and doing finger guns. This must have something to do with The Apprentice. Here he is in August 2004, again pretending he'd be President:
This is not a satirical magazine. Summer 2005:
Fall 2007:
August/September 2008:
Time for more gaping-mouth finger-pointing. January 2011:
His most recent glossy cover, from Businessweek in early May, is a far contrast from Newsweek's serious treatment 24 years earlier:
