Photo by Cynthia Larsen
A Fleet of Trump Tanks? But of Course
But is he capitalizing on his brand with enough vulgarity?
By Ed Goldman
Before and during both Trump administrations, which history may well record as America’s Reign of Error, the Immortal Donster has been compared to everyone from the anti-Christ to Adolph Hitler and Harold Hill (the title con artist of Meredith Willson’s indelible “The Music Man”).
Tune that name!
While those are fun picks, to me he’s merely the reincarnation of Howard Johnson.
If you ever visited a Howard Johnson’s roadside restaurant, the family-friendly chain of hundreds of eateries, you’ll recall that practically every item in the place was branded and for sale: ashtrays, keychains, toy metal trucks with the HoJo’s logo and, if memory serves, the flatware, salt shakers, placemats, pepper grinders, napkin holders and those dorky little waitress hats which resembled dorky little nurses’ caps.
Well, Howard Johnson had nothing on our beloved BLOTUS (Bloviator of the United States). Not fulfilled by slapping his name on steaks, bibles, ties, streets, prescription drugs and the Kennedy Center—you don’t have to be a Democrat to find that last one a staggering act of incurable porkery, as even Republican friends have pointed out to me—the Donster recently announced there’ll soon be a new fleet of military tanks bearing his brand.
Let’s leave aside for the moment that if you ever saw our President walk up or down a staircase, you know the words “fleet” and “Trump” really don’t belong in the same sentence (just as the words “intellectual” and “property” will never be used to define this column’s content.)
But in psychological terminology, can Trump’s newest ego explosion be chalked up to an under-studied condition called… Sherman Envy (also called Tanks But No Tanks Disorder)?
Maybe the celebrated winner of the FIFA Peace Prize isn’t quite the marketing genius he’s self-acknowledged to be. Look at some of the opportunities he’s missing out on:
TRUMP HAND CRÈME. “It’s the BALM!” he could proclaim in his TV spots while showing his own spots.
TRUMP ORTHOPEDIC SOCKS. Suggested ad copy: Do you sometimes find yourself wondering if your daily diet’s total resistance to salad, diet-soda dependence and lack of exercise apart from running your mouth may have something to do with your wearing shoes in size 11 but triple-H-widths? Do you suspect that pianos admire your legs? If you can answer any of these questions without exhausting yourself, maybe you’re a candidate for Trump Orthopedic Socks. Though all of our products come only in black, we have a (very) wide selection of sizes, from Oil Barrel to Tree Trunk to Pillar of Society.
TRUMP NECKTIE EXTENSIONS. Gents, if your necktie doesn’t hang down beneath your buttoned suit jacket, you may be sending mixed signals to your workplace superiors, bar buddies and female interns who like referring to you as her “work hubby.” Put simply, chicks dig a guy who doesn’t know his own length! Give us a call. We have medically proven methods to extend your neckties so artfully that they’ll fool even your haberdasher and friends awaiting cataract surgery in both eyes.
TRUMP HAIRCARE. Combover, shmombover! Our motto is, even if you haven’t got it, flaunt it. While the President’s follicles are admittedly as thin as that of a Barbie whose hair has been sucked on by a cat, he (says he) is often asked, “Your Benevolent Majesty, with prices so high—thanks to Joe Biden, William McKinley, Woodrow Wilson and Euclid, the father of geometry—how can a schnook like me afford to replicate your see-through tangerine coif? I had to take out a reverse mortgage loan just to move into a Port-a-Potty?” The answer, of course, is Trump Loans, underwritten by the Deutsche Bank and the United States Gross Domestic Product (the latter also being a fun nickname for Our Most Popular President in the History of Mankind®).
TRUMP SYMPATHY CARDS. Do you get tongue-tied when someone famous and admirable dies, sometimes horribly, and you simply can’t come up with anything as tasteless, vulgar and inappropriate as you’d like? We’ve got this! Whether it’s a well-loved, talented movie director and his impressive wife (the Reiners) whose youngest grown child murdered them—or even a World War II hero who endured years in an enemy prison camp (the McCain)—you know that tributes and flowers are a loser’s game. Here’s your chance to attack already-dead icons who can’t fight back. We’ll personalize your card, somehow imply their tragic deaths were the result of them not esteeming you when they had the chance, then post it on Truth Social and offer it to the makers of the toilet tissue in Howard Johnson’s bathrooms.
Ed Goldman's column appears almost every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. A former daily columnist for the Sacramento Business Journal, as well as monthly columnist for Sacramento Magazine and Comstock’s Business Magazine, he’s the author of five books, two plays and one musical (so far).
