June 16, 2025

Ten years ago today, Donald Trump announced he was running for president. As he came down the escalator in Trump Tower in Manhattan, I was only blocks away at the makeshift offices of the nascent Clinton campaign.

My immediate reaction was that Trump was a buffoon. I had grown up in New York and was familiar with his self-promotion, lies and bankruptcies. As he waved his hand and falsely claimed that Mexico is “not sending their best,” I assumed the rest of the country would dismiss him as the “short-fingered vulgarian” New Yorkers knew from his tabloid exploits.

As someone who has lived and worked in the Washington, D.C., area for decades, I had the same reaction as I watched Saturday’s Trump-ordered military parade. The same petty, insecure man who had obsessed about the crowd size at his announcement seemed downbeat about the number of empty seats and the sparse attendance along the parade route and on the National Mall.

What struck me most, however, is...

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