re: #359 Dr Lizardo

Trump was pretty much a universal laughing stock in the 1990s. He was considered a bargain-basement huckster, pushing cheap shit with his name tacked onto it and sold at outlets like The Sharper Image.

He was a joke. It was The Apprentice that allowed him to remake his image.

I never saw a single episode of the Apprentice, though I have seen a few clips. I think this may be one reason I, and many others, tended not to take Trump seriously until it was too late. Relatively rational and serious people have a hard time grasping how much weight trash pop-culture can carry with a sizable part of the population.