Dwain Northey (Gen X)

Donald Trump — the modern-day Michelangelo of marketing, the da Vinci of delusion, the Picasso of plastering his name on things he didn’t make. Truly, the man is a master craftsman of the art of the illusion. He’s not a builder; he’s a brand sticker. If the world were a refrigerator, Trump would be the magnet.

Let’s start with the myth that Donald Trump is some kind of titan of construction. The man has never so much as held a hammer unless it was for a photo op — and even then, the hammer probably had “TRUMP” engraved in gold leaf on the handle. Every “Trump Tower,” “Trump Hotel,” or “Trump Golf Course” is really the same story: someone else builds it, finances it, runs it, and maintains it — and then Donald swoops in at the last second to slap his name on it like a drunk toddler signing someone else’s homework. He’s basically the brand equivalent of a raccoon rummaging through someone else’s trash and saying, “Mine now.”

And oh, the political rebranding! It’s art, really. In his first administration, Trump stood before the cameras and triumphantly declared victory for “fixing the VA” and “helping our great veterans.” Stirring stuff — except, of course, the law he was bragging about was passed by Barack Obama. But who cares about facts when you have the power of a Sharpie and an ego the size of Manhattan? Trump didn’t build the system — he just took Obama’s policy, crossed out the signature, and said, “Look what I did, everybody! Tremendous!”

Fast-forward to today, and here we are again, watching the same sad rerun with the Gaza ceasefire deal. The framework was hammered out under Biden, but Trump, never one to let someone else get credit for actually doing work, has decided to ceremonially rub his political taint all over it and call it his own. Because that’s what he does — he shows up after the heavy lifting is done, slaps his name on the label, and then declares himself the savior of mankind. It’s like showing up at the end of a marathon, jogging the last 20 feet, and demanding the gold medal — while accusing the real runners of cheating.

But there’s a catch: if anything he actually touches goes south — say, an insurrection, an economic collapse, or a casino bankruptcy (for the fifth time) — suddenly it’s everyone else’s fault. The deep state did it. The Democrats did it. The cleaning lady did it. The dog ate the country’s homework. Trump is the only man in history who can claim to be both the omnipotent genius who makes everything great and the helpless victim who never did anything wrong — often in the same sentence.

He’s a marketing savant, no doubt. Trump can take credit for the sunrise and blame the sunset on Joe Biden. He could rename Mount Rushmore “Trump Mountain” tomorrow, and half the country would swear he carved it himself with his “very large, very strong hands.”

So yes, Donald Trump is great at rebranding. He’s built a career not on creation, but on credit-taking — a mogul of manufactured glory, the king of counterfeit achievements. He doesn’t build towers, he builds myths. And in Trump’s world, the truth isn’t something that’s constructed — it’s something that’s licensed.