Donald’s glory days are long gone.
Imagine a man who walks like money but files like debt. A faded tycoon with gold-plated bathroom fixtures and a paper-thin empire, propped up by bravado, branding, and bankruptcy law. His friends call him Donald—if they still answer his calls.
Donald’s business sense is 80% luck, 20% instinct, and 0% spreadsheets. He’s not a builder of empires but a collector of camera angles. He never needed school or effort—just timing and someone else’s checkbook. The American Dream, simplified: lurk until opportunity blinks, then pounce.
The Nero Donald Show
A television producer dreams up a show where a pseudo-CEO fires eager nobodies for fun and ratings. It’s Nero meets Wall Street, a gladiator pit for aspiring moguls, starring a man who looks like he was born in a boardroom but probably hasn’t read a balance sheet since 1987.
Donald doesn’t just fit the part—he is the part. He’s not acting. He’s thriving. For the first time in decades, he’s winning again—on camera, in the ratings, in his own head. Viewers can’t tell where the show ends and the man begins.
Eventually, neither can he.
But television always needs fresh blood, and Donald is a dinosaur from a bygone era of golden faucets. He’s a prisoner of his own illusion. In his dreams, he sees himself on Sunset Boulevard like Norma Desmond. This film won’t let him go—his oracle. Donald’s star begins to fade.
From Candidate to Chaos
Then comes the stunt of all stunts: Donald runs for president. Not to win—heaven forbid—but to be relevant again. Media attention is currency, and he’s flat broke. The goal isn’t power; it’s headlines, leverage, loans.
But America, in a plot twist worthy of a Netflix docudrama, gives him the job.
Now, the White House becomes just another set, the Oval Office a slightly duller boardroom. He governs like he hosted TV—by vibe and improvisation. Briefings bore him. Rules confuse him. But chaos? Chaos is his natural habitat.
He doesn’t so much “lead” as he “broadcasts.” A tweet becomes policy. A mood swing becomes military strategy. Bureaucracy gets dizzy; democracy gets vertigo. But somehow, the machine keeps grinding—flashing error messages, then rebooting like nothing happened.
Eventually, America snaps out of it—or at least, switches the channel. A new president is elected.
Donald? He doesn’t concede. He rebrands.
King Donald and the Empire of Chaos
Donald isn’t just a former president now—he’s a phenomenon. Like Venom taking over Spider-Man, the office didn’t consume him; he became the office. And now, nobody else can call themselves “President” without his permission.
So he launches a coup—because why not? Controlling the mob is easier than managing Congress. The chaos he once ruled from the screen spills into real life. Surprise! The mob loves the show.
Meanwhile, legal troubles pile up like unpaid bills in a Vegas hotel room. His allies get hauled before courts, the noose tightens on the Trump 1.0 system, and the tax authorities sharpen their pencils.
His solution? Sit out the trials, keep the show running, and return as president once more. Luck? Oh, he’s got that in spades. His opponent is well-meaning but looks like a social media fossil next to his Twitter juggernaut. The race is his playground.
But he knows the clock’s ticking. Four years is too short for a man with an empire to build—he’s not just running a country; he’s setting a stage. A little fire here, a spectacle there. Like Nero, burning down the old world to make way for his own.
Walls rise, tariffs slam, and the narrative spins: a knight defending his kingdom against invisible enemies. The show goes on, the stock prices dance to his whims, and his followers cheer like it’s opening night. The line on the graph zigzags like a mood swing—on brand for Donald.
But the fear lingers: one day, the spotlight might fall. The dream will end. Allies may betray him or flee with golden parachutes. He must stay king—must stay president—no matter what.
Would such a plot be believable? A cross between Citizen Kane, Quo Vadis, Sunset Boulevard, and The Truman Show?
Parts of it, dear reader, are already filed under “History.” The rest? Coming soon to a democracy near you.
So, what have we learned from the making—and unmaking—of Donald, the MAGA King? That in today’s America, reality is just another channel to be flipped, and power is less about governance and more about ratings. The line between president and performer? Blurrier than ever.
Whether this saga ends in redemption, ruin, or reruns remains to be seen. But one thing’s certain: the show must go on. Because in the age of Twitter, reality isn’t just what happens—it’s what gets retweeted.
Pass the popcorn. The next season’s just getting started.
That’s all folks
The sources are in German:
Trump was basically finished” SZ from Boris Herrmann and Christian Zaschke’s interview with Bill Pruitt in October 2024 [LINK]
“When Trump didn’t want to be president” Tagesschau
17/01/2025 [LINK]
Stern: “Michael Moore on Donald Trump “Trump doesn’t want to be president” by Sophie Albers Ben Chamo August 18, 2016 [LINK]
Editor’s note:
I wrote this text in German on a rainy afternoon on the North Sea coast. Actually a personal note, as I like to put thoughts down in writing, a kind of occupational disease when you’ve worked as a lawyer for decades. But it became more and more fun to spin out the story. Then I tried to translate the text into American English. With a lot of help from translation programs, of course. But it didn’t turn out quite right. Since I’ve been working with Chatgpt a lot lately, sometimes successfully, but sometimes with great skepticism, I discussed this text with “ChatGPT”. I didn’t want to leave everything to the AI. I was amazed at the tone the AI then brought to this text, as the German undertone is difficult to translate into American. I was amazed at how well this collaboration worked, and how viciously the AI could phrase it, so that I couldn’t take it over. It will be exciting to see how this tool will affect texts in the future. It can’t create texts out of nothing, but it is already replacing many other tools, such as thesauri. It remains exciting. I had a lot of fun with it.
