The Portrait of Donald Trump

I caught a film called The Sins of Dorian Gray (1983) a while ago.   Obviously, it was a version of 'The Portrait of Dorian Gray', updated to the then present day and with the gender of the title character switched.  As updatings of oft-told tales go, it wasn't badly done, although suffering from the fact that it was made for TV with TV movie resources.  Instead of a portrait which ages instead of her, the protagonist, an actress, has an audition tape that takes on her age and depravities.  Which actually wasn't an original twist - Brian DePalma's Phantom of the Paradise (1975) used the same conceit with regard to Paul Williams' character.  Anyway, this got me to wondering whether Donald Trump has something similar going, but in reverse.  As he, quite literally, decomposes before our eyes, does he, perhaps, have a picture of himself in the attic that gets younger?  Because, if so, by now it must be slim, healthy looking and sporting a full head of hair.  The big question, though, is whether Trump's ability to be utterly self-serving and downright evil, is because he's been able to suppress completely his conscience and compassion, by transferring them to that picture: the more evil he is, the more physically ugly and completely repugnant his real self becomes and the more saintly that picture of him becomes.

Of course, the biggest question is, what happens to that picture when the real Trump finally dies?  Will it come to life and step out of its frame, a fully three dimensional, youthful Donald Trump, in perfect health, ready for another fifty or sixty years?  We'd hope, obviously, that bearing in mind that the picture had absorbed all of Trump's good side, that this would be a new, benign Donald Trump.  A Trump that gives away his money to good causes, fights against injustice and who is humble and modest.  Perhaps this Trump will also run for president - but as Democrat so far to the left that he makes Bernie Sanders look like Mussolini.  He could run of a platform of socialised health care, the expansion of welfare, workers' rights and racial equality.  Maybe he could be the friend of immigrants.  Maybe he could even win the Nobel Peace Prize legitimately, with his tireless work to promote peace instead of conflict, championing reductions in defence spending and nuclear disarmament.  Doubtless, he would be passionate about women's rights, gay, rights, trans rights, the whole damn lot.  In fact, he might even be gay himself.  Ah, a man can dream of a better future, even if it is unlikely to materialise, because, even if Trump does have that reverse Dorian Gray thing going on, there was so little good in him in the first place, his picture would, in reality, turn out stunted and under nourished, too weak to do anything.  But, like I said, a man can dream...