Great article, but still doesn't answer anything for me. I don't imagine a huge groundswell of men nostalgic for their pimply inadequate self, or wishing they could've stopped development at 13 while garnering success...

I can imagine a fair amount of support for "fake it til u make it", of that old college try, they guy who's always pimping himself even at 3-4 a.m. at the end of a good drunk. He doesn't drink - he's always ready to sell that toaster. He's Glengary Glenn Ross - both the guy breaking in to get the leads (even tho rich) and the one always-be-closing 24x7. He wants that Rolex more than a job. For every woman who hustled real estate or did some home mail-order or other doubtful pyramid level marketing business, he's a model - rent out your name? One can only wish. Motivational speaker with YouTube channel? Or even Ted Talks - Donald in some way paved the way. I'll come up with theories for miners and farmers later.

As for Melania, funny Tom would bring her up. From what I can tell, she's an intelligence call girl/handler par excellence. Einstein Genius visa, did maybe 2 photo shoots over the years, never had her model card in NY or however it's called, which is critical for working in the business at all - just hung out for 2-3 years w/o going out much (odd for a NY model looking to break in) and then got introduced to Donald, bam, official squeeze #3 (with Trump-paid body makeover). For all the shit Hillary got for her marriage being presumed transactional, Melania's is a total by the books show marriage. But if you read Brit Ekland's bio for example, there's an era where women just fell into relationships - this kind of bargain is accepted and desired for many. To a large extent, the 60's feminism thing never happened - Melania's not that different from Kim Kardashian or Kylie Jenner, admired and followed by many a teen, billionaires for seeming beautiful and billionairish - the dress for success., as Kanye might note.

How Melania was treated by the press was also instrumental - of course she speaks 5 languages, even though she can barely mutter 3 word in French to school kids. Of course she had a degree, even though she didn't. If course she had a proper visa for gifted East Europeans, even though she was obviously just a model. The press just doesn't expect much from women and expects half of it to be ditzy lies, so all got a pass. (US customs no doubt had palms greased for any modeling business). Part of the suspiscion towards Hillary in my eyes is that almost all successful or well-attached women are somehow faking it, one of the spouses in JR or a Leona Helmsley businesswoman. That any light fibbing Liz Warren pulled re mnative American ancestry is 1/100th if what Trump lies on any given day highlights that tilted playing field, and no doubt Warren's "fake it til u make it" was a lot less fake and a lot less subsidized by Daddy than Donald's. But even Ivanka is treated often as if she did something herself, rather than playing off of Daddy's knee. Tom doesn't begin to address all this.