A TRUMP/GATSBY TIME CAPSULE FROM 2017/1925 PART 2

YESTERDAY WE BEGAN EXPLORING A TRUMP/GATSBY TIME CAPSULE prompted by “A Short History of the Trump Family,” by Sydney Blumenthal, London Review of Books, February 16, 2017, and its linkage to F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby. Here in Part 2, we identify similarities and contrasts between Trump and this Twenties character.

A room in the three-story Trump Manhattan penthouse atop Trump Tower. Image from iDesignArch.

Kitsch. Blumenthal observes of Trump, “His style has been unfailingly kitsch. His penthouse apartment at Trump Tower is museum-like in its curating of exquisitely tacky taste in a faux luxe style: marble floors, walls and columns; Louis XIV chairs with cushions stitched with the Trump coat of arms; gilded lamps, vases and crown mouldings; ceiling murals with scenes from Greek mythology (‘If this were on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel,’ he boasted, ‘it would be very much in place in terms of quality’); a large copy of a statue of Eros and Psyche; a fake Renoir; coffee-table books, carefully placed – the Vogue Living Book, the Vanity Fair Oscar Night Book and a Muhammad Ali tribute book. ‘The Trump style is developing-country despot, rather than European or evolved American,’ Peter York wrote in the Times.”

Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald, 1896–1940, American novelist, essayist, short story writer. Image by Nickolas Muray via Wikipedia.

Gatsby and Trump. Blumenthal observes that Trump “lives in the shadow of the fictional character who became the symbol of the Roaring Twenties: ‘What preyed on Gatsby,’ the narrator asks himself in Fitzgerald’s novel, ‘what foul dust floated in the wake of his dreams?’ The fabulously wealthy Gatsby takes a mansion on Long Island, holds extravagant parties drawing the swells from Manhattan, and appears to be the effortless maestro of the scene. He has willed himself into being.”

The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1925.

“Gatsby,” Blumenthal continues, “is actually Jay Gatz, a poor boy from the plains, in romantic pursuit of Daisy Buchanan, the upper-class object of his desire, who once rejected him. He believes he can win her back through displays of wealth and manners, but she is now married to Tom Buchanan, an upper-class boor.”

“Trump’s claim to have risen Gatsby-like,” cites Blumenthal, “is the opposite of Gatsby’s magical self-invention. Gatsby was careful to maintain the air of the gentleman he wished to be taken for. Trump is the uncouth son of privilege for whom, as for Tom and Daisy, there are no consequences for ‘smashing things up.’ Trump is Tom Buchanan farcically playing Gatsby. Gatsby might have appreciated the audacity, but would have avoided the shabbiness. Both Gatsby and Trump, however, are characters enthralled by the possibility of recapturing the past and reshaping it as they imagine it should have been.”

I find this Blumenthal comment particularly frightening. Just what past does Trump want to recapture? ds 

© Dennis Simanaitis, SimanaitisSays.com, 2025