Breslin wrote eloquently on both comic matters (the 1962 New York Mets) and tragic ones (the man who dug President Kennedy's grave). In 1986, he would earn a Pulitzer Prize for championing ordinary citizens.
So it shouldn't come as a surprise that a man like Breslin saw right through a man like Donald Trump. In honor of his passing, Newsday reprinted three of Breslin's columns on Trump from the late 1980's and early 1990's. To wit:
Trump, in the crinkling of an eye, senses better than anyone the insecurity of people, that nobody knows whether anything is good or bad until they are told, and he is quite willing to tell them immediately. His instinct appears to tell him that people crumble quickly at the first show of bravado, particularly members of the media, which is the plural of mediocre. Trump cannot be blamed for taking advantage of people who love to be victims of press agentry. He will tell the shoe-shine boys of the press that he plans to have his Eastern Airlines shuttle fly into space, and they will treat it as exciting news. As far as getting publicity whenever he wants it, Trump is the white Al Sharpton.
Breslin wrote those words nearly 30 years ago and they are truer today than when he wrote them. People are more insecure now than they were then and Trump knows how to tell people what they want to hear with much of the media and political rivals crumbling quickly. He is every bit the demagogue that Sharpton is, but while Sharpton became a power broker in the Democratic Party, Trump took over the Republicans and then the country.
With the loss of Breslin comes the loss of the wisdom necessary to recognize a phony and call him out. It very much remains to be seen if anyone can fill Breslin's enormous imprint. R.I.P.
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