There’s a deep irony at work. Trump was the ultimate anti-politician. He had never held office or even run for office before, talked in ways that were unlike any politician, and heaped contempt on Washington and the supposedly corrupt establishment one finds there. Yet he is coming to embody the caricature so many voters have of how politicians act.
 

In that caricature, the politician tells you what he thinks you want to hear, and then does something different. He doesn’t care about the little guy. He’s a complete phony. He’s only out for himself, trying to get rich off of public office. And he has an inordinate concern for his hair.
 

Donald Trump is all those things, to an utterly unprecedented degree. He may not sound like a politician, but he takes the worst things people believe about politicians and cranks them up to 11. And in doing so, he’s accomplishing something extraordinary: making ordinary politicians look good by comparison.