Cliff Schecter at Al Jazeera English:
As tennis player Andre Agassi used to say in ads for Nikon, "image is everything".I think Schecter gets at the tensions with Trump well. He's known as an incredibly successful businessman, but so many of his projects have ended in failure and most of his wealth is inherited. He's a bore and a goon, but he's successfully exploited his B-list celebrity to head to the top of the Republican primary field in the polls. It's a hard thing to watch, especially as he bases so much of his campaign around headline-grabbing Birtherism. Trump may be demonstrating a solid grasp of how the media works in the US, but he also could be the least substantial presidential candidate in recent memory. At least for the moment, this is the man who leads the Republican field.
In Trump's case, he has used over-the-top self-promotion and atavistic bravado to sell himself as the most successful businessman ever. Once that was largely accomplished, no number of declarations of bankruptcy for his casino empire (are we on two now, or three?... It's pretty easy for one to lose count) or even the destruction of a professional football league (see USFL) could change that. It was a set narrative, and the media doesn't do introspection.
So, like so many of the famous who have not done anything of value to have earned that distinction, Paris Hilton, Levi Johnston, The Real Housewives of Everywhere - this walking Jersey Shore character is now ubiquitous on news shows. Worse, he's considered a knowledgeable source on a whole range of issues, particularly business regulation, budgets and other financial matters.
After all, he's on TV, so he must know stuff!
Trump has also internalised another modern development in our TV culture, namely, the more extreme and nasty one is, the more attention the media grants them.