There is something undeniably special about Donald Trump.
We're fourteen months away from knowing who the 45th President of the United States will be, and we already have a somewhat clear picture of who the frontrunners are for their parties.
In the Democratic Party, Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton are jockeying for position as the Democratic Party representative in the 2016 Presidential Election. While Sanders may hold a slight lead over Clinton, the door is still wide open for either candidate to take hold of the party nomination.
The Republican Party is another story altogether. With a plethora of candidates to choose from, including Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, and Jeb Bush, Trump still is far and away the most likely to receive the Republican nomination. It is an incredible feat, given the number of Republican Party members who are making a serious push for that bid.
That being said, it is an indicator of Trump's influence in politics, as he as always been a notable political figure well before he tried to run for president. If any other person had a wide lead in such a race, it solely stood as testament to their ability to get the people behind their proposed policies. What makes it weird in Trump's case is that he has been able to get the lead by doing the opposite.
Not in recent history has there ever been a presidential candidate as polarizing as Donald Trump. The media has played him out to be one of the biggest supervillains in recent time, yet he still has an enormous following. His controversial thoughts have turned him into a political icon.
People have always tuned into him, as he has made himself into exactly what every politician wants to be: someone who the people want to know what he will say next. He took command of the GOP Debate over a month ago, and he never let it go. Even before then, he was the hot topic when it came to the Republican Party.
He has made politics interesting to the public for a change by creating controversy. He's made it known that he supports the death penalty. He has openly criticized President Obama's handling of the riots in Baltimore earlier this year. He's rich and he knows it, claiming that his net worth is "well over $10 billion." He has made such disparaging remarks about immigration that he is considered borderline racist by many.
NBC has completely cut ties with him, cancelling his shows and his advertisements. CNN's Anderson Cooper once cut off one of his speeches because he failed to deliver on one of his promises. The Internet has had its fair shot at Trump too, with plenty of memes and even an app that inserts controversial Trump quotes into any instance where his name comes up online.
And yet people still tune into him whenever they can.
He is confident beyond comparison, another quality that people like. He knows that what he says is polarizing and will make him numerous enemies, but he just doesn't care. He is the incarnation of all the qualities that we like as people, but we don't want to show because it makes us look like uncaring, selfish jerks. We watch Trump because he is what most of us want to be, but are scared to be. Examining him closely is like taking a look at ourselves and wondering why we aren't like him.
At the end of the day, it still says something that an "uncaring, selfish jerk" has a very realistic chance of being the nation's next president.
