The Key to Understanding Don Jr.

Published: Dec. 7, 2017, 12:34 p.m.

b'Donald Trump Jr. has all the obvious traits of his father: He\\u2019s belligerent, dim, and mired in everlasting childhood. But the president\\u2019s firstborn is a work of art in the age of mechanical reproduction. He is to Donald J. Trump as a postcard of the Mona Lisa is to the actual Mona Lisa\\u2014the image of the thing, absent its original aura. Don Jr. may be as privileged and petty as the president, but his indistinctness prevents him from commanding our gaze the way his dad does.'