Even more than fashion and film, the real estate and travel industries — where Trump has made most of his money — employ glamour as a tool of persuasion and sales. With carefully crafted words and imagery, marketers invite customers to project themselves into a different, better setting and, through it, a different, better life. Stay in a Trump hotel, the corporate website promises, and you won’t just get a nice room and good service. You’ll enjoy “a lifestyle where you can do more, experience more and live life without boundaries, limits or compromise.” Glamour is much more than luxury. It promises transformation.

In this way, Trump combines powerful charisma, which draws audiences to enlist in his cause, with the glamorous salesmanship of a real estate brochure. At times the appeal is so explicit, it’s meta: “We need somebody that can take the brand of the United States and make it great again,” he said in announcing his candidacy.

His branding efforts permeate everything he says, with his repetition on the campaign trail of certain words: “win,” “respect,” “strong,” “powerful,” “rich,” “leader” and, of course, “build.” The right words can cast a spell, even if they don’t really make sense. “We are going to do something so good and so fast and so strong, and the world is going to respect us again, believe me,” Trump told supporters after his win in New Hampshire, letting them fill in the blanks with their own desires. (It’s a trick well-honed during his business career. He once asked a vendor: “What should I call my next project? Celestia? Empyrean? Royal Imperial Regal?”)