Don Jr, the troublemaker

It was Don, too, who best embodied his father’s particular brand of conservatism, unlike Ivanka, a supposed moderate who was always trying to sand off her dad’s rough edges. Don was all about the rough edges. He was the rough edges. He didn’t much care about social issues, but he loved guns, and he argued forcefully for the proposed Muslim ban and border wall. In one campaign controversy, he compared Syrian refugees to Skittles; in another, he was interviewed by a white supremacist radio host—unwittingly, he said. In March, Don went after the mayor of London, who is Muslim, as a terrorist attack was unfolding in that city. In his amplification of alt-right memes and pugilistic responses to controversy, Don could seem like a more instinctive proponent of Trumpism than even President Trump himself.

But Don wasn’t always his father’s Mini-Me. An angry and petulant youth, he actually didn’t fully buy into Trumphood until after college. Don had been a preteen when his parents’ separation and divorce began to consume the New York tabloids. After his mother, Ivana, got full custody, he left for boarding school and didn’t speak to his dad for a whole year. In college, at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, Don was known mostly for drinking and picking fights. He didn’t care about being one of the cool kids, a contemporary told New York magazine, but he had the hottest girlfriend.