Donald Trump’s presidency was unique in many circumstances. A long-famous outsider who constantly shared his disdain for the political system finally opted in 2016 to get into the ring and wound up winning the presidency. While elected, he led (or divided, depending entirely upon your flavor of radicalization) with a level of outspoken assholery and a lack of nuance that endeared him to much of middle America. However, under the blond hair and the curt responses remained a selfish Me First mantra. Many pundits (eww…pundits) bemoaned the Leader of the Free World for being unpresidential. However, what if I told you that a younger version of Trump is over the horizon, and I don’t mean one that is genetically related to him. That man is none other than Logan Paul. Don’t believe me? Let’s go over how much these two men, despite being decades apart, have in common with each other.
First, as if they were both NFL prospects, we’ll start with the famed eyeball test. As much as we like to think that we are an advanced civilization that carefully considers candidates by the merits of their stances, the reality simply isn’t so. Americans generally tend to rally behind bombastic candidates that can make us feel safe and energize the masses. Trump has shown to be able to do that time and again, as has Logan Paul with his avid fan club dubbed the Logang. Both men are tall (6’2”), blonde hair with blue eyes, and traditionally considered attractive (or at least was, in the case of Trump several decades ago). The both also have monosyllabic last names that lend themselves well to the marketing machine (and that absolutely does matter).
Moving beyond physical appearance, both men have a fondness for conspicuous spending and lavish displays of wealth. Trump has an infatuation with gold plating and skyscrapers, while Logan Paul has shown a similar affinity towards nice watches and other such bling. In a way, they both have used their luxurious homes and other such trinkets to vapidly display an aura of wealth and elitism, while both also love to rant about systemic corruption (Trump) or “The Matrix” (Paul).
Both men have frequently appeared on the traveling professional wrestling promotion, WWE. While I’m not a fan of professional wrestling by any stretch, only a fool denies that the endeavor does enhance skills that aid a political career. Professional wrestling requires that one be charismatic, be “on” all the time, be able to fearlessly face a crowd that might not be receptive to your presence, and most of all, to sell. This isn’t just a Dan grasping at straws argument either; award-winning author and journalist Matt Taibi talks about this overlap of modern politics and professional wrestling at length in his book Hate Inc.
Trump was a frequent WWE guest star and it suited his personality well; he got to be flamboyant and over-the-top, grandstanding with all of the grandeur that professional wrestling requires of its participants. Trump reveled in the opportunity to peacock in front of American viewers, many of whom undoubtedly became his future voter base. Like him or not, Trump has mastered these characteristics, and Logan Paul is certainly refining them now. Paul has been an ongoing guest star in the wrestling promotion, often playing in villainous roles. Thus, Paul has been training on how to handle a large crowd that is hostile to his presence (albeit in a simulated environment), a skill that would serve him well in the Oval Office should he choose that path. Combine that with Paul’s charisma and marketability, and it’s easy to see how an on-again-off-again stint as a professional wrestling villain would help a political campaign later in life.
Trump and Logan Paul both have had business missteps as well. Trump’s business failures have been well-documented; everything from his branded vodka, a university bearing his name, steaks, and many other products that have gone belly-up. Logan Paul’s business record is far from spotless either; Logan Paul’s forays into cryptocurrency have been thoroughly covered by investigative journalist and YouTuber Coffeezilla. However, both Trump and Paul have continued to their next venture without seemingly missing a beat, as if the failure didn’t sink them financially or emotionally. In a way, these business failures, ethical or otherwise (anyone remember colorblindness-curing glasses?), have shown to breed a thick skin of both Trump and Paul.
However, this isn’t to say that both men haven’t had their successes in the world of commerce either. Trump has famously made money as a paid spokesmen in the past; a variety of products from credit cards, to McDonalds and seemingly everything else in between has been pitched by Trump. Logan Paul has also spent considerable parts of his past as a walking billboard after he achieved his fame via the now-defunct video app Vine. Trump has also made money off of merely licensing his last name, while Paul has found success in the offline world as well, most notably with his beverage company Prime.
However, more so than hard products, both men have figured out how to become brands unto themselves. Both Trump and Paul grew up in the media and it’s easy to see that those lessons regarding marketability have stuck with both of them. Trump rekindled his fame in the 2000’s with his show The Apprentice which earned several spin-offs including a celebrity version of the same show. Meanwhile Logan Paul has found a reliable platform with his hit podcast ImPaulsive, as well as his aforementioned WWE stints and his profitable time spent in the boxing ring. If it’s one thing that both men know how to do quite well, it’s keeping their name in the spotlight.
These skills along with winning the genetic lottery would certainly help Logan Paul skip much of the dues-paying process often required in politics. Paul could leverage how he boot-strapped his beverage company into a wildly profitable venture to great effect on the campaign trail. Trump showed in 2016 that one can certainly run for-and win-the nation’s highest office with no prior political experience, thus paving the way for Logan Paul to potentially do so in the future. This works to Paul’s benefit as he seems unlikely to want to serve as a representative or senator for a number of consecutive terms; after all, he is…(wait for it) im-Paul-sive!
Trump showed that despite the limited powers of the presidency, the Commander-in-Chief is certainly capable of keeping the media spotlight on him and seemingly only him day after day for years on end. Trump was unafraid to stir the pot, even (or especially) if that meant agitating half of the nation to dislike him. Truthfully, I’m willing to bet that Logan Paul would have that same personality quirk if elected. Logan Paul’s career up until this point has shown that he is capable of keeping himself relevant, whether positively or otherwise.
Trump has also been accused of using the nation’s highest office in a bid to pad his own pockets. For example. Trump didn’t place his assets into a blind trust upon inauguration, which was unprecedented at the time. For those not in the know, this would have removed Trump entirely from the decision-making process regarding his assets for the duration of his presidency. The purpose of this is to remove potential conflicts of interest if the president is blind to how his actions affect his own net worth. Trump opting to skip this meant that he was able to run the Trump business empire and carry out the duties of the presidency with full knowledge of how it benefited him personally. However, the Supreme Court has been okay with this thus setting a new precedent for future POTUS’s to potentially cite. Given Paul’s enthusiasm for gaudy capitalism, it is hard to argue that he wouldn’t follow in Trump’s footsteps were he to ever assume the presidency, and Paul’s legal team would certainly point to Trump as an example of why him dodging the blind trust tradition should be allowed.
I write this article not knowing what Logan Paul’s platform will be; the only thing that my FutureSense can detect is that Paul’s stances would be self-serving. Likely his stances on taxes would benefit the wealthy, as he referenced Puerto Rico’s tax laws being a major part of his decision to move there. However, as for his views on stances such as gun rights, abortion, climate change and other issues where the impact to himself isn’t as clear, there’s no telling where Logan Paul would land on these issues. Several years before he assumed office, Trump once posited that he would’ve run as a Democrat and that he would’ve picked Oprah Winfrey as his running mate, thus trying to predict Logan Paul’s stances or his VP choice would be nothing more than a fool’s errand at this point.
Of course, nothing is for certain; there is no guarantee that Logan Paul would even find the job interesting at all. After all, as Trump abruptly found out during his term, being the President has little to do with running a non-public company. Logan Paul would have a level of checks-and-balances that he would not be used to, as Trump learned the hard way. Although, Logan Paul seems unlikely to take No for an answer (shout out to DeShaun Watson), so this might actually encourage the moppy-haired influencer to run when he passes age 35.
Nothing is ever certain, but only a fool says that would never happen…
Home Page 