Deep in the heart of a deep-blue city, hugging a bright-green river, there rises a massive, gleaming hotel that bears the name of Trump. The letters, which spell out the Donald’s last name, stand an almost comical 20 feet high, forming a gloriously tacky belt on an otherwise good-looking skyscraper. The city is Chicago, that great midwestern sprawl of big shoulders, fevered Democrats, and a cluster of architecture buffs forever peeved at what one prominent critic called “Trump’s self-inflicted urban acne.”
Twenty sixteen is full of ironies, and so it is that I, a decidedly non-Trumpian Republican, came to stay at this decidedly Trumpian fortress during the week of the Democratic National Convention. True story: Within approximately two minutes of our entry into the building’s soaring lobby, the good people at the Trump International Hotel and Tower Chicago gave each of my children a hat.
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