Donald Trump
He's a narcissistic, xenophobic, race-baiting, violence-peddling, (alleged) serial sex offender who is motivated by nothing beyond greed and ego. More than six weeks after losing the 2020 presidential election to Joe Biden, he continues to invent versions of reality in which the forces of evil (i.e. anyone who doesn't love him) aligned to disrupt his landslide reelection.
He has no concern for the health of America's citizens or its democratic institutions. He doesn't care that sowing fantasies about COVID hoaxes and voter fraud could erode national stability. Anything that gets in the way of his immediate goals and desires is his enemy and must therefore be destroyed.
In short, Trump is the worst; he sucks. Or — as Trump's momentary communications director Anthony Scaramucci so succinctly put it — "the guy stinks." That much is clear, but the question remains: Is he "stanky?"
That's the issue that came to light on Thursday morning when the hashtag #StankyTrump started trending on Twitter. In short order the phrase had spawned tens of thousands of tweets opining on the president's literal or figurative odor.
But as amusing as many of those tweets are, the topic must be treated with journalistic vigor. We must carefully examine all the evidence to determine if Donald Trump is, in fact, "stanky."
His Diet
Donald Trump's strange dietary habits are iconic — some would say disgusting. In addition to his preference for well-done steaks served with ketchup, Donald Trump has been vocal about his taste for fast food, which he sees as conforming to higher standards of food safety.
His typical McDonald's dinner order was, reportedly, "two Big Macs, two Filet-O-Fish sandwiches, and a small chocolate shake." And while that's way too much greasy, fatty food for a single meal, it could be worse. When it comes to pizza, for instance, Trump once reported to US Weeklythat he "never eat[s] the dough," preferring to scrape off the toppings and just eat that wad of cheese meat and sauce.
If that doesn't sound like the diet of a man who is constantly bloated with gas and sweating profusely — thus developing a potent tang of stank — we don't know what does. However, Donald Trump has reportedly shifted to more healthy eating habits in recent years, so it may be that he's no longer permanently slick with a sheen of pungent meat sweats.
His Alleged Drug Habit and Diaper Use
Donald Trump is widely rumored to have developed a taste for stimulants back in the '80s when he was reportedly a patient of Dr. Joseph Greenberg. Greenberg was made famous when 60 Minutes exposed his liberal prescription of amphetamines — particularly to celebrities like Trump.
At least one former staffer on The Apprentice has corroborated those rumors, turning stories of Trump's on-set drug abuse into a stand-up "comedy" routine. Among Noel Casler's claims are the accusation that Trump would crush and snort Adderall to psych himself up for the task of reading cue cards and that Trump wore adult diapers and "would often soil himself" on set.
An amphetamine addiction could explain how Trump is frequently up and blasting off Twitter rants late into the night and again in the wee hours of the morning, and it could also be associated with bowel control issues. If it's true that Donald Trump is regularly sitting in his own waste, then it would be hard to argue that he hasn't cultivated a particularly noxious stank — and that's only one of the ways that Trump may have acquired a scent of stale urine.
Of course Noel Casler is hardly an authoritative source, and may just be making all this up for some attention. But that hasn't stopped people from looking for evidence in various images of Trump's seemingly inflated pants. Just last month the rumors cause another trending hashtag: #DiaperDon.
His Body Language
Another possible clue to Donald Trump's potential redolence is in his demeanor. Generally his strange forward-tilted posture has been attributed to lifts in his shoes intended to make him appear taller, but maybe he's just leaning away from the stench produced by his back half.
Likewise, President Trump's aggressive approach to handshakes — the violent way he yanks people toward him — may have been misinterpreted as an attempt to domineer. Rather, it may be that people so instinctually retreat from his heady aura of stank, that Donald Trump has developed a habit of pulling them close before they get a chance.
Maybe this is also why he's taken such a dislike to people wearing face masks in his presence — he takes it as a statement on his stank.
His Friends
Perhaps the most obvious clue to Donald Trump's signature fragrance can be found in the people with whom he surrounds himself.
Sweaty, flatulent Rudy Giuliani — who has been known to ooze a brown substance that is either hair dye or liquified putrescence — is the first person who comes to mind. But there is also the figure of Mike Pence, who is seemingly so used to being surrounded by rot and the creatures it attracts that a housefly was able to land on his head and crawl around there for a full two minutes during the vice presidential debate without eliciting a response.
Is that a result of Mike Pence's own odor, or has he picked up some residual stank from proximity to Trump? Did that fly get separated from the swarm that's constantly swirling around Donald Trump's head?
In either case, the fact that Donald Trump doesn't seem to have an issue with either of these men suggest that maybe his nose is desensitized from constant stank exposure.
His Soul
Of course all this speculation about Trump's bodily odor can easily be addressed by asking someone who has smelled him.
As it turns out, Good Morning Britain host and all around ponce Piers Morgan is one such person. According to Morgan, in an interview with The Guardian, Donald Trump smells of "expensive aftershave and not overly done, just a light, gentle aroma," with "a whiff of hairspray."
While Morgan has sometimes been excessively fawning and friendly with President Trump, in recent months he has been much more willing to voice harsh criticism. So it may be that we can trust his assessment in this case — also, he seems like someone who compulsively sniffs other people.
It may be that Morgan caught him on a good day in his spray tan cycle — before it could develop its distinctive "yeasty smell." But this is all really beside the point.
Does it matter one way or another if Donald Trump smells like week-old swamp ass and leftover French fries? Would that be indicative of some deeper moral rot?
Of course not. What's indicative of deep moral rot is behavior like tearing apart asylum-seeking families and endorsing a sense of moral outrage around asking people to wear face masks while a pandemic respiratory virus is killing hundreds of thousands of Americans.
Regardless of how pleasant or grotesque Trump's personal odor might be, we all know that at a more important level — at the level of his soul — the man is rank with the stench of brimstone and death. Trump is stank AF.
Speaking of which, here's one more lovely #StankyTrump tweet to drive the point home:
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