“Short-fingered vulgarian”; “Queens-born casino operator”; the “WA-A-A-A-H!” cover depicting Donald Trump as a toddler mid-tantrum. These are all, presciently if tragically, now a vital part of the historical record. Forty years on, Spy magazine is best remembered, not unjustly, as the first entity to call out Trump for his tackiness, villainy, and arrant idiocy.
The cover story of the October ’86 issue, Spy’s very first, was entitled “The Ten Most Embarrassing New Yorkers” and described the future president as someone afflicted with “a Dynasty notion of panache.” The piece proceeded to indict him with a series of his own utterances. In one, he said, “It would take an hour and a half to learn everything there is to learn about missiles.” In another, he defended his destruction and disposal in 1980 of the bas-relief sculptures and Art Deco grillwork on the façade of the Bonwit Teller building—soon to make way for Trump Tower—by saying, “They were nothing. Just junk.” To the people of Iran and those who held the East Wing dear: This is called “foreshadowing.”