Why Old Friends of Don. Jr. Were So Flabbergasted by His Political Career: ‘Here's What’s Surprising'
Donald Trump Jr., the eldest son of former President Donald Trump, has become a prominent figure in the political landscape, especially among the pro-Trump Republicans and the populist fringe. However, initially, this transformation into a political firebrand had left many of his old friends astonished and confused. Growing up Don Jr. faced the unique pressure of being the namesake of one of the most powerful men in America. A former Trump adviser highlighted, “I think Don gets it a lot. Everyone talks about Ivanka, but Don also has a lot of pressure on him. Everyone wants approval from the father, especially if the father is Trump. He has a special place in his heart for Ivanka. But Don is the eldest son, he's named after him, he's doing the nitty-gritty on the real estate, he's got a lot of responsibility, and Trump is tough on everybody. He's the alpha male. He sees his son as somebody he has to groom.”
In 2010, Don Jr. himself confessed the struggle and remarked, “There probably shouldn't be. But there is for me, because you want to please someone like that, and he's a perfectionist. There's definitely always that shadow that follows you around, like how is this guy, the son of someone so good at what he does, going to act?” Among Trump’s supporters, Don Jr. is celebrated for his relatability and his embrace of the MAGA brand. Right-wing activist Mike Cernovich said, “Don Junior is royalty. Don junior is loved by the base. He's accessible, he's in the trenches, he's sharing the memes, pushing out stories that other people aren't. It shows that he's reading what everybody else is reading. I know it's a really dumb litmus test for a politician, but he's the one you'd want to have a beer with.” A Breitbart editor echoed this sentiment, and remarked, “The stuff he's focused on is the stuff the conservative movement is focused on. It's not an act. With him, I think it's genuine.”
However, to those who knew him before his political awakening, this persona was disturbing. Friends from his college days remember him as someone who loved the outdoors and seemed indifferent to politics. One of his friends highlighted, “I don't remember him having political views. You've been hearing his dad for a long time. I didn't see anything emerge until the campaign.” Felix Sater, a former Trump business partner, recalled, “He probably had the opinion that most New Yorkers have of politicians—they're full of s–t. He wasn't political. He didn't like politics.” His college friend emphasized, “What's surprising is that the tone and the rhetoric are so Fox News-ish. The anger is surprising. None of us would've guessed that he would've been so outspoken in either direction. It hit me strange to see this guy that was a friend in college all over the news in this way,” as reported by GQ.
Charlie Kirk, who managed the Trump campaign’s outreach to millennials, explained, “He wasn't a political animal until this started. He did it to help his dad. He got dragged into this fight out of loyalty.” As per The Hill, in contrast, Don Jr.’s childhood was marked by a distant relationship with his father. His mother, Ivana Trump, once revealed, “He would love them, but he did not know how to speak to them in the children's way of thinking. He was able to speak to them only when they came from university, when eventually he was able to speak business to them. Otherwise, he really did not know how to handle the kids.”
