Donald Trump.

Syphilis.

Donald Trump wants you to believe he’s not such a terrible guy, the way a drug-resistant strain of gonorrhea would like you to think it’s merely syphilis. Sure, you’ll have ulcerous lesions on your genitals, but you won’t develop any tumor-like balls of inflammation in your liver if you’re promptly treated with penicillin. That’s what gonorrhea would have you believe.

The hideous hotelier also recently tried to convince Nevada Republicans that his candidacy isn’t only about celebrity. Holy fuck, what else does he have? Valuable foreign-policy experience gained in Westchester?

From Jenna Johnson and Robert Costa at the Washington Post:

“It’s not about being a celebrity,” Trump said. “It’s about having a view that’s captivating the people in this country, because they’re tired of being taken advantage of, they’re tired of being stupid, they’re tired of having their leaders be outnegotiated on every single deal. They’re tired of it. They’re tired of having China rip us off on every trade deal — and Japan and Mexico and everybody else. They’re tired of it.”

Absent from Trump’s speech was the usual blizzard of barbs about his opponents, such as questioning Carson’s religion, mocking Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) for profusely sweating or accusing former Florida governor Jeb Bush of being “low energy.” Trump instead praised Rubio and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) for their strong debate performances the previous night. The only time he mentioned Carson was to describe how they partnered up to pressure CNBC to limit the debate length.

And Trump thanked former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, who barely made it onto the debate stage, for defending him the night before when debate moderators asked the governor to comment on Trump’s morals.

“There aren’t a lot of people that would do that,” Trump said. “He had a perfect opportunity to talk about himself, and he didn’t do that, so he’s a special guy.”

The softened tone was welcomed by many in the audience.

“He needs to cool it,” said Les Birch, 77, a retired elevator builder who lives in Carson City and defends Trump’s policy positions in Facebook conversations but doesn’t weigh in on Trump’s critiques of other candidates. “He needs to stop attacking people personally.”•