John Oliver did a piece on his television show a while back about Donald Trump and suggested that people call him by his ancestral family name as it would diminish his prestige: Donald Drumph just doesn’t sound as great. That is amusing but it does not really get to the essence of what has made Trump so successful in the celebrity, business and political worlds.

The thing is, if you look around the internet for the characteristics of a successful con artist, you will find that Trump exhibits most of them. He constantly brags about his success, builds supporters up as part of the ‘in’ crowd, misstates the facts (California is not in drought) and steers people away from anything inconvenient (my finances are none of your business). To be sure, there is also a large element of bully in Trump, but his success is mostly due to his mastery of the con man’s tool set. It is too bad John Oliver did not go all the way and re-name him Conald Drumph.