This may be the most brutal takedown of Donald Trump yet

Donald Trump with daughter Ivanka and her husband, Jared Kushner

(Image credit: Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

published 23 September 2016

It isn't hard to find vigorous critiques of Donald Trump, but the one published this week in the the New York Observer is particularly trenchant. "Let’s cut to the chase: Donald Trump is a liar," Jon Reinish begins, and that's one of the nicer things he says. If Trump promises to Make America Great Again, Reinish disagreed, and he made it personal and grounded in Trumplore:

I'm a New Yorker. Tried and true, born and bred. I remember when Donald Trump crawled out of the junk bond ooze of the early '80s and swaggered in his cheap suits and tragic combover through the Queens Midtown Tunnel and thought he could play with the big boys. But, unlike the real big boys in this town, who proved themselves by doing good for their city and doing good for others, Donald Trump, from the very beginning, just wanted recognition. He was the worst of the '80s. He wanted limelight and a high profile but never had the substance or true contribution to society to back it up. He was never a great developer. He was a marketer. He was never a great builder. He was smoke and mirrors. What was clear in 1986 is clear 30 years later. He was never a part of what made New York great. He was what made a great city stumble. [New York Observer]

Reinish urges the news media to hold Trump accountable, calling the Trump campaign "a human stain" seeking to elect a man who would "be the ruin of us." At one point he wrote, "I know I'm saying deeply terrible things about other human beings," but he declared the stakes high enough to justify the insults. For Trump and his "morally vapid validators, town criers doing the dirty work of the village idiot," Reinish said, "I hope, someday, their children will hold them accountable for the boundaries of engagement and civility that have been breached. For the record, I hope it hurts." And to understand the full weight of that last curse, and the entire anti-Trump polemic — which you can read at the Observer — you need to read the note at the bottom of the article: "Disclosure: Donald Trump is the father-in-law of Jared Kushner, the publisher of Observer Media."

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Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.