Trump blames predecessors back to 1792 for a White House he says now beats 1792.

…(cont) Step two, you need a word for the building. And this is where it gets interesting, because he didn't say "dated." He didn't say "showing its age." He said "dump." Out loud, with photographs of a column, so you'd know exactly which part of the dump he meant.

Step three, and this is the part I keep turning over — you need somebody to pin the dump on. He didn't pick a guy. He didn't say the last fella let the place go, or the one before him skimped on the gutters. He went back. All the way back, to when they laid the first stone. Seventeen ninety-two. Not "a long time ago" — a specific year, written down, the year construction began, and the year he's measuring everybody against.

Now, I want you to think about my car for a second, because it's the only way I've got to picture a thing like this. Fan belt goes on that car regular — it's a lousy car, I've made my peace with it. When it goes, I don't take it to the shop and ask them to compare it to the day it rolled off the line. I ask them to compare it to last week, when it still ran. That's the whole test there is. Last week.

That is not the test he used. He didn't measure the house against the people who ran it right before him. He measured it against the year there wasn't a house yet to run — the blueprint, the dirt — and he says he beat that. Same as if I measured my garage against the day they poured the concrete, instead of last time I was out there and could still find the toolbox.

You want to try that math at home, is what I keep asking myself. Take your own place, whatever you've got, the yard, the porch, and pick a year before any of it existed, and tell the neighbors you've outdone it. Nobody checks that. There's nothing standing there to check it against — that's the whole appeal of picking a year nobody alive was around for.

So that's the walk-through, best I can put it together. Pick a word, pick a blame that reaches back further than any one man could reasonably answer for, pick a year nobody alive was around to argue with, and measure yourself against it. I think that about covers the steps.

Oh — excuse me, one more thing, before you go. I'm sorry, I know I keep circling back to it, but somebody's got to ask: if nobody looked after that house since seventeen ninety-two, the way he tells it, how did it end up in better shape than 1792?