Commentary: Contemplating the unexpected appeal of Donald Trump

Let’s give it to Donald Trump. He’s made a lot of money. He’s won the game that everyone else is playing. Big time.

But is he serious about the presidency?

Does he really want to be the target of every other blogger in America?

Does he really want to sort out whether it’s Russian President Vladimir Putin who is our friend but not Chinese leader Xi Jinping, or the other way around?

Whether we need stronger unions or weaker ones?

Whether American is on a roll or has been kicked to the curb?

He doesn’t quite seem serious. Not completely, anyway. Is he?

So if he’s not quite serious, how come so many people like his candidacy?

Philip Marlowe was your basic hard-boiled detective but a pretty good guy underneath. In “The Long Goodbye”

and in “The Big Sleep” he defined mid-20th century Los Angeles and its austere, sun-bleached beauty forever. He personified a certain savvy, tough American honesty.

If we listen carefully, we may yet hear his voice:

“I landed my jet in the desert on an afternoon hot enough to heat up a high ball in the fridge. I stepped out under a blazing blue sky to see this border situation for myself.... ‘This is our side,’ I thought. ‘That’s their side. What’s the problem?’

“I looked across the sagebrush, and the Joshua trees and the red dirt, and thought of the cowboys and the sheriffs, and how they brought in the rustlers fair and square. I thought of Gen. Patton honing his tank troops to a fine edge in the high desert. And I thought, ‘Let’s make American great again.’”

Maybe what people like about Trump is that straightforward fearlessness, that ambition blended with fairness, that shrewdness and hard work and that astonishing success that made this a great country.

Maybe that’s who they want to be president.

Dr. STEVE DAVIDSON is a clinical psychologist in Newport Beach.