In 1988, Spy magazine described Donald Trump as “a short-fingered vulgarian.” The founding editors of the magazine, Graydon Carter and Kurt Andersen, recognized Trump for what he was: the id of New York City, writ large—a bombastic, self-aggrandizing, un–self-aware bully, with a curious relationship to the truth about his supposed wealth and business acumen. He wasn’t so much a Macy’s balloon, ripe for the targeting, as he was the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man from Ghostbusters, stomping on everything in his gold-plated path.

It wasn’t pretty. But New York wasn’t all that pretty then, either. It had yet to become the sanitized city of hedge funders and money-in-flight Russian billionaires that it is now, where Trump is just another rich guy on the block—and not even the richest one, at that.

As I recall it (I was a contributing editor at Spy), Trump’s reaction to what Spy wrote—or articles that Spy planned to publish—was to threaten the magazine with lawsuits. The editors lived under the constant threat of litigation. In a gesture that seemed to indicate he had some self-awareness, and possibly even a sense of humor, he sent over a copy of his book, The Art of the Deal, with his hand outlined in bright gold on the cover, to prove that he wasn’t, in fact, short-fingered—but then added a note, promising, “If you hit me, I will hit you back 100 times harder.” Then, as now, he truly believed any press was good press, so long as he thought he had the last word.

Today, 27 years and a reality-TV show later, the rest of the world—or perhaps I should say the “thinking” part of the rest of the world—has come to recognize what we knew about Trump back then. Only instead of being the id of New York City, he’s become the dark, nasty id of America itself: uncensored, unthinking, bullying, angry, forever unapologetic, and vaguely unhinged. From his racist remarks about immigrants to his sexist attack on Fox News’ Megyn Kelly, to the lawsuits he brings or threatens to bring with tiresome regularity (then Spy, now, Univision for attempting to “suppress his freedom of speech” by dropping his Miss U.S.A. and Miss Universe beauty pageants, along with the two celebrity chefs who no longer wish to be associated with him), none of it surprises us. He’s become the Ugly American, writ large, and draped in cheap superlatives: a great American, with a great plan, who will restore our great and glorious gold-plated future. . . . So long as you don’t criticize him, disagree with him, or ask too many questions.

In modern media terms, Donald Trump was our clickbait. He brought us word-of-mouth recognition, and more readers—just the same way he is now bringing eyeballs to newscasts, and page views to Web sites. He’s O.J. Simpson in the Ford Bronco, an unfolding disaster that you can’t quite take your eyes away from, as you wait for him to drive off the road and self-immolate. Over the course of our years at Spy, we fact-checked his books and his finances (with predictable results), trolled him by sending miniscule checks—as low as 13 cents—to see if he’d cash them (he did), and wrote up his all-but-forgotten business debacles. (Remember the “Trump Castle World Power Boat Championship”?)

And yet, none of it stuck. None of it so much as dinged him, or even seemed to embarrass him. And were The Donald to read this, I’m all but certain he’d reply, “Spy is dead. And I’m running for president, leading in the polls, after starring in the most-watched cable TV news show in history, because the people tuned in to watch me. They love me!”