How many ways do I love Donald Trump, presidential candidate?

I love Donald Trump because he lives in a parallel universe.

I love Donald Trump because he is preposterous.

I love Donald Trump because he is outrageous.

I love Donald Trump because he is vulgar.

I love Donald Trump because he is an embarrassment.

I love Donald Trump because he is simplistic.

I love Donald Trump because he loves money: his.

I love Donald Trump because he makes a mockery of capitalism.

I love Donald Trump because he has trashed New York, Atlantic City and Los Angeles with tasteless structures.

I love Donald Trump because he lives in a parallel universe.

I love Donald Trump because he is an alien.

I love Donald Trump because he makes all other political grotesques look normal.

I love Donald Trump because he has the audacity to think he should be president.

I love Donald Trump because he loves Donald Trump.

It is the sheer ego of the man that overwhelms. Not since William Shakespeare created Malvolio in “Twelfth Night” has there been such a human edifice of self-adulation. Malvolio, one of Shakespeare’s enduring characters, has — as Trump would have us believe of himself — moral standards. But he has arrogance as high as the Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, and he is lambasted for being full of self-love.

Malvolio is a character in a comedy written in 1601. To measure The Donald, we must do so against the towering clowns of today.

First, let us take a look at Boris Johnson. He is painted in broad brushstrokes in British politics. He has been in many predicaments, from infidelity to just recently infuriating London’s famous taxi drivers by swearing at them – and from atop his bicycle, no less.

But Boris has also been a successful mayor of London (He saved the double-decker buses. Thank you.) and a vigorous performer in the House of Commons. And he is an odds-on favorite for Conservative prime minister if David Cameron should falter.

Boris is a classicist with a colossal ego, who hints that he is comparable to Pericles, the great statesman, orator, patron of the arts and general during the Golden Age of Athens from 460-429 B.C. He has a plaster cast of Pericles in his office, and has even compared London to Athens. One suspects Trump has a statue of himself in his office for religious purposes.

How about Sarah Palin? We’re getting warmer. She clubs halibut, decapitates turkeys (Watch out, Donald!) and somehow convinced some Republican kingmakers that she was of presidential timber. Like Trump, she was more of an entertainment on television than a serious politician — although we were getting close and if voters had not intervened, we might have had Palin a heartbeat away from the presidency.

When it comes to naked love of self, Trump is up there with the more extreme Roman emperors. Think Nero, who declared himself a god. But that might be a demotion for Trump.

You have got to love a man who can bring Iran into the fold in a day, humble China, befriend Vladimir Putin and make America “great again.” One wonders if he can do it all in six days.

I love Trump because Malvolio’s words fit, “Be not afraid of greatness: Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon ’em.”