ELEGANCE, WITH PAINSTAKING ATTENTION TO DETAIL (NO, NOT REALLY)

What does 200 grand a year buy you? This:

Just days before the state visit of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to Mar-a-Lago, President Donald Trump’s Palm Beach private club, Florida restaurant inspectors found potentially dangerous raw fish and cited the club for storing food in two broken down coolers.

Inspectors found 13 violations at the fancy club’s kitchen, according to recently published reports — a record for an institution that charges $200,000 in initiation fees.

Violations included:

▪ Fish designed to be served raw or undercooked, the inspection report reads, had not undergone proper parasite destruction. Kitchen staffers were ordered to cook the fish immediately or throw it out.

▪ In two of the club’s coolers, inspectors found that raw meats that should be stored at 41 degrees were much too warm and potentially dangerous: chicken was 49 degrees, duck clocked in a 50 degrees and raw beef was 50 degrees. The winner? Ham at 57 degrees.

▪ The club was cited for not maintaining the coolers in proper working order and was ordered to have them emptied immediately and repaired.

I can't remember if I've told you this, but my route to work takes me past Columbus Circle, so every day I walk past New York's Trump International Hotel and Tower. (Lord, I hate that name -- it's one freaking building, not two.) Thirty years ago, when it was an office tower and Trump didn't own it, I used to work there.

Trump gussied it up and redid the steps leading up to the plaza. I think they're black marble -- very swank, right? Problem is, when New York gets frozen precipitation, especially ice rather than midwinter snow, the black marble steps can't be effectively cleaned, so the maintenance staff blocks them off by tying yellow plastic pseudo-crime-scene tape around the handrails. Which is not swank at all.

You could walk up the steps when I worked there. They weren't piss-elegant, but they were usable in bad weather.

To me this is the quintessence of Trumpism: surface dazzle but no follow-through. Of course, that's no surprise -- follow-through is hard work.