[Editor’s note: There are several separate sections to this, all written at various times over the last three years, including before the election, so there are certain references to him not winning, à la Dewey Defeats Truman. The long length is the author’s way of reducing all of his Trump thoughts to one day, to avoid letting him seep into your brains any more than he already does. It all comes from someone who has been actively and successfully avoiding most American political news for over a year now, so for all he knows none of this is even relevant anymore. And it’s not unpossible that the birthday boy could have already been outed as a giant lizard and should therefore not be El Jefe in a non-lizard country’s administration.]


Dream

I’m yelling at Trump to his face, really telling him off. He doesn’t seem to mind, and I realize it’s because it’s actually a hologram set up so that the common people can release their frustration with the government without being thrown in jail.

I decide to make a little money out of this situation, at least, by creating a business where the employees are all Trump lookalikes, and you can beat the crap out of them or just yell at them if you want, to feel better, similar to the Rage Room but obviously more specific with the rage.


Short Film

[Author’s note: I wrote¹ this short years before there was even a chance this guy would become the president, so try to consider the Trump being referenced to be the one you remember from like 2014, when he was only the Apprentice guy who was in Home Alone 2² for a second.]

Ian is lying down on the couch, his head on Kelly’s lap, facing the ceiling. She is reading quietly when he’s suddenly wearing a roguish grin.

Ian: Hey, uh, Kelly?

Kelly (not really paying attention): Yeah?

Ian: What does a Chinese-Elmer Fudd-Donald Trump say?

His grin grows wider. She sighs, half happy and half annoyed, expecting a stupid joke, but knowing the quicker she responds the quicker it will all be over.

Kelly: What?

Ian: You’re…

Ian gets cut off by his own unexpected burst of laughter. It startles him, and he finds it funny that he was interrupted by himself. He continues to try to say the line but ends up laughing too hard. Kelly begins laughing too, eventually almost as much as Ian, mostly at him not being able to finish the joke, as she obviously doesn’t know the punchline yet. Ian is able to say other words while laughing, even full sentences complaining that he will never be able to get the answer out because of the laughter. Kelly keeps pressing for the answer.

Kelly: What does he say?

The laughter comes in ridiculous waves, and he keeps trying to get himself to stop laughing.

Ian: You’re f…

The laughter continues.³

Ian doesn’t think he’ll ever be able to get it out. He can say any other words, but for some reason as soon as he starts saying the punchline he loses it again.

Ian performs a series of breathing exercises in order to calm himself down.

Eventually the laughter subsides, and after it dwindles to a mere giggle, Ian finally is able to get out the punchline.

Ian: Yuh fi-urd.

¹ Editor’s note: He says he “wrote” it, but it is 100%4 accurate as a representation of a real-life moment, so all he did was write down something that happened, and I’m not sure it translates like he thinks it does.]

² [Editor’s note: This film is subtitled Lost in New York, but we didn’t want to waste any more space within a preliminary Author’s Note]

³ [Editor’s note: I know what you’re thinking, but this is not the subtitle for the American-Canadian action television  series Kung Fu.

4 [Author’s note: Hundy P]


Sketch

[Author’s note: Too many recent sketches, primarily on SNL, have barely even been satire. They’re very slightly exaggerated versions of something that actually happened in the past week. With this type of unprecedented administration, the following approach is an attempt to keep viewers engaged and writers from ending it all. The press conference-centred scene was likely written sometime in the middle of April, 2017, after this strange Syria-cake incident.]

Trump: Welcome everyone. Yesterday, we were forced to bomb a country, quite unexpectedly. Our military did a tremendous job and we wiped out the nation’s entire armed forces, and there were zero civilian casualties. Their government ceded control over all of their territories to us this morning.

Washington Post reporter: What were you eating?

Trump: Sorry?

Washington Post reporter: What were you eating when you gave the orders to bomb their bases or whatnot?

Trump: Don’t you want to know which countr –

Fox News correspondent (interrupting): Was it pie?

Trump (confused): No, it wasn’t pie.

BBC journalist: I knew it! Cake, right? (to Fox News correspondent) I told you it was cake.

Trump: Actually yes, chocolate cake, but there’s more impor-

Fox News correspondent (interrupting): Was it delicious?!

Trump: It was rather tasty, sure, but we just blew up a rather significant amount of Canada, you know?

The Atlantic columnist: Is that where all the smoke is coming from?

Fox Newscorrespondent (to the Atlantic columnist): Shut up. (to Trump) Is there any cake left?

Washington Post reporter: Do you wonder if the ISIS members that were killed will enjoy an even more delicious chocolate cake in heaven?

Trump: Jesus, It wasn’t terrorists. We just wanted their stuff. And now we have it. All of it.

BBC journalist: Did we get their cake too?

Trump (sigh): Well, yeah.

The entire press core celebrates wildly as a party song¹ begins playing. The camera zooms out and audience applauds because an overhead sign tells them to.

¹ [Editor’s note: The song is not Celebration², thank god]

² [Author’s note: I spent too many years thinking the line was “celebration times”. I suppose it doesn’t matter first or last or middle.]


Handshake DregsHandshake with the Gangster

You know that whole Trump-handshake issue, where he was hurting people’s hands and whatnot, because he’s so strong and they’re so weak or whatnot?

If only there was around fifty very strong men who don’t necessarily like Trump, men who will all get a chance to shake his hand, in a row. Each one could slowly crush his hand, not enough that you’d be able to tell on the video but enough for them to collectively get the job done. It would all be on camera, and little by little his little fingers would break, or he would have to stop shaking hands and acknowledge he’s not as tough as he purports to be. So basically I don’t know why half the Patriots refused to visit the White House after they won the Superbowl in 2017.


Median Photography

The ever-widening political divide is stretching for a number of reasons, many of which will never be reconciled by the most vocal and determined on the right and left. The media obviously plays a major role in this, and based on how information is consumed, it often has little to do with the information itself. One particular issue that should be rectified is the photographs used in relation to the polarizing articles, and specifically for Trump.

Photographs make all the difference, as we learned from that Obama-hope one. The left hates Trump more because of the images selected by their news outlets, where he appears unintelligent, fat, goofy, whatnot. On the right, he appears strong, patriotic, important, whatnot.

When an actual major world news story breaks, such as a declaration of war, tensions will only rise between conflicting views. There needs to be a previously agreed-upon photograph that depicts the average version Donald Trump, to avoid a leading or persuading article based purely on the image. It can be done like jury selection – we’ll get far right, right-leaning, moderate, left-leaning, and far left citizens to remove one photo at a time that shows him in what they perceive to be an unfavourable light. The remaining photograph will be the one on the front page of Breitbart, New York Times, Washington Post, Fox News, Al Jazeera, BBC News, etc. when the country most needs unity.

[Editor’s note: I shouldn’t even be telling you this, but the author has said several times he expects a Pulitzer for the above idea. There’s no way he knows what it is. Don’t tell him I told you.]


Avoidance

I actively avoid American political news, but it sneaks in. The other day I saw a headline, “Probe Successfully Lands on Mars”. Ooh, I can click on that…

“The Mars Candy Company has come under intense scrutiny for agreeing with a single thing that Donald Trump has said. The DNC has launched an investigation as to whether or not….”

Dammit.


General Thoughts

  • I sometimes imagine a world where Trump discovers psychedelics and changes his ways.
  • I have a theory that mug sellers on both sides of the aisle rigged the whole election to go down like this, none less so than me after coming up with a mug that says “Trump Rules” in big text but after awhile the “Rules” falls off and leave the word “Sucks” showing underneath. Oh, those Trumpheads would be so mad.
  • This presidency was apparently supposed to be great for comedy. I haven’t heard a single joke since the election.
  • Every concert I go to is anti-Trump. Bands know they’re in Canada, right? And that Canada isn’t actually part of the US¹.
  • There’s a weird part of my cynical side that thinks the Trump thing was orchestrated to get Mike Pence as president.
  • There’s something really bad that’s going to happen before the next election. I don’t know what it is, it could involve assassinating the Democrat candidate or something, but either way it’s going to be big.
  • I haven’t heard anyone suggest that maybe not every person deserves an equal vote. Someone look into that one.
  • Making fun of Trump supporters is not going to make them change their minds. Employing elitism and flaunting their higher education with long words and elaborate theories will not dissuade them from voting for him. Meet them close to their level, for jesus sake.

¹ [Editor’s note: Besides in the sketch above]


Open Letter to Trump

[Editor’s note: Clearly the author takes a relatively diplomatic approach here, likely because of the line about meeting them close to their level from before. It should also be noted this was written way before it all went to complete shit.]

Did you want to win the election? Or did you want to run the country?

You already won. Stop talking about it. It doesn’t matter if you won every electoral college vote. The system is set up in such a way that you either win or you lose. And you won. It doesn’t matter if you lost the popular vote. You won, and the thing you won is the privilege of being the head of the federal government. So now you need to govern. Don’t worry about the media. If you start doing a good job, they will cover that. Don’t worry about fake news. Focus on jobs, the economy, protecting the country. You don’t need to defend yourself in interviews. Defend yourself by helping the country. These are the things you said you wanted to help America with, and they gave you a chance. It’s not too late.

You will probably acknowledge things could be going a little better. So hire some people who could help you with that. Many of your advisors were great at helping you get elected, but their skills aren’t really needed anymore. Ask for help from people you may have had disagreements with in the past. It will show the country you’re willing to step up and do the Great Again thing. It will be difficult. Your skill set is in managing organizations, and that’s what you’ve been given the opportunity to do.

You are not the president for people who voted for you. You’re everyone’s president. That’s how this type of democracy works.

Some things won’t go your way. That’s okay. If you focus too much on the things that haven’t gone your way, you may be able to change some of them in your favour, but you need to prioritize. It’s okay if everything doesn’t go your way. Sometimes what you want isn’t what everyone else wants. That’s fine.

Continue to use Twitter to make your thoughts public, to relay information to the public. But hire someone with a full grasp of the language to edit them. The tweets can be confusing if they don’t follow accepted structure, and you don’t want your ideas to be misconstrued based on wording.

You keep forgetting that you already won. Hillary Clinton is no longer relevant. You have four years, now go do something with them.


Letter from Hillary after winning the election

My fellow Americans¹,

I am truly sorry about the last few months, or years, or however long that went on.

I was clouded by my intense desire to win this race and the presidency, and the political maneuvering to which I’d grown accustomed in order to get what I want prevented me from being as honest as I should have about how I actually feel.

I know that I am a major reason that this important political and societal event devolved into uninformed, antagonistic clickbait. I admit I got swept up into it, because that’s what a lot of the media focused on, because outrage generates clicks.

It’s obvious that my team handled a lot of the campaign poorly and could have drastically reduced this mess much earlier, but now’s my chance to acknowledge whatever we all just had to go through. The campaign turned into mitigating our own troubles and capitalizing on his mistakes, instead of listening to voters and outlining policy changes that need to be made.

I got swept up in proving I was better than Donald, instead of just proving I was better. I should not have been responding to his vitriol. It left too little time to discuss the actual issues that we all care about – Climate change, racial equality, human rights, health care. I regret that I was so focused on winning that I often forgot to talk about actual issues that we all care about. Actual honesty and sincerity became so absent from both sides that it wasn’t even expected anymore.

It devolved into childishness, not fitting for a president.

I was trying to be the lesser of two evils, which obviously wasn’t too difficult because of my opponent. There were times when I almost sunk to his level, which I should have been able to avoid.

But I’m still figuring out exactly what type of president I need to be for you.

I am sorry that we became a nation divided, reaching a point that if someone was voting differently than you, you would use avoidance, condescension, abuse, and confirmation bias to prove you were right and they were wrong.
You’re frustrated with the system. I understand this, and I don’t blame you. I need to acknowledge this growing distrust you have for politicians, whom many of you believe are corrupt and selfish, because many of us are.

You have become a jaded electorate, and if I weren’t so intricately involved, I would have likely joined you.

My campaign staff, during this time, their goal is to win, and I needed to be the one who told them how to win.
You’re so frustrated that you almost elected someone who isn’t a politician, with his apparently greatest asset being the fact that he is not a politician. Moving forward, there must be greater transparency in government, and I will take meaningful steps to end the misconduct and corruption, to the point that you are not skeptical of someone with political experience holding political office.

Some people don’t like me because of the energy I give off, or the fact that I’m a woman, or how much I smile, or how much I don’t smile, and for that I do not apologize. We keep pushing to make these factors meaningless, and someday they will be.

But obviously there are many Americans who don’t agree with me, so I will continue to figure out why and then try to meet them somewhere in the middle. I’m their president too.

Even issues that I may not think should be the highest priority, need to be considered because a lot of the country feels that they’re important.

After all of this, I wonder if parents still want their kids to be president.

I hope so.

-PHRC

¹ [Author’s note: Presidents are obligated to start all speeches like that – it’s in the Constitution. One of the amendments. The 36th maybe?]


Bet Hedging

I wagered $1000 on Trump to win the election, expecting him to lose. That’s the amount I decided it was worth it to me for him not to win. When he did, everyone else decried the state of humanity, while I took my $3000 gain¹ and bought a jet ski, which, as we speak, I’m riding blissfully in the middle of a lake of serenity.

¹ [Editor’s note: ‘Cause of odds and whatnot]

June 14 – Donald Trump gets diversity in media
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