With his overblown personality, overblown hairstyle, trollish demeanor and penchant for jaw-droppingly offensive comments, presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump might seem like a goldmine of material for political humorists.
But for Scott Dikkers, a former Madisonian, founding editor of The Onion and bestselling author of such humor books as Our Dumb Century and Our Dumb World, satirizing Trump presented a considerable challenge.
“Trump is a walking hyperbole, a walking comedic character — that actually makes it very difficult for a comedy writer,” Dikkers says. “You need contrast. When you start with a clown, where do you go?”
On April 15, Dikkers released Trump’s America: The Complete Loser’s Guide, a road map to the impending “Trumpocalypse.” It gives readers a glimpse into what a Trump presidency would look like, from a revamp of the White House into the Trump Presidential Plaza to the creation of new government agencies like the Department of Civil Rights and How to Stop Whining About Them.
To generate material for the book, Dikkers led a team of writers from a workshop called “Writing with The Onion,” sponsored by the Chicago comedy troupe The Second City. The book is now available for purchase online and in select bookstores.
Dikkers began working on the book in late August 2015 — a time when many still regarded Trump’s candidacy as a joke, dismissing his popularity in the polls as a “summer fling,” Dikkers recalls. Nobody was willing to take on the project. “We literally couldn’t get it published. All of the big publishers said Trump’s not going to be around in the spring or the summer.”
But Dikkers believed early on that Trump’s candidacy would endure, and he eventually partnered with a micropublisher. Dikkers says he learned through his work at The Onion that satirical news often has a “strange, bizarre history” of predicting the future. So it came as little surprise that some of the joke concepts brainstormed for the book found their way into Trump’s campaign talking points.
One prime example: In the chapter titled “President Trump: America’s New Boss,” readers are introduced to the First Lady, the First Family and the First Penis — a toupee-clad phallus “known for setting the standard of genital excellence in both business and politics.”
“We had a sense that his penis was going to be important in the campaign,” Dikkers says. “Lo and behold, a few months later, he’s literally bringing it up at the debate. That’s the beauty of satire — it means you did your work and you really did nail the character.”
Other notable excerpts include Trump’s plan to revamp the White House press room with slot machines, an all-you-can-eat shrimp buffet (laced with Ambien) and a “reporter delousing chamber.” Also hilarious is a section offering Trump’s comprehensive assessments of every single U.S. president who preceded him; George H.W. Bush is a “Class-A nerd,” and Thomas Jefferson gets kudos for having sex with his slave women.
The marketing team behind the book is hoping that Trump will sue, which seems a likely reaction from the notoriously thin-skinned candidate. But Dikkers hopes the mocking, fictional look at a potential Trump presidency will encourage voters to make sure it never becomes reality.
“The whole point of satire is to expose human foibles,” Dikkers says. “If you get [readers] thinking rationally about what they’re doing, then you’ve achieved the goal.”
