by J. D. Dobson
DOLLAR
If you play as Dwight D. Eisenhower, add +1 to your die rolls, to reflect how fast you can move thanks to the interstate highway system. You also have to explain to the other players why you carry around a silver dollar.
YOU’RE READY TO
PLAY
DONALD TRUMP
2017–_____ | Republican
Donald Trump’s story is the classic American “rags-to-riches story,” except without the “rags” part.
Trump was born on the wrong side of the tracks, in Queens. But like so many heirs of super-wealthy Queens real estate developers, he had big dreams of becoming a Manhattan real estate developer. And with a little luck, and a little loan of a million dollars from his dad, and a little inheritance of a few tens of millions more, he made that dream come true.
Later, Trump met the love of his life, “attention,” whom he courted assiduously and followed all the way into a successful career playing a skilled business executive on a popular TV show. He also married a series of models, divorcing them in turn as they aged out.
Trump would have been content to while away his remaining days in the gilt penthouse atop Trump Tower, eating taco bowls and reading his own dwindling news clippings. But he knew he had to enter politics when Barack Obama was elected president. There was just something about Obama that made it hard to believe he was a real American. Trump made it his mission to prove to the world that America’s first black president was secretly born in Africa and thus ineligible for the presidency, and the rest is history.
As of this writing, the full story of Donald Trump’s presidency cannot be told. Citizenship is a heavy burden, and part of that burden is that we need you to help us complete this profile. We recommend you use pencil because it feels like things are going to be pretty dynamic.
Get the Look!
Getting Donald Trump’s look is easy. Go to an isolated rural crossroads at midnight, and wait for a stranger with red eyes and a sulfurous odor to emerge from the darkness. He’s going to offer you a deal.
WORD
SEARCH
Sometimes, it can be hard to spot the undercurrents of a political campaign—even when they’re right in front of your nose! Can you find all 16 of the terms related to Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign for the presidency?
drain the swamp
birth certificate
Comey
China
NAFTA
TPP
lock her up
Kenya
ISIS
Iran
Twitter
sad
puppet
tax returns
MAGA
wall
How to Win His Heart
What Donald Trump wants more than anything else is a woman who can join with him as an equal partner in life.
He wants someone who is intelligent, who has her own opinions, and who isn’t afraid to fight for them. He wants someone with a sense of humor, and who won’t hesitate to use it to take him down a notch when he starts taking himself too seriously. And most important, he wants someone close to his own age, so that he can benefit from the hard-earned wisdom and lived experiences that only come with time.
Obviously, it doesn’t hurt if he finds her physically attractive. But what he’s most attracted to is who a woman is on the inside.
DOES HE KEEP HIS
promises?
Donald Trump made one or two promises during his presidential campaign. But until the end of his administration, it will be impossible to know whether he ended up keeping them. Help us out by marking the box to indicate whether or not he made good on his word. We use and to indicate “yes” and “no,” but if you want to use to mean “no” and to mean “yes,” that’s up to you—it’s your book! (Unless you borrowed it from the library, in which case it’s even more important that you fill in this section, to help keep your fellow citizens informed.)
“[I will] be the greatest jobs president that God ever created.”
Be careful, because this one is a little ambiguous. Did he mean he will create a lot of jobs? Or just one really amazing job, like “emperor.”
Eliminate the national debt at the end of eight years.
This one is easy, and President Trump has done it several times in the private sector. You just dissolve the entity that owes the money, and reorganize under a new structure.
“I’m going to be so presidential, you’re going to be bored.”
But would the people accept a boring president? As the person commanding the most fearsome arsenal the world has ever seen, isn’t it the president’s responsibility to be entertaining and unpredictable?
“I promise I will never be in a bicycle race. That I can tell you.”
We hope he doesn’t keep this promise.
“No one is going to touch us because I’m so unpredictable.”
It does seem possible that by the end of President Trump’s administration, no one will want to touch us.
“The whole psyche [of the U.S.] will change.”
“Change” can mean a lot of things. ”When I woke up this morning I’d changed into a giant cockroach.” “Weather conditions are changing rapidly, brace for impact.” And so forth.
“I will never let you down.”
Keep in mind that whether or not someone lets you down is really a function of expectations.
“All your dreams are going to come true.”
Note that Trump didn’t limit this to your good dreams. It’s very possible the Trump administration will include a lot of teeth falling out, plummeting from great heights, and people made to give speeches in the nude.
“I will give you everything.”
At the risk of being labeled pessimists, we’re just going to go ahead and mark this one with an “X” now.
SCANDAL!
We don’t know yet whether the Trump administration will have any memorable scandals. So in the meantime, we’ve written this Donald Trump Presidential Scandal Mad Lib. It’s perfect for parties, or just passing time with your bunkmates at reeducation camp.
Even Donald Trump’s fiercest critics were surprised when they learned that he had used the presidency to _____________(verb) more than $_______(number) billion from a series of _______________(plural noun) while disguised, poorly, as a ________________(noun). The first journalists to discover his actions were promptly __________________(past-tense verb) by allies of the president. But this did not solve his problem, as video of Trump being_____________________(past-tense verb) upon by several __________________(plural noun) quickly began circulating on the Internet.
Seeking to distract the nation’s attention from the blossoming crisis, Trump held a press conference at which he brazenly ______________(past-tense verb) and, shocking the audience of staff and reporters, tore off his clothes to reveal a ____________(noun) where his _______________(body part) used to be. As the nation reeled from this information, Trump issued an executive order declaring a national emergency and extending his presidential term to _______________(number) dozen years and barricaded himself at Mar-a-___________________(Spanish term), refusing to talk to anyone except for paying club members.
It appeared that the stalemate would continue indefinitely. But only days later, construction workers in _____________(place) unearthed a buried _____________(noun) during the demolition of one of Trump’s several failed __________________(plural noun). This shattering discovery made it impossible for the compromised Trump presidency to continue.
When Trump finally bowed to public pressure and resigned, he revealed that his entire political career had been an elaborate performance-art piece, designed to demonstrate that rather than being well informed and committed to democracy, the American electorate was ________________(adjective) and ________________(adjective).
Vital Stats
Looks: 3
Donald Trump was pretty good-looking in his twenties, but we only rank presidents based on their looks when they became preside
nt. And in his twenties, Trump was so busy getting sued by the Justice Department for housing discrimination that he had no time to run for office.
Physique: 2
Unfortunately, the “heel spurs” that got Donald Trump his fifth draft deferment during the Vietnam War have apparently also kept him from any sort of regular workout routine. (Well, they’ve kept him from working out recently. He managed to grit his teeth through the pain and play football, tennis, and squash when he was getting his first four deferments for being in college.)
Charisma: 7
If you’re the kind of person who watched Back to the Future and thought, “Michael J. Fox is okay, but tell me more about this Biff guy,” then you might be susceptible to Donald Trump’s … let’s call it “charm.”
Gropiness: 10
If you’re attracted to men who brag about grabbing the genitals of strangers, then boy oh boy have we got the guy for you. Also, maybe you should talk to someone about that!
Acknowledgments
Now we’ve reached the portion of this book in which we are forced to acknowledge that we could not have completed this project alone, in part because we do not know how to operate a printing press.
There are so many people who helped make this book possible, or at least did not actively hinder its progress. That list includes, but is not limited to:
Our agent, BRIDGET MATZIE, who plucked us from obscurity and dropped us into the slightly less obscure life of humor book authors. Her advice on our initial book sample was to use fewer made-up facts and more dirty jokes, and that is solid advice for any human endeavor.
Our editor SERENA JONES, who is like the candid friend who tells you that no, you don’t look good in that outfit. Without her consistent ability to identify our weakest material, this book would be even longer, and even less funny. So you should probably thank her, too.
Serena’s editorial assistant, MADDIE JONES. We assume Maddie was a nepotism hire because what are the chances two people at Henry Holt would have the name Jones? But she nevertheless handled things very ably after Serena selfishly had a baby.
JESSICA NORDSKOG, ELLEN SCORDATO, and everyone at STONESONG. As of this writing they haven’t actually started the book’s layout and design, but we have a really good feeling about them.
MICHAEL K. CANTWELL, who told us that one cannot libel the dead, which is the most useful piece of legal advice we have ever received. In other news, JFK was assassinated by Alexander the Great.
We do NOT acknowledge our copy editor KAREN HAMMOND. We are both preternatural geniuses when it comes to punctuation and grammar. And yet Karen had the temerity to catch literally hundreds of errors we’d made, plus the occasional factual error. So I mean, forget her.
The RESEARCH MATERIALS we used, including a few dreams J.D. had about the presidents that felt really real. Oh and P.S., everything in this book about “President James Garfield” came from a short story Kate wrote in high school. There was no president named James Garfield.
THE FOLKS WHO WORK AT THE PLACES WHERE WE WRITE-Kaldi’s Coffee, the London Tea Room, and the Missouri Botanical Garden. See, we weren’t just using the wi-fi to look at porn. That was only like one or two times.
The LOYAL READERS and/or WEB-CRAWLING BOTS who visit our website, hottestheadsofstate.com.
DEREK, for giving us the idea for the Hottest Heads of State website. But to be clear, that doesn’t entitle him to anything. His reward is the knowledge that he helped his older brother live a carefree life of writing in coffee shops, punctuated by trips to the park on sunny days.
JOSH AND MIKE, who did not help us in any way, but since we mentioned Derek we now feel like we have to mention all of our dumb brothers.
THE PEOPLE WHO’VE BOUGHT OUR POLITICAL HUMOR CANDLES, for giving us an excuse to plug our political humor candles in this book, right here in this sentence you just read.
People with young children can’t coauthor a book unless they have a lot of babysitters. So thank you to our babysitters/parents: JOHN AND JANET, BATINA AND JAMIL, TOM AND GINA, AND LAST BUT NOT LEAST, TELEVISION.
WHOEVER OPERATED THE PRINTING PRESS.
About the Authors
KATE DOBSON is a former assistant comics editor for the Washington Post and was head writer for The Brown Jug. When she’s not writing, she enjoys serving food to her small children and, later, vacuuming that same food up off the floor. You can sign up for author updates here.
J.D. DOBSON is a former U.S. Senate staffer, federal lobbyist, and crisis communications consultant. Now he makes candles that smell like politicians and hopes for the best. You can sign up for author updates here.
KATE AND J.D. are married (to each other) and live in St. Louis, Missouri. In addition to this book, they have created:
TWO YOUNG HUMAN BEINGS
THOUSANDS OF HAND-CUT CANDLE WIGS
A TRULY IMPRESSIVE AMOUNT OF STUDENT DEBT
AND THE WEBSITE WWW.HOTTESTHEADSOFSTATE.COM.
PHOTO CREDITS
123RF.com: Rampersad Ramautar © here; Yuliia Sonsedska© here; Patrick Guenette© here
Alamy Stock Photo: MARKA: here-here; ZUMA Press, Inc.: here; Everett Collection Inc: here
Andrew Jackson’s Hermitage: here, here
Azer.com: here
Bob McNeely, The White House: here (second and third from top, right)
Brooklyn Museum: here
Cardinal & White, Volume XX; yearbook of Whittier Union High School: here
Clark Art Institute: here
ClipartOf.com: here
emojione.com: here, here, here
FDR Presidential Library and Museum: here
Gage Skidmore: here
George Bush Presidential Library and Museum: here, here
Gerald R. Ford Library: here, here, Gerald R. Ford Library, photo by Ricardo Thomas: here, here
Google Cultural Institute: here
Harry S. Truman Library & Museum: here, here
Howell Conant, White House Photo Office; Richard Nixon Library: here, here
IIP Photo Archive: here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here
iStock.com: iStock.com/7romawka7: here; iStock.com/joecicak: here; iStock.com/RiverNorthPhotography: here; iStock.com/traveler1116: here; iStock.com/GeorgiosArt: here; iStock.com/sx70: here; iStock.com/Ferdiperdozniy: here-here, here-here, here-here; iStock.com/zoljo: here; iStock.com/eli_asenova: here; iStock.com/parameter: here; iStock.com/Sashkinw: here; iStock.com/korsaralex: here; iStock.com/DaddyBit: here; iStock.com/mvp64: here; iStock.com/Nastco: here
James K. Polk Memorial Association: here, here
JFK Presidential Library and Museum: here, JFK Presidential Library and Museum, photo by Frank Turgeon Jr.: here; Cecil Stoughton, White House Photographs: here-here, here-here; Robert Knudsen, White House Photographs: here-here, here-here
Kremlin.ru: here
LBJ Library: here, here, LBJ Library, photo by Arnold Newman: here, LBJ Library, photo by Yoichi Okamoto: here, here, here, here
Library of Congress: here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here-here, here, here, here; Toni Frissell, Library of Congress: here, Library of Congress, Veterans History Project: here
lukeford.net: here, here
Metropolitan Museum of Art: here
Museo Nacional de San Carlos: here
National Archives: here, National Archives, Department of Defense: here, here, here, here, National Archives, Franklin D. Roosevelt Library: here, here, here, here, here, National Archives, George Bush Library: here, here, here National Archives, Gerald R. Ford Library: here, here National Archives, Harr
y S. Truman Library and Museum: here, here, National Archives, Herbert Hoover Library: here, National Archives, Jimmy Carter Library: here, National Archives, Richard Nixon Library: front cover,here, here, here, National Archives, Ronald Reagan Library: here, here, here, National Archives, Victor Jorgensen, US Navy: here, National Archives White House Photo Office: here, here, here
National Institutes of Health: here
National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; transfer from the
National Gallery of Art; gift of the A.W. Mellon Educational and Charitable Trust, 1942; Frame conserved with funds from the Smithsonian Women’s Committee: front cover,here, National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; acquired as a gift to the nation through the generosity of the Donald E. Reynolds Foundation: here, National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; gift of Mrs. Harry Newton Blue; Frame conserved with funds from the Smithsonian Women’s Commit: here, National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution: here, here, here
New York Historical Society: here
Office of Public Affairs, Yale University, photographs of individuals, 1870-2005 (inclusive). Manuscripts & Archives, Yale University: here
Official White House Photo by Pete Souza: here, here
