In a world that daily offers fewer pleasures, I was happy to receive a review copy of Paul Bibeau’s new book, We Are All Made of Trump. As he promised some months ago, the book is humor — not horror like last year’s State of Fear. But to some extent it is impossible to be reminded that Trump exists without being horrified.
The book is prime Bibeau. Who else has the insight to equate Donald Trump with John Wayne Gacy? When the time comes, I will be proud to be in the same camp as Paul.
At a little less than 20,000 words, it makes a nice single-sit read. And it’s a deal for just one dollar. Much of it is laugh-out-loud funny. Trump has provided Paul with a great cast of character. Alone he isn’t that interesting. But the book is filled with stories about his entourage as well as his delusional followers.
The Trump Cult
It’s interesting that I had never thought about it before reading We Are All Made of Trump, but there is something like a cult that surrounds the president. It goes well past the evidence-denying Christian fundamentalism — although that was certainly a prerequisite for the rise of Trump. But it helps to explain why people support him despite being far closer to the Antichrist than Jesus. You —
or they, anyway — don’t question what God does. God creates his own morality.
The book reads almost like a novel. It brings to mind Cannery Row. Of course, it doesn’t have a happy ending — or any ending at all. It is a short story collection. But more than that, we are only six months into this nightmare. What’s more, all of Steinbeck’s characters had the great humanity that he is known for. Paul’s oddballs are evil, determined to enrich themselves at the cost of everyone else.
Various Perspectives on Trump
The first part of We Are All Made of Trump — “Lessons and Grumbles” — looks that Trump and modern America from various perspectives. It starts with “Prayers of the People”: a plea to God from a self-aware conservative Christian, asking God to watch over Trump. It’s self-aware in that the writer knows that Trump needs watching over, “There are all those articles out there about how conservative Christians voted for Donald Trump to represent us in Washington, and if he makes us look like a bunch of ignorant jackasses, it won’t help You either.” I suspect, in the quiet of their own brains, many conservative Christians think much the same thing.
This transitions into “Alone on Twitter,” a story about the futility of battling the Trump brigade. Paul perfectly describes what drives these people and why it is pointless:
DeploraB20 wants to be the bad guy here. He’s resigned to it. He’s one of these jerks — I can tell this — one of these older, selfish, ignorant people who is probably bitter about how he got passed over for a promotion, and so he blames everyone around him for that and for marrying too young and taking on more responsibility than he could handle, and now he gets a sick, twisted thrill from saying awful stuff about religious minorities and black people, and the way my grandfather was probably an alcoholic, and I will be too…
Mice and Thumbs
“A Tiny Warning” is written by a mouse being given as much cocaine as it wants as part of an experiment. It notes that the cocaine has the same effect as the smug outrage peddled by conservative media. And “Incoming” is told from the perspective of an asteroid that is going to destroy us all. There is a follow-up from a nuclear weapon. The high point is probably “A Message to America From a Severed Thumb.” The thumb’s name is Stumpy. Need any more convincing?
The Trump Con
No one is a bigger mark than the person who will not admit to being wrong. Thus it isn’t surprising that the biggest thematic element of We Are All Made of Trump is the con. This really gets going in the second part of the book, “Visions and Hunches.” It is also where the real-life Trump characters come in. All of them are trying to deceive one way or another.
Sean Spicer is featured throughout this part. Well, someone who might appear to smart-pants people like Paul, but who spends most of his time claiming that he is not Sean Spicer. Similarly, we find Steve Bannon in his real form as a kind of left-coast stereotype — into natural food and herbs — using words like “mindfulness.” We first encounter him teaching landscape painting on public television in Alaska.
The funniest parts of the book are the stories featuring conservative celebrity Mike Cernovich. He starts by hawking reverse mortgages, but it gets more insane and hilarious from there. I’ll tell you about just one: the erectile dysfunction drug Deploracil.
Buy We Are All Made of Trump Now
There is lots more in the book; I’ve only touched on its delights. And for a buck — less than a cup of coffee — you can’t go wrong. It will also make you feel less alone.
Cover image of “We Are All Made of Trump” by
Paul Bibeau. Used by permission.
And so we tackle page 48 of The New York Times Everyday Reader’s Dictionary of Misunderstood, Misused, and Mispronounced Words: Revised Edition! It contained a number of good words that I knew: charlatan, chasten, chastise. The words I didn’t know, as usual, struck me as less useful. But I found a good one that has to do with death: charnel.