# Hypothetical: At what point did you toss “Trump: The Novel” as being too preposterous?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hypothetical-at-what-point-did-you-toss-trump-the-novel-as-being-too-preposterous/791105>\
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion\
**Created:** [July 12, 2017, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hypothetical-at-what-point-did-you-toss-trump-the-novel-as-being-too-preposterous/791105 "2017-07-12T16:43:42Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 12\
**Page:** 3

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![dalej42](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/67e7ee/32.png) [@dalej42](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dalej42)\
**Post date:** [July 25, 2018, 1:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hypothetical-at-what-point-did-you-toss-trump-the-novel-as-being-too-preposterous/791105/41 "2018-07-25T01:40:10Z")

</div>

Tom Clancy was well over the deep end in his last few books before he died. I could actually believe he’d write a book like this.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![CookingWithGas](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cookingwithgas/32/485_2.png) [@CookingWithGas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CookingWithGas)\
**Post date:** [July 26, 2018, 12:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hypothetical-at-what-point-did-you-toss-trump-the-novel-as-being-too-preposterous/791105/42 "2018-07-26T00:25:41Z")

</div>

> [@Backwater\_Under\_Duck](#):
>
> Please, it’s [already been written](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlas_Shrugged). Didn’t read it then, not gonna read it now.

Actually [it’s already been written](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/17/books/review/classic-novel-that-predicted-trump-sinclar-lewis-it-cant-happen-here.html) and Ayn Rand didn’t write it.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Delicious](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/dbc845/32.png) [@Delicious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Delicious)\
**Post date:** [July 26, 2018, 12:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hypothetical-at-what-point-did-you-toss-trump-the-novel-as-being-too-preposterous/791105/43 "2018-07-26T12:04:37Z")

</div>

> [@Hermitian](#):
>
> The whole confiscation of Weiner’s laptop for dick pics. A few weeks before the election? Notification to congress? The guy’s name is Weiner? \*Really? \*

It does seem like the author has a pretty juvenile sense of humour. The guy’s called Trump? Yeah, ok, maybe…but he marries Ivana? I wanna trump? Suspension of disbelief broken in the first chapter.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\
**Post date:** [July 26, 2018, 12:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hypothetical-at-what-point-did-you-toss-trump-the-novel-as-being-too-preposterous/791105/44 "2018-07-26T12:31:10Z")

</div>

Yeah, when the author had this front-runner to the GOP’s candidacy be married to not just one, but _two_ Communists, I was like “was this guy raised in New Zealand or Bora Bora? Don’t they know the GOP is death on Communism? Why didn’t they make him a Dem?”

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\
**Post date:** [July 26, 2018, 1:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hypothetical-at-what-point-did-you-toss-trump-the-novel-as-being-too-preposterous/791105/45 "2018-07-26T13:22:49Z")

</div>

> [@JohnT](#):
>
> It’s June of 2015 and bored, with a few hours to kill and a dead cell phone, you pick up a copy of “Trump: The Novel” which effectively is a novelization of everything that happened from his announcement in July 2015, onward. Sitting down, you start reading…
> 
> 1. What type of book would you classify it? Spy thriller? Political drama? Surreal comedy?
> 
> 2. At what point did you toss the book to the side, saying “Bullshit. There’s no way. Anything that happens after this point is really irrelevant because in The Real World, this wouldn’t happen.”?
> 
> 3. How do you think it ends?

1. Black comedy. After years and years of preying on racial resentment from voters and building a propaganda news outlet, combined with tons and tons of impotent rage over multiculturalism and a black president the GOP loses its mind and picks a total buffoon. Black comedy.

2. After Trump was accused of sexually abusing teenagers and it didn’t harm his level of support. Same with Roy Moore. It barely made a difference for either of them. Trump won, Moore almost won.

3. I’m not sure. Either Trump & co all go to prison, or they all get pardons a la Nixon, Reagan, George HW Bush, etc. The ending will probably be dystopian. Trump & co will all get away scot free, and other politicians will realize that nothing they do matters anymore since the voters and the system won’t hold them accountable.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Hermitian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hermitian/32/470_2.png) [@Hermitian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hermitian)\
**Post date:** [July 26, 2018, 2:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hypothetical-at-what-point-did-you-toss-trump-the-novel-as-being-too-preposterous/791105/46 "2018-07-26T14:25:23Z")

</div>

> [@Delicious](#):
>
> It does seem like the author has a pretty juvenile sense of humour. The guy’s called Trump? Yeah, ok, maybe…but he marries Ivana? I wanna trump? Suspension of disbelief broken in the first chapter.

Oh yea, lets not forget that Trump’s “member” size is called out in the first national debate as well.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\
**Post date:** [January 14, 2019, 7:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hypothetical-at-what-point-did-you-toss-trump-the-novel-as-being-too-preposterous/791105/47 "2019-01-14T19:45:11Z")

</div>

> [@ElvisL1ves](#):
>
> You could just watch \*Idiocracy \*and save some time.
> 
> \*Network \*too was intended to be a cautionary dystopia, not a documentary of the future. Or present.
> 
> Seated on the Iron Throne?

LOL, so I asked Harry Turtledove what he thought to this question (linking back to this thread) and all he did was reply with a link, pointing to his pinned tweet:

> [@](#):
>
> I didn’t mean to be topical.  
> I didn’t mean to be topical.  
> I didn’t mean to be topical.  
> I didn’t mean to be topical.  
> I didn’t mean to be topical.  
> I didn’t mean to be topical.  
> I didn’t mean to be topical.  
> I didn’t mean to be topical.  
> I didn’t mean to be topical.
> 
> I say that a lot.

> <https://twitter.com/HNTurtledove/status/993990434006286336>

(I’m pretty sure he read this, btw.)

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Isamu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/7c8e57/32.png) [@Isamu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Isamu)\
**Post date:** [January 15, 2019, 6:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hypothetical-at-what-point-did-you-toss-trump-the-novel-as-being-too-preposterous/791105/48 "2019-01-15T06:58:41Z")

</div>

I didn’t toss it but I stopped taking it seriously after he incredibly won the election. Can’t guess where the author takes it from here. Trump forms a rock band that plays lame pop rock and it incredibly sells millions of hits? Trump builds a space ship out of toilet paper and poo and it incredibly flies him on a return trip to Mars? Trump makes an appeal to the world and they incredibly create a new position of King of the World and place him it it?

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\
**Post date:** [January 15, 2019, 8:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hypothetical-at-what-point-did-you-toss-trump-the-novel-as-being-too-preposterous/791105/49 "2019-01-15T08:49:29Z")

</div>

I’ve read this kind of story before: Some dumb fuck becomes president / prime minister / king and hilarity ensues.  
But then he sees that his actions have consequences, and there’s a speech where he either steps down, or tells his feverish supporters that things are not so simple and we all need to work together.

Genuinely this is how these stories seem to go.

This particular novel has not even got to the point of hilarity ensuing.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\
**Post date:** [January 15, 2019, 9:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hypothetical-at-what-point-did-you-toss-trump-the-novel-as-being-too-preposterous/791105/50 "2019-01-15T09:13:44Z")

</div>

Also, this is big hijack, but thinking of stories where Joe Idiot becomes president made me realize something scary: If aliens were to pick this moment to come to earth, and say “take us to your leader”, fucking \*Trump \*is going to be our representative!?

I hope in that event we just sit them in front of the UN sec gen or something, and NASA agrees to pretend they are based in Canada or Mexico (maybe it was proactive choice of naming by them). No offence america, but come on.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\
**Post date:** [January 15, 2019, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hypothetical-at-what-point-did-you-toss-trump-the-novel-as-being-too-preposterous/791105/51 "2019-01-15T17:11:30Z")

</div>

> [@Mijin](#):
>
> (maybe it was proactive choice of naming by them)

(By this I meant because it just has National in the name, not US or America but on reflection this is true of most agencies in the US so as usual my humor doesn’t work)

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\
**Post date:** [January 16, 2019, 11:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hypothetical-at-what-point-did-you-toss-trump-the-novel-as-being-too-preposterous/791105/52 "2019-01-16T23:31:41Z")

</div>

I thought it worked much better as an episode of “Drunk History”.

[Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hypothetical-at-what-point-did-you-toss-trump-the-novel-as-being-too-preposterous/791105.md?page=2)
