Book Review: “Fake News: Strange Historical Facts Reimagined in the World of Donald Trump”

Fake News: Strange Historical Facts Reimagined in the World of Donald Trump

A book by David Hutter

David Hutter, Fake News: Strange Historical Facts Reimagined in the World of Donald TrumpIn this highly entertaining and very funny book, author David Hutter takes actual strange events through history, and reimagines how they might have gone with Donald Trump as president. Scary, I know. But also hilarious!

After each satirical treatise of one of these odd episodes, the author briefly describes the actual historical event for context — a nice, if unexpected, supplement, that helps remind us that bizarre incidents have always been with us, and must always be dealt with by our leaders.

While the fact that Trump was even elected might seem as strange or stranger than any of the events depicted, combining that outlandish and regretful fact with these odd events makes for stories that boggle the mind. It’s also an overall cautionary tale: after all, what if something as crazy as one of these circumstances actually does occur when Trump is president — how might he make them a thousand times worse, handling them with his trademark arrogant incompetency?

The book focuses on his dysfunctional relationships with his advisors and staff as well as his attitude toward international leaders like Kim Jong Il in North Korea and even friendlies like Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada.

An example of one of the strange historical facts or events satirized by the book is the accidental loss of a nuclear bomb (one of several that has actually occurred) off an aircraft carrier in December 1965 near Japan. Hutter reimagines the event occurring in the sea near North Korea, after a failed invasion attempt that, of course, Trump calls “incredibly successful.”

The competing “advice” he gets from Kellyanne Conway and Steven Mnuchin is hilarious, as is their backstabbing of each other in their attempts to curry favor with the president. Eventually, it is somehow decided that the best thing to do to handle the press spin on the event is to invite Trudeau to Mar-a-Lago for a round of golf. This, of course, is decided after airing the crisis in front of club members while on a speaker phone call about the incident.

This book is a fun read and a light-hearted, yet bitingly satirical view of the Trump presidency.

133 pages, available in paperback and as an ebook.

James Israel
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