SAN DIEGO − Tell-all books about Donald Trump keep getting published. We have heard from Mary Trump that the president suffers from a narcissistic personality disorder, from John Bolton that he has no guiding principles in formulating foreign policy, and from Michael Cohen that he is a corporate criminal with a mafia mentality. Still 40 % of the American public considers him God’s gift to the United States. To discredit this belief, God has authored a book called This Is a Test: Why I Created Donald Trump. Here’s an advance excerpt.
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As the Almighty, I agree that everything happens for a reason, but I never rig the results of my testing of whether human beings can act morally and rationally to hasten the coming of the messiah. Since I endowed them with free choice, I content myself by sending despicable leaders to check whether humankind has evolved sufficiently to reject them before they inflict much harm. Judging by the records of tyrants like Atilla the Hun, Adolf Hitler, or Idi Amin, I can’t say I’m particularly optimistic about humanity’s future prospects.
Nevertheless, I persist and try to make the flaws of these despots so blatant that people will recognize and resist them. So it was with Trump. I fashioned someone who has violated all but two of my commandments: he did honor his father, not a very positive role model to begin with, and never personally killed anyone.
I gave American citizens plenty of warnings like when he bragged that he could shoot someone in broad daylight on Fifth Avenue and wouldn’t lose any votes, when angels leaked the Hollywood access tapes, when he denigrated John McCain’s military service because he had been captured, and when he claimed that only he could fix the United States. To the credit of Americans, he failed to win a plurality of the popular vote, but the Electoral College, which I duped the founding fathers to introduce into the constitution to give subsequent generations the chance to abolish, elevated him to victory. It deeply disappointed me that those who invoke my name the most supported someone so blatantly amoral.
By not constraining him during his presidency, I have let him demonstrate on a daily basis why he is unqualified to hold that office. Finally, I became so frustrated that I unleashed a plague like the one visited upon ancient Egypt anticipating it would harden his heart like it did Pharaoh’s. Will Americans heed the warnings and oust him this time? If not, I will let humanity perish from the consequences of befouling the environment and then start all over again by granting another species dominion over the planet.
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Baron is professor emeritus of history at San Diego State University. He may be contacted via lawrence.baron@sdjewishworld.com. San Diego Jewish World points out to new readers that this column is satire, and nothing herein should be taken literally.