The Anti-Trump

The Anti-Trump delivers a fun-ride. It also provides readers with a searing indictment of a phenomenon that is not funny at all, namely the presidential campaign of Donald Trump. 

Many Americans will no doubt welcome this satirical novel. The book features a candidate for president whose genteel character represents the precise opposite of Trump’s vulgarity. The ‘anti-Trump’ candidate is unfailingly polite, tolerant, cerebral and articulate. Moreover he is a man who puts forward policies that resound with realism and repudiate the partisanship that has envenomed the nation’s politics. Ironically (and most tellingly from a satiric perspective), this candidate also happens to be the country’s most popular comedian! 

At the center of the novel is the larger than life celebrity entertainer, Herby Feldstein. Readers might identify the fictional Feldstein with a certain real life comedian whose name for many years headlined a popular television show. They might then say: who better to lay bare the dangers – not to speak of the utter absurdity – of the Trump aberration? 

From the start of his campaign for the White House, the irony of Herby Feldstein’s candidacy is as plain as day. He refuses to make a single humorous remark. He only rarely cracks a smile. His manner remains impeccably, consistently, implacably professorial. Thus, while the famous funnyman Feldstein comes across as a solemn statesman, the so-called serious candidate Trump is increasingly exposed as a buffoon. 

This short novel may be viewed as a mockumentary, but it delivers a deadly serious message. During a political season that will shape the future of the United States, The Anti-Trump identifies the nation’s mood as poisonous and precarious. The antidote it offers speaks directly to the traditions, true wisdom and vast decent heart of the American people. 

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Michael Carin is the author of the novels “Five Hundred Keys” and “The Neutron Picasso”, as well as “The Future Jew”, a non-fiction response to the Holocaust. His narrative skills, innovative perspective and sheer readability are all evident in “The Anti-Trump”.