Boston Globe Prints Trump Parody Front Page
Last night, the Boston Globe had a fever dream starring President Donald J. Trump.
The newspaper published a satirical front page on Sunday imagining what the world would be like a year from now if Trump becomes commander in chief.
“DEPORTATIONS TO BEGIN,” blares the headline on April 9, 2017, above a photo of the would-be 45th U.S. president and an accompanying story detailing how Trump would carry out one of his campaign promises: the deportation of 11.3 million illegal workers — something he vowed to do “so fast your head will spin.”
Other headlines covered some troubling developments during Trump’s first 100 days in the White House, from the war on terror (“U.S. soldiers refuse orders to kill ISIS families”) to trade (“Markets sink as trade war looms”) to journalism (“New libel law targets ‘absolute scum’ in press”) to space exploration (“NASA engineers halted the launch of an unmanned probe amid fears that its new gold leaf trim would interfere with radio communications”) to the U.S. park system (“Heavy spring snow closed Trump National Park for the first time since it dropped its loser name, Yellowstone”).
Perhaps more troubling: Kid Rock is a U.S. ambassador in a Trump administration. And the education secretary? Former “Celebrity Apprentice” star Omarosa.
“This is Donald Trump’s America,” the Globe said in an editor’s note. “What you read on this page is what might happen if the GOP frontrunner can put his ideas into practice, his words into action. Many Americans might find this vision appealing, but the Globe’s editorial board finds it deeply troubling.”
The board elaborated on what it described as “the dangers of Trump’s vision” in a separate op-ed:
The rise of demagogic strongmen is an all too common phenomenon on our small planet. And what marks each of those dark episodes is a failure to fathom where a leader’s vision leads, to carry rhetoric to its logical conclusion. The satirical front page of this section attempts to do just that, to envision what America looks like with Trump in the White House. It is an exercise in taking a man at his word. And his vision of America promises to be as appalling in real life as it is in black and white on the page.
At a rally in Rochester, N.Y., on Sunday afternoon, Trump fired back.
“How about that stupid Boston Globe — it’s worthless,” he said. “They made up an entire front-page story — which is really no different than the whole paper.”
