TrumpBookReport Is The Feel-Good Post-Debate Viral Hashtag We Needed

We take a look at the phenomena of Trumpian style summaries of famous novels and their characters.
When Republican presidential nominee opens his mouth, two things emerge: bile and confusion. The first, his brutishness, can be summed up with his uttered growl “such a nasty woman” as Hillary Clinton fielded a question from moderator Chris Wallace at the third and final (thank god) presidential debate. The second, his absence of grammar, sends copy-editors into a frenzy of scalp massages, but Clinton has enough discipline to stay quiet, content to allow Trump to wrap himself in his own forked tongue. To see what I mean, try to parse out this example plucked from the transcript of the debate :

We don’t know who the rebels are. We’re giving them lots of money, lots of everything. We don’t know who the rebels are. And when and if — and it’s not going to happen, because you have Russia and you have Iran now. But if they ever did overthrow Assad, you might end up with — as bad as Assad is, and he’s a bad guy, but you may very well end up with worse than Assad.

Trump’s labyrinthine language wasn’t lost on the Twitterverse, among them a St. Louis alderman and mayoral candidate Antonio French who tweeted:

Trump’s foreign policy answers sound like a book report from a teenager who hasn’t read the book. “Oh, the grapes! They had so much wrath!”
— Antonio French (@AntonioFrench) October 20, 2016
Twitter users ate it up, and within hours, the hashtag #trumpbookreport (as well as #trumpbookreports)was born. The hashtag speaks for itself—Trump’s takes on famous books. Here are some of our favorites:

Tremendous, tremendous jest. Huge amounts of jest. You’ll never see more jest, I tell you. Well I – I have a bit more jest. #TrumpBookReport — Sady Doyle (@sadydoyle) October 20, 2016
Dead souls? You bet the’re dead. Dead, dead souls. All registered voters. Dead. 100% Democrats. 100%. Dead souls. #TrumpBookReport
— Elif Batuman (@BananaKarenina) October 20, 2016
The “Great” Gatsby. WRONG! Lots of people say I’m the greatest Gatsby. His parties are pitiful. Have you seen Mar-a-Lago? #TrumpBookReport — Electric Literature (@ElectricLit) October 20, 2016
Anne Frank—such a nasty girl, illegal, Trojan horse, disgusting, but people say it ends well: deportation—good luck w/ that #TrumpBookReport
— Philip Gourevitch (@PGourevitch) October 20, 2016
“There’s these hitchhikers, thousands of them, and they’re pouring into the galaxy like you wouldn’t believe.” #trumpbookreports — Brian Bowler (@brnwdbwlr) October 20, 2016
If Hillary wants to fix the solitude, why hasn’t she done it in the last 100 years? I’ll do great things for the solitude #trumpbookreports
— Nastylissa Thomson (@melissathomson) October 20, 2016
And one of our own contributions:

Mrs. Dalloway? I have no idea who she is. Never met her. #TrumpBookReports
— Culture Trip Books (@CltrTrpBooks) October 20, 2016

About the author

Michael Barron

Books and Digest Editor

After obtaining a BA in Poetics from the Evergreen State College, Michael began his literary career at the independent publishing house New Directions. As an editor, he acquired books by and worked with writers such as Rachel Kushner, Rivka Galchen, Ahmed Bouanani, and Horacio Castellanos Moya, among others. After leaving New Directions in 2015, Michael began writing about literature and art for numerous publications, including Harper's, Vice, and Frieze, and took on consulting editorial positions at the UK-based literary press Fitzcarraldo Editions and the literary and art publication The White Review. He is currently writing a book on the cultural history of banishment.