Profiles in Ignorance: How America's Politicians Got Dumb and Dumber

by Andy Borowitz

Like J. Danforth Quayle and George W. Bush, Donald John Trump was born into a third generation of family wealth. His grandfather Friedrich Trump struck it rich during the Klondike Gold Rush not by mining gold but by “mining the miners,” in the words of Trump family historian Gwenda Blair. After thousands of would-be prospectors abandoned their worn-out steeds on a treacherous mountain pass aptly named Dead Horse Gulch, Friedrich saw his big chance to break into the restaurant industry. In a forerunner of Trump Steaks, he repurposed the horseflesh as tasty entrées for famished Gold Rushers, thus launching a portfolio of businesses that soon included a highly regarded Arctic brothel. Inheriting the commercial savvy that enabled Friedrich to sell quarter-pound horseberders, his son Fred created a thriving real estate business in New York, building thousands of apartments and refusing to rent them to Black applicants. “My father taught me everything I know,” Donald later said.