A Young Donald Trump Writes to a Dying Woody Guthrie

Disrespectfully Yours

I was going through Facebook and Substack posts for this Three-Volume Book about my father I’m writing, what with the release of Volume One and all at Magic City Books on Wednesday, January 25th — and, yeah, I know. I’m about as subtle as stepping on a serrated bread knife at 4 in the morning, especially considering this has nothing to do with my father — and found something I wrote a few days before Trump was elected president.

My editor at the time, Michael Mason, allowed me to unleash my Trumpian voices.

And it was. Until I got to this part.

"I’m young, but a wise young. God only knows what’ll happen to me, how rich I’ll get, even though I’m already quite rich, and the beautiful women I’ll be with, even though I’ve already been with hot ones, really hot, hotter than you’ve ever been with, I’m sure of it—all 10s. I’m very excited about myself. I could be president someday if I wanted—maybe I will. How hard could it be?"

(First appeared in This Land Press, 2016)

In December 1950, Woody Guthrie and his family rented an apartment in the Beach Haven apartment complex in Brooklyn, New York, a property developed and managed by Fred C. Trump, father of Donald J. Trump. They moved out of “Bitch Heaven,” as Guthrie called it, in 1954, due to his illness, around the time he wrote “Old Man Trump.”  What follows is mostly fictional.

Mr. Guthry,

I have to tell you, I don’t send a lot of letters, but they’re great when I do. The best words, punctuation, typed on the most expensive typewriter—it’s an IBM Selectric. You probably can’t afford the one I have. It’s a special model—and you probably still use a manual, like an Underwood—but I can assure you they’re superstar letters. Great thoughts, sentences, they look fantastic. People notice. And I care about people, very much, but I’m taking the gloves off—no more Mr. Nice Guy—though I’m always nice, extremely nice, ask anyone, but you don’t deserve nice because you’re not nice. I know you’re in a mental hospital with crazy and sick people and you have a terminal disease, so even if I cared how you were doing, which I don’t, you’re medicated and walking around like a catatonic person so what the hell’s the point of being nice? You wouldn’t notice. Actually, I feel sorry for you, but not that sorry, to be honest with you.

Look, you’re a crook. And that’s what this great letter is about.