Headlines screaming “Deportations to begin” and “Markets sink as trade war looms” top a parody newspaper front page the Boston Globe posted on Saturday, with a scathing editorial denouncing Republican US presidential frontrunner Donald Trump’s candidacy.
The mock-up, offering the Globe’s satirical view of the US under a Trump presidency, was set to run as the front page of the newspaper’s “Ideas” section, followed on page 2 of that section by the anti-Trump editorial.
The novel front-page spoof is designed to take Trump’s rhetoric and his policy positions to their “logical conclusion,” the editorial said.
Photo: AP
“It is an exercise in taking a man at his word,” the editorial said. “And his vision of America promises to be as appalling in real life as it is in black and white on the page.”
The editorial brands the billionaire businessman as a “demagogue,” whose own political vision is “profoundly un-American.”
It casts his closest rival for the Republican nomination, Texas Senator Ted Cruz, as “equally extreme” and urges Republicans, if possible at the party’s nominating convention in July, to draft a “plausible, honorable” alternative, suggesting US House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan or former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney.
The mock Trump page was conceived and executed by the Globe’s editorial writers, columnists and commentary editors, who make up the newspaper’s editorial board, said Ellen Clegg, the newspaper’s editorial page editor.
Saying that she reports to Boston Globe publisher John Henry, Clegg added that the front-page parody “does not involve our newsroom.”
Clegg said she knows of no other such expression of political satire ever published by the Globe or any other major metropolitan daily in the US during her 30 years at the newspaper. However, it is reminiscent of the kind of parody regularly featured by the farcical online news outlet The Onion.
The mock front page envisions a host of political, financial and international scenarios, ranging from disturbingly surreal to darkly humorous, all playing on Trump’s real pronouncements about illegal immigration, Muslims, national security and the First Amendment of the US Constitution.
A color photograph of Trump making a speech is centered near the top of the page under a banner headline reading: “Deportations to begin,” with a subhead reporting that Trump was calling for a tripling of immigration enforcement personnel as “riots continue.”
A top story on the page opens with the paragraph: “Worldwide stocks plunged again Friday, completing the worst month on record as trade wars with both China and Mexico seem imminent.”
Other mock entries include a story about unrest in the ranks of the US military as soldiers refuse orders to kill family members of Islamic State group militants, and the headline: “New libel law targets ‘absolute scum’ in press.”
WAKE-UP CALL: Firms in the private sector were not taking basic precautions, despite the cyberthreats from China and Russia, a US cybersecurity official said A ninth US telecom firm has been confirmed to have been hacked as part of a sprawling Chinese espionage campaign that gave officials in Beijing access to private texts and telephone conversations of an unknown number of Americans, a top White House official said on Friday. Officials from the administration of US President Joe Biden this month said that at least eight telecommunications companies, as well as dozens of nations, had been affected by the Chinese hacking blitz known as Salt Typhoon. US Deputy National Security Adviser for Cyber and Emerging Technologies Anne Neuberger on Friday told reporters that a ninth victim
Russia and Ukraine have exchanged prisoners of war in the latest such swap that saw the release of hundreds of captives and was brokered with the help of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), officials said on Monday. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said that 189 Ukrainian prisoners, including military personnel, border guards and national guards — along with two civilians — were freed. He thanked the UAE for helping negotiate the exchange. The Russian Ministry of Defense said that 150 Russian troops were freed from captivity as part of the exchange in which each side released 150 people. The reason for the discrepancy in numbers
A shark attack off Egypt’s Red Sea coast killed a tourist and injured another, authorities said on Sunday, with an Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs source identifying both as Italian nationals. “Two foreigners were attacked by a shark in the northern Marsa Alam area, which led to the injury of one and the death of the other,” the Egyptian Ministry of Environment said in a statement. A source at the Italian foreign ministry said that the man killed was a 48-year-old resident of Rome. The injured man was 69 years old. They were both taken to hospital in Port Ghalib, about 50km north
MISSING: Prosecutors urged the company to move workers out of poor living conditions to hotels, but residents said many workers had already left the town Brazil has stopped issuing temporary work visas for BYD, the Brazilian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said on Friday, in the wake of accusations that some workers at a site owned by the Chinese electric vehicle producer had been victims of human trafficking. The announcement came days after labor authorities said they found 163 Chinese workers who had been brought to Brazil irregularly in “slavery-like” conditions at the BYD factory construction site in the northeastern state of Bahia. The workers were employed by contractor Jinjiang Group, which has denied any wrongdoing. Later, the authorities also said the workers were victims of human trafficking,
RSS