How Trump’s remaking the post-presidential book
Plus: Smokey the Bear is being reimagined for 2022
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Hello, in this week’s issue we’ll look at…
How Trump’s remaking the post-presidential book
Smokey the Bear is getting a makeover for 2022
A Republican megadonor outbid the largest crowdfunding initiative ever to buy an original copy of the U.S. Constitution
What does your hometown logo look like?
How Trump’s remaking the post-presidential book

Former President Donald Trump is locked out of the publishing industry in large part because major publishers are worried whatever he or a ghostwriter turns in would be untruthful, so he’s taking the direct-to-consumer route instead. His first post-White House book, the coffee table book Our Journey Together, is now available for preorder.
The book will include 300 pictures, according to the Washington Examiner, and the website selling it says every caption was written by Trump, including some in his handwriting. It’s available for $74.99, or a signed copy for $229.99.
Post-presidential books are cash cows for modern ex-presidents, and part of their transition from partisan politician to elder statesman. Former President Barack Obama signed a record $65 million joint advance with former first lady Michelle Obama in 2017 and his book release was a big, mainstream, national event. Trump was never going to get that, so he’s doing something for his biggest fans that doesn’t have to be fact checked by a major publishing company.
Trump is publishing with Winning Team Publishing, an imprint cofounded by his son Don Jr. and Sergio Gor, who worked on Trump’s reelection campaign. Gor said Saturday the book had made more than $1 million in sales in its first 24 hours.

Our Journey Together is a new kind of post-presidency book for a new kind of post-president who shut himself out of the mainstream and isn’t done with politics yet (but sidenote: the logo on the book website sure looks like a presidential library logo, no?). It’s more DIY than the typical ex-POTUS memoir rollout, but it will still be sold at Barnes & Noble, according to the New York Times.
While Our Journey Together might not carry the intellectual heft of Obama’s 701-page A Promised Land, if a picture’s worth a thousand words, then Trump’s book will be 300,000 words about his version of events during his time in office, and it’ll be a faster and easier read than Obama’s.
Smokey the Bear is getting a makeover for 2022

America’s longest-running PSA campaign is being reimagined.
On Friday, the Ad Council announced shirtless fire safety icon Smokey the Bear is getting a new spring 2022 outdoor ad campaign with art from eight artists and the nonprofit design lab Amplifier, including work inspired by anime and video game culture. I especially love the green and creme posters in the top row above by Tes One and Tracie Ching, which in my opinion are both new Smokey canon classics.
The campaign will include outdoor ad placement, coloring pages for students, pixel art gifs, and resources for state foresters and educators. Juan Cruz, Harsimran, Muhammad Holidin, Benny Maulana, Jesus Velazquez, and Thomas Wimberly also contributed art to the campaign, which is in partnership with the U.S. Forest Service and the National Association of State Foresters.
The truth is, we need Smokey now more than ever. More acres of land were burned in wildfires in the U.S. in 2020 than any year but one going back to 1983, when the National Interagency Fire Center began tracking, and 59% of the acres burned were from fires caused by humans. Yikes.
Smokey the Bear was introduced in 1944 with a poster to encourage fire safety because so many firefighters were deployed during World War II, and Smokey’s name and likeness were protected in 1952 by an act of Congress.
Fun fact: The rules around using Smokey are strict, with Disney-style guidelines for dressing in a Smokey costume, including keeping pant cuffs neat, not speaking during appearances, and only appearing at events related to wildfire prevention.
You can find all the art from the campaign here.
A Republican megadonor outbid the largest crowdfunding initiative ever to buy an original copy of the U.S. Constitution
A rare first-edition printing of the U.S. Constitution sold last Thursday at Sotheby’s New York for $43.2 million to hedge fund billionaire Ken Griffin, setting a new world auction record for a historic document.
Griffin beat out a group of more than 17,000 cryptocurrency investors called ConstitutionDAO (it stands for “decentralized autonomous organization”) following an eight-minute bidding battle. The group organized in a week, and Sotheby’s said it was the largest crowdfunding initiative ever put together.
Griffin said he’s lending the Constitution to the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Ark., and all proceeds from the sale are going to the Dorothy Tapper Goldman Foundation, a democracy education group named after the document’s previous owner.
Griffin is major contributor to both art and politics. He sits on boards of trustees for museums including the Whitney Museum of Art and Art Institute of Chicago, and he gave more than $67 million to Republicans in 2020, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. He said he wants the Constitution to be available for all Americans.
“The U.S. Constitution is a sacred document that enshrines the rights of every American and all those who aspire to be,” Griffin said in a statement. “That is why I intend to ensure that this copy of our Constitution will be available for all Americans and visitors to view and appreciate in our museums and other public spaces.”
Personally, I’m not keen on documents in the public interest being privately owned, but I’m glad this is going to publicly displayed. I also think it’s cool it’s going to Arkansas, because not everyone can get to places like Washington, D.C., where stuff like this is usually shown.
This printing of the Constitution is part of a first-edition run in 1787 for Constitutional Convention delegates and the Continental Congress. Today, there are just 13 known surviving copies.
What does your hometown logo look like?
I hope everyone has a happy Thanksgiving and stays safe if you’re traveling this week. With so many people heading back to their home towns, it got me wondering, what does your hometown logo look like?
My hometown of Gilbert, Ariz., got a new logo last year to commemorate its centennial. It’s made of three shapes that represent agricultural fields arranged in an abstract G and it uses colors from an Arizona sunset/the state flag. I personally think it looks way better than the old logo, but Gilbert’s mayor hates it.
Gilbert Mayor Brigette Peterson has “disdain” for the logo, an ethics probe earlier this year found, and though she allegedly discriminated against an employee who worked in the office responsible for it, “Mayor Peterson’s disdain for the new Town logo is not an ethics violation,” the probe said, according to the Arizona Republic. Drama! But rebrands can be emotional, especially when it’s something as personal as your town.
What about you? What does your hometown logo look like? You can respond to this email and I might include it in a future issue.
I had no idea
I won’t be publishing a Thursday story this week. See you next Tuesday!
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