The following is a process essay written for Mrs. Hebert’s AP Language and Composition class.

How to be a President

When you’re a kid, you’re always asked what you want to be when you grow up. Some say “a doctor” or “a firefighter” but there’s always one kid who says “I want to be President!” If you look at the news today, being the President of the United States doesn’t seem all that cool anymore. There’s a lot that goes into running the nation;, it can be overwhelming for many. You have to make sure the nation stays together and try not to completely ruin it. Pandemic or vaccine, you’ve got to give it your all. However, if you’re still interested, then I suggest you read this carefully. These are the 5 steps to becoming a President.

Step 1: Speaking. To be a President you have to either be really good or really bad at public speaking. Now, you would think “of course you have to be good at public speaking to be President,” and usually, you would be right. There are some presidents, however, who are fortunate enough to not need this skill. This  usually only happens if the other candidate running appears so bad to the voters that they have no other choice but to vote for you! Take this hypothetical example, Candidate 1 is a fantastic public speaker so he won the vote but after a four year trainwreck, huge loss of government money, and … “misplacing” of government documents, the public went with good ol’ Candidate 2 who will forget what he’s saying in the middle of a sentence. These next steps won’t be as easy as this one was. These require a bit more craft.

Step 2: Lights, Camera, Action! This step is pretty simple, if you happen to be good at acting. A big part of being President is telling the people what they want to hear. People like it when you can explain things to them, even if you don’t really know what you’re talking about. If you’re going for the radical vote, then say things like “9/11 was an inside job” or “women should have choice over their own bodies!” However, that one’s only radical if you don’t have a uterus. Let the people hear your wildest ideas, they just might agree. Whatever you do, don’t be passive. You must never ever compromise or admit that you’re wrong. Once you’ve started the lie you need to keep it going to remain in control of public opinion. If you want to be like Lincoln, minus the assassination, then you’ve got to be good at lying.

Step 3: Age. Make sure that you’re eligible for retirement, about 60 years old or so should do it. You need wisdom and experience to lead a country, even if it means you’re already collecting that 401K. Older people are all the rage to the public; why else would they be voted into office? Whether they’ve been in government before, or haven’t, the wisdom they carry from being the silent majority in America is one of the main reasons they get voted into office. You don’t need to have a degree in political science. Just read the newspaper. It’s close enough. Instead of wowing people with amazing political knowledge, you’ll be blinding them with your pearly white dentures.

Step 4: Marriage Material. A vital part of being President is having a lovely first lady. Whether you talk to the nation with her over television, or she ruins school lunches, you must have a first lady who has the nation at heart. The people want a nice young woman to be at the side of their stoically prehistoric President. If you’re not sure how young is too young, follow some of Hollywood’s famous men. If you want to be suave and play the hero, then go for a woman about 17-22 years younger than you, but if the Titanic is more your style, you’ll never want to marry a woman over 25. How do you get these lovely women to walk down the aisle? That is a question that many many people ask, yet no one has the answer to.

Step 5: Presidential Conduct (Optional). This step is optional and won’t affect your likelihood of being President either way. Something that occurs a lot when you’re a President is inappropriate relations or interactions with people who have no business being in that position. Whether it’s cheating with your secretary, saying you’d marry your own daughter, or smelling kids’ hair, you have to do something questionable with someone who didn’t say they were okay with it, but also weren’t given the time to say they were not. Again, this is optional and has no effect on your campaign whether you do it or not. Since you wanna be like the greats, you need to play like the greats and do things that only an extremely “secure” and “confident” person would do.

Now you’ve read the 5 steps to becoming a President, I hope you take these to heart when planning your campaign and presidency, and really try to follow these steps as they are extremely important. If you do this you’ll be put in the history books next to all the other honorable men who led this country. You may not be a great person, but you will be a great President.