The goal of the series is to provide “insights into what makes them so definitively Trumpian,” though given that Showtime is describing the show as “a character study in search of character” — the implication being that Trump doesn’t have any — that may be difficult. I would never dream of telling Colbert how to do comedy. But for the show — which will be produced on a short turnaround to keep up with current events — to truly get at the absurd drama that surrounds us, I hope Colbert and his colleagues keep a couple of things in mind:

1. Trump and the people in his orbit take their cues from the media, whether it’s reality television, “Fox & Friends” or anti-hero dramas: As a result, any series that tries to get at the truth of Trumpworld needs to be as much a commentary on media as on the Trumps themselves. It’s possible that a true, real, secret “Donald Trump” lies buried behind all the personas that Trump has adopted over the years. But it’s much more plausible that he’s what philosopher Jean Baudrillard would call a simulacrum: Trump has tried to be so many things over the years that his performance has essentially eclipsed any real persona he had, if it even existed in the first place. So rather than trying to psychoanalyze Trump, use him as a vehicle to comment on the media he resembles. Is he Tony Soprano (James Gandolfini), believing everyone laughs at his jokes because he’s actually funny, or Uncle Junior (Dominic Chianese), ranting at the world and unaware of his own inefficacy? How about a Trump family game of musical chairs to determine who is who in “The Godfather”? What would an episode of the “Real Housewives of Mar-a-Lago” look like? The best way to answer questions about Trump may be to explore pop culture and the news.

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2. No plot point is too ridiculous: There is literally no reason for this as-yet-untitled series to restrain itself. This week alone, the Trump show has involved an authoritarian youth group rally, a temper tantrum directed at the attorney general, the resignation of the press secretary over the appointment of a grown man who goes by the nickname “Mooch,” a plotline involving investigations of the president’s family and employees for their involvements with Russian operatives and policymaking via Twitter. The actual pace of events on here would give the characters on “Scandal” the sweats, and they regularly run around covering up murder and torture. Trying to outdo the Trump administration might be a fool’s errand. The smarter thing to do might be to go mundane, to imagine what the president does with himself all day.

3. Characters who might otherwise have been hateable will become weirdly sympathetic: There is no world in which I will champion Jeff Sessions: The man has done too much damage to ever be memed into some sort of hero of the Resistance, a la James Comey. But the bizarre alchemy of the Trump administration is such that, like Post columnist Ruth Marcus, I find myself hoping that he’ll stay in a job where his boss has turned on him and is publicly tormenting him at every turn, and where he continues to adopt and enforce horrible policies. Trump’s bizarre alchemy is such that he can reverse public sentiment about widely loathed figures with a tweet, even if it’s just to get us to feel pity rather than admiration. So Colbert and his co-workers should go ahead and surround their fictional Trump with a cast of characters who are at least as absurd as the ones who work for Trump in real life. The dynamics here are such that we’ll come around on them sooner or later. It’s inevitable.