Bonus: Donald Trump begins his comic masterpiece
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I realized right away the New York Times headline on Thursday was a mistake.
“Gaetz, Gabbard and Hegseth: Trump’s appointments are a show of force,” it read.
“Hey,” I thought. “That ‘o’ is supposed to be an ‘a’.”
I don’t blame the Times for this error. It has been difficult, throughout Trump’s political career so far, to distinguish his purpose from parody.
“Does he mean it? Or is he entertaining us?” are questions that continually arise.
He has superb comic timing, I have to admit. Also in Thursday’s Times was this headline: “House ethics panel was set to release report critical of Matt Gaetz.”
Trump saw his cue and picked it up with alacrity.
The House Ethics Committee, which had been investigating Gaetz for sexual misconduct involving a 17-year-old girl and illegal drug use, was going to release the report on Friday.
So, on Wednesday, Trump named him U.S. attorney general, the chief law enforcement officer in the country. Promptly, Gaetz resigned from the House, ending the investigation.
My brother, Mike, and sister Erin and I were texting Wednesday about Trump’s picks. The exchange started with Mike, who wrote, “I am thinking Steve Bannon or Alex Jones for press secretary!!”
“Too measured and sane,” Erin responded.
I had a few suggestions — “Rudy Giuliani for White House counsel,” for example — and also wrote, “Hey here’s the craziest: Matt Gaetz for attorney general! Ha ha ha!”
A few minutes later, after tossing Ann Coulter’s name in for press secretary, Erin wrote, “Omg! I thought the Gaetz comment was a joke!”
Well, it is a joke, and a funny one, perpetrated by Donald Trump on the American people.
Comedy is Trump’s true talent, and he has honed several personas for his act — insult comic, madman, uninhibited oversharer. What other politician could shamelessly ooh and aah to a crowd about the size of a famous golfer’s penis that he had gawked at in the showers?
Lifting Trump’s comedy to the genius level is the way he lets his jokes roam around in the real world. Other satirists who blur the line between reality and comedy, like Sacha Baron Cohen, Stephen Colbert and Dame Edna Everage, can’t lay a glove on Trump, who ran for president as a joke (the first time) and won.
During his real estate days, Trump used to pose on the phone as his own spokesman, “John Barron,” and tell lies to reporters about his wealth, which they printed.
When you see that what Trump has been doing all along is not politics but satire, then everything makes sense, including the choice of a sleazy “Butt-head” lookalike for attorney general, a loose-lipped conspiracy theorist who defends brutal dictators for director of national intelligence and an obscure but handsome cable TV talking head for secretary of defense.
It’s funny, too, the way sincere strivers like Elise Stefanik and Marco Rubio have been mixed into the cast of clowns. The joke’s on them!
Ha ha!
Trump’s term hasn’t even started and already we’re laughing, and it’s not bitter! And it’s not fearful at all!
Ha ha ha!
Here’s another joke that made me laugh out loud. Susan Collins is “shocked” at the Gaetz nomination. Ha Ha indeed.
Trump may be a comedian, but he is humorless. His comedy has no humanity or fun to it. He doesn't find the comedic in what happens around him, as a professional comic does. He asks us to laugh at what is preposterous or cruel. Don Rickles made a career of intentionally coming off as cruel, but we were never certain that it was real, that he wasn't making fun of those who are truly cruel. Trump is so without humor, that many of us may find difficulty laughing again. Trump is tragic. He is disgusting and without merit because he says things that make my wife cry. I ask "How long must we bear this?" knowing that the humanity of most Americans will not allow it to last, but we and our grandchildren will pay for it for a century.