Chris Christie and the Worst Joke in the History of the Universe
The thing that is poignant as well as hilarious about Chris Christie using the Republican presidential debate stage to call the disgraced, twice-impeached ex-president he used to serve “Donald Duck” is how proud he obviously was of the joke, if you can even call it that.
Christie adorably thought that he had stumbled onto a blisteringly clever bit of wordplay, one that would breathe life into his dying campaign by highlighting one of the things that makes him different from his opponents—his willingness to call Trump out on his bullshit.
The former governor obviously hoped that the “Donald Duck” line would showcase Christie’s irreverence as well as his ability to stand up to Trump in the face of his enormous, horrifying popularity within the Republican Party.
Christie wanted the “Donald Duck” line to define him as a politician and a person. He envisioned it as his answer to Ronald Reagan’s quip while debating Walter Mondale about how he wasn’t going make age an issue in the campaign and “exploit, for political purposes, my opponent's youth and inexperience.”
The big difference is that that is a clever line that turns an ostensible weakness into a strength while highlighting Reagan’s humor and charm. Also, Reagan might not have been an Academy Award winner but he was an actor and a very polished performer who knew exactly how to deliver a line like that.
That most assuredly is not true of Christie. I suspect that Trump hates Christie partially because he turned on him after being a loyal foot soldier but also because he deviates so greatly from how Trump thinks a powerful politician should look and dress. Trump likes people to look, in his words, “straight out of central casting” and Christie does not qualify.
Because the internet is full of assholes, some wonderful, some not, you can already buy “Donald Duck” tee shirts, mugs and hoodies featuring Christie’s immortal words alongside an image of Christie while he delivered them.
The build-up to the punchline is stiff but not as cringe as the kicker.
Addressing the absent Trump, whom he asserted must be watching on television, Christie began, "You’re not here tonight, not because of polls, and not because of your indictments. You’re not here tonight because you’re afraid of being on the stage and defending your record. You’re ducking these things, and let me tell you what’s going to happen. You keep doing that, and no one up here is going to call you Donald Trump anymore.”
Then came the seven words that will define Christie for perpetuity, long after he’s dead: "We’re going to call you Donald DUCK!”
The response was not good. In a single wisecrack Christie united young and old, black and white, male and female, left and right, MAGA and “Woke”, all of whom could agree that Christie had made the single worst joke in the history of presidential politics.
It’s a testament to what a shitty joke Christie made that I did not even understand it for the first week and a half. I assumed that the joke was that he thought that Trump was a real-life cartoon, a buffoon, a joke.
It wasn’t until recently that I realized that Christie was calling Trump Donald Duck because he was ducking the debates because he has nothing to gain by participating in them and much to lose by sharing the stage with his ostensible rivals.
That’s because the joke was so terrible that nobody wrote about the build-up or the context, just the comically terrible punchline.
If I were Christie I would try to forget that I had publicly called a former president Donald Duck because the whole world was laughing at the former New Jersey governor rather than with him.
Christie doubled down, however, tweeting an image of a Trump/Donald Duck mutation and calling him Donald Duck in a response to a tweet insulting his former close compatriot as an unpopular loser.
“Donald Duck” will dog Christie the same way that Jeb Bush is dogged by “Please clap.” It will follow him the way “Pokemon Go to the Polls and vote!” follows Hillary Clinton. Less notably, Joe Lieberman won my heart, ironically, by bragging about his campaign’s “Joementum” and finishing in “a four way tie for third place” in a primary.
In other words Christie’s crack instantly entered the pantheon of hilariously embarrassing political wordplay. As someone who loves politics at their most embarrassing and cringe I think that’s delightful.
At least SOMETHING memorable happened at a Republican presidential debate, even if it was incredibly embarrassing, not just for Christie but also his rivals, the Republican Party, the American people and humanity as a whole. That’s more than anyone expected.
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