To Survive the Next Four Years, We'll Need to be Able to Laugh at Ourselves and at the Absurdist Dark Comedy of Trump and His Cursed Cabinet of Ghouls
I recently re-posted a Tweet by QAA podcast host Travis View sarcastically proclaiming, “Fear not, anxious citizens. For I will defeat Donald Trump by pointing out his hypocrisy and mocking his ludicrous behavior and appearance.”
View’s tweet hit a nerve with frustrated leftists like myself. At this point, I have spent nine years pointing out Trump’s hypocrisy and mocking his ludicrous behavior and appearance.
I did this through sarcastic tweets, mocking Facebook posts, and dozens upon dozens of blog posts. Though this is ostensibly a pop culture website and a pop culture blog, I’ve probably written more about Donald Trump than I have about anyone other than “Weird Al” Yankovic, Nicolas Cage, and John Travolta.
I wrote a massive book about “Weird Al” Yankovic’s life’s work and am writing similar books about Nicolas Cage and John Travolta’s complete filmography, in addition to doing a podcast about the Face/Off stars.
In sharp contrast, I’ve only written two Kindle mini-books about Trump—2016’s Seven Days in Ohio and 2021’s Kanye & Trump—but I’ve probably written over a hundred blog posts about Trump.
I feel now the way that I did in 2016. It felt like everything that I had written about Trump was completely useless and irrelevant because he won anyway.
An army of left-wing bloggers, social media gadflies, and comedians pointing out Trump’s hypocrisy and mocking his ludicrous behavior and appearance did not defeat Trump in 2016 or 2024.
Though Trump was defeated in 2020, it seems safe to assume that his loss had nothing to do with people pointing out his hypocrisy and mocking his ludicrous behavior and appearance.
As an electoral gambit, pointing out Trump’s hypocrisy and mocking his ludicrous behavior and appearance proved a complete loser. It seemingly accomplished nothing.
Satire and mockery did not defeat Trump. They might not even have hurt him in any real way. They might just have made his cultists even more protective and defensive of their king.
We make fun of Donald Trump because it’s cathartic. It makes us feel less powerless and gives us the illusion that our words, ideas, and rage could have some kind of impact.
The essence of dark comedy is laughing to keep from crying. Making a bleak joke of Trump’s time in office made an unbearable situation slightly less terrible.
We might have thought that our words would sway undecided voters and centrists, but the reality is that we were writing these tweets and blog posts to amuse ourselves and each other.
That’s part of what makes Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter so frustrating.
Twitter had three main uses for me. First and foremost, it was a powerful engine for self-promotion, and I have many failing businesses that could benefit from any attention.
Twitter used to be a nifty way to make online friends, guests, and collaborators. The third reason Twitter used to have a purpose was that it was a popular, easy-to-use forum for making fun of Donald Trump.
These tweets were designed to amuse ourselves and each other. It was also comforting to know that lots of smart, erudite people hated Trump and everything he stands for as much as you do, if not more.
Pointing out Trump’s hypocrisy and mocking his ludicrous behavior and appearance kept me from going crazy during his term in office and the four years he loomed large as a sinister threat during the Biden administration, even as it proved a losing political strategy.
Calling Trump and Vance weird might have felt good in the short term and gotten under Trump’s very thin skin. For the masses, normality and weirdness are often rooted in gender and conventional gender roles.
From that vantage point, there could be nothing more normal and less weird than a straight, conventionally masculine, wealthy white man in a suit who wants money, power, and beautiful women. That is their definition of normal. It doesn’t matter how bonkers the straight, conventionally masculine wealthy white man in a suit might behave; by embodying conventional gender roles, they are seen as normal and not weird.
We must get through these next four years with our sanity, souls, and sense of purpose intact. Reality is more than a little soul-crushing, so it might be helpful to see what’s happening now with Trump and his cabinet not as a tragedy but rather as a tragicomedy. We’re once again living in the world of Veep, so it’s not just good but essential to appreciate the absurdity and ridiculousness of the current political movement.
Also, Trump is a clown and a buffoon, albeit one who is not so funny anymore, so it’s not like he’s going to use his political genius, self-discipline, and people skills to coldly achieve his political ends.
We may laugh to keep from crying, but at least we’ll chuckle again. Trump isn’t entirely worthless: he’s good for a laugh, and I thoroughly intend to enjoy all of the schadenfreude, conflict, and confusion that inevitably awaits him and his lunatic brigade.
Nathan needed expensive, life-saving dental implants, and his dental plan doesn’t cover them, so he started a GoFundMe at https://www.gofundme.com/f/support-nathans-journey-to-dental-implants. Give if you can!
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