Though the Trump administration has still not released the president’s tax returns, they have made his medical records public.
“The president is in excellent health,” Surgeon General C. Everett Koop commented. “Though his recent diagnosis of Dermabrasive Humoculosis is troubling.”
Dermabrasive Humoculosis, for any of you too lazy or stupid to Google it, is known as “death by a thousand jokes” in medical schools around the world, and is when skin is so thin that any sort of cutting barb, sharp wit and/or close-to-the-bone jokes can cause the sufferer to experience discomfort, abrasions and/or bleeding. Prolonged exposure to humor causes many sufferers to withdraw from society for fear that the physical symptoms become psychosomatic. Politicians who suffer from DH invariably resign from office because it’s just oh, so, uncomfortable.
The revelation that The Donald is afflicted with Dermabrasive Humoculosis is almost as important to understanding his damaged psyche as how he likes his steak prepared.
***
If Trump has accomplished anything truly noteworthy in his first 100 days in office, it’s to have made comedy unbearable. He’s been the butt of so many jokes, whether in sketches, stand-up, or memes, for the past 18 months that they’re no longer funny. Everyone can imitate his tone of voice, cadence and manner of superlative rhetoric. We’ve reached Trump Joke Saturation. Trump jokes are so boring now, when I hear them I YouTube a comic doing an act about airplane food and the differences between men and women in order to cleanse my palate. Hacks go after low-hanging fruit, but Trump as comedic fodder is fruit that’s already fallen off the tree and rotting in the sun.
“Aha! We got him now!” cried anyone with a funny bone when Trump announced he would be skipping this year’s White House Correspondents’ Dinner. For any of you too lazy or stupid to Google it, “The WHCA was founded on February 25, 1914, by journalists in response to an unfounded rumor that a Congressional committee would select which journalists could attend press conferences of President Woodrow Wilson.”
The dinner now is a comedy and music variety show wherein politicians, journalists, and celebrities hobnob. They hobnob because they’re tired from all the networking. Sources have confirmed to me that there is even some elbow-rubbing, though not as much knee-squeezing as you’d think.
CNN’s Dean Obeidallah writes, “Some on Team Trump will try to spin this announcement as Trump’s attempt to avoid hobnobbing with the ‘dishonest media.’ Don’t fall for that. Trump won’t attend because being a punchline rattles him.”
Indeed, Trump said on Fox & Friends, “I just thought in light of the fact of fake news and all of the other things we’re talking about now, I thought it would be inappropriate that I went.”
These two rationales are not mutually exclusive. Trump obviously doesn’t like being poked fun at, but not attending the Correspondents Dinner is in keeping with Trump’s and Bacon Face Bannon’s War on the Media.
Ultimately, Trump skipping the Correspondents Dinner will be counter-productive. Allow myself to reference… myself:
“It’s one thing to complain the press isn’t treating you fairly. It’s another thing to tell the biggest paper in the country that the press is the enemy and that they will be treated as such, because it is tacitly authorizing the press to destroy you. The vast majority of reporters are agenda-driven. In fact, I don’t trust the ones that aren’t, because it’s human nature to include some subjectivity into what is allegedly supposed to be an objective report. And that subjectivity is by design. A news story is supposed to answer the following questions: Who, What, When, Where, Why and How. The last two rely on analysis, opinion and context, which means objectivity is thrown out the window. It is a complete fallacy that reporters and news stories are supposed to be objective, and it is both risible, and by now, absurd, for conservatives to complain about liberal media bias. It’s existed for centuries. It’s irresponsible and immature of conservatives and libertarians to expect media outlets to treat them “fairly.” Media objectivity doesn’t, and can’t, exist. Get used to it. And informing major media outlets they are now the “enemy” is tantamount to saying ‘treat us with as much hostility as you can muster.’ Why would the MSM even pretend to report any facts that don’t work against Trump & Co.’s agenda?”
All presidents, including Democrats, view the media with some disdain. Democrats enjoy more water-carrying from the MSM, but they run afoul of the Fourth Estate as much as Republicans do. But all prior presidents realized it’s better for them to play ball with the media one night a year, participate in a skit and get roasted. Trump is breaking a tradition, but that’s the point of his presidency. I only wish he had mailed a one page State of the Union to Congress like Founding Father presidents had; the end of the SOTU would be a real ballsy, and welcome, move.
***
Later in his column, Obeidallah gets his dress over his head (is that joke transphobic, Islamophobic, or both? I’ll let you, dear reader, decide, but for those of you too lazy or stupid to Google it):
“His desire to silence comic dissent raises the more sinister reason Trump is refusing to attend the WHCD. Trump, like dictators in the Middle East where I’ve performed comedy countless times, don’t want to be publicly ridiculed. The leaders there prefer being revered — or even feared — but can’t endure being mocked, because they believe it will undermine their power. Given that Trump seems to be following a ‘Dictator for Dummies’ playbook with his attempts to de-legitimize our media, intelligence agencies and even our judiciary, this is plausible.”
Obeidallah missed his calling; why he’s a comedian and opinion writer instead of a psychologist is beyond me. REALLY, TRUMP DOESN’T LIKE TO BE LAUGHED AT!?!? What an amazing take! And Trump is a dictator, oh my stars, he’s the first person to make that comparison! Could Obeidallah get any more histrionic and full of himself? “His desire to silence comic dissent raises the more sinister reason…” and comparing America to a Middle East country concerning freedom of the press and access to media? Who does Obeidallah think he’s kidding? He makes it seem as though Trump is dispatching the Tonton Macoutes to smash printing presses, knock over radio and television antennas, slap the microphones out of comics’ hands, and eliminate access to the Internet. And tell me, is Trump literally Hitler? Or is he so weak that jokes will bring him down? There’s a reason a synonym for dictator is “strongman.”
Comedy and satire, in the political realm, serves as humorous commentary designed to either reinforce the bad opinion some citizens may have about politicians and government, or to challenge the confidence supporters may have in particular politicians and government. Ever since Trump was elected there have been think-pieces hypothesizing that it will be comedians and comedy shows that will bring about the downfall of the Trump Administration. This is infinitely risible. Comedy is not tantamount to a coup, or similar to inciting a popular uprising.
Trump has been a public figure for 30 years and people have been ridiculing him the entire time. He was the subject of a Comedy Central roast, and he looked uncomfortable, but he didn’t return to Trump Tower and collapse into a sobbing mess in a bathroom and curl up in the fetal position. He most likely forgot about it a half hour later, got home, grabbed Melania’s pussy and then watched Bloomberg for a few hours.
Gavin McInnes compares Trump to Rodney Dangerfield in Caddyshack. This seems apt: both Trump and Al Czervik are loudmouth, uncouth, wealthy real-estate developers. But these are superficial similarities, and anyone who knows Dangerfield knows his whole act was centered around self-deprecation. Trump is the anti-Dangerfield; he’s an ego-maniac, and he, like virtually everyone in the world, doesn’t like to be made fun of. But, the man won the presidency and now has to perform the duties of the Executive Branch. By all accounts he’s a workaholic; he’s not going to be slowed down by jokes at his expense.
It takes no courage to ridicule a public figure when he isn’t in the room. I only wish Trump hadn’t made this announcement two months prior; if he sent a rain check the day before or the day of, those on the dais would scramble a bit to change their speeches.
You know what would be an even bigger blow to Trump’s ego, if they really want to get under his thin skin? If, rather than take shots at him in absentia, the host and speakers at the Correspondents Dinner don’t mention him at all. They should facilitate his removal from the night’s spotlight, and provide no content for him to lash back out at via Twitter. What could cut closest to Trump’s bone than ignoring him?
***
And that’s the way it is, as far as you know.
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